Is there something you always carry on you, even if it’s seen better days?
Illustrations: Menachem Weinreb
In the mid-1920s, my Babba Ruchel was very sick — literally at death’s door. Zeide went to his rebbe, the Tzvi Latzaddik, for a brachah, and stayed for Shabbos. As they were seated at the third seudah, Zeide received a telegram informing him that the situation at home was dire and he should return home immediately after Shabbos. Zeide went over to the Tzvi Latzaddik and told him how the situation stood.
“Well, if she’s still alive now, then she will continue to live!” the Tzvi Latzaddik replied.
After Shabbos, Zeide received a blessed coin from the Tzvi Latzaddik for my grandmother. Babba Ruchel survived her illness, and much more, including World War II in Russia’s Siberia, and she merited to see grandchildren and to immigrate to Eretz Yisrael. Babba Ruchel was niftar in 1958, when I was eight years old.
When I was a teenager, Mother found a coin in a pocket in Babba Ruchel’s wallet. She looked at the coin for just a moment and said, “This must be the coin.” I knew which coin she meant. She put it away, and I never thought of it again.
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