HE ONLY WANTED A BLESSING TO CATCH FISH

By Nechama Bar

Hei Teves 5747. The joyous news quickly spread – Didan Natzach! We were victorious! The judge ruled that the s’farim belong to Agudas Chassidei Chabad, the Rebbe and the s’farim belong to the Chassidim! The streets of Crown Heights were full of people dancing.

The next day the Rebbe said a special sicha and asked the Chassidim to write letters which he would bring to the gravesite of his father-in-law, the Rebbe Rayatz. The Rebbe said that people who lived far away should place the letters on the grave of a tzaddik.

The letters started pouring in. That same day the Rebbe went to the Ohel and in the car were more than ten sacks packed with letters from people all over the world.

All this is by way of introduction to a special story that happened that day in Sydney, Australia.

R’ Mordechai Hasofer went home and excitedly told his wife what the Rebbe said. It was clearly an auspicious time, an opportunity that could not be missed. They decided to gather the entire family and within a few minutes all the children were sitting around the table in the dining room and were writing their letters. The parents were moved to see their children’s sincerity and seriousness. They did not just ask for games and nosh; they had really important things to ask for.

“We cannot keep this valuable information to ourselves,” said R’ Mordechai at the family meeting. “We must tell everyone we can what the Rebbe said.”

Indeed, R’ Mordechai went out to urge people to write letters. Some said, “Eh, I’m not Lubavitch…” but he did not give up. He put a piece of paper in their hands and said, “It can’t hurt,” and convinced them to write their requests.

In the meantime, at home, Devora, his wife, began making phone calls to relatives, friends, and acquaintances, to let them know of this opportunity of writing to the Rebbe. They were all happy to hear about it. That is, all of them except for her father, Peter, who was not religious. Peter was a very warm person and had a good feeling toward religious matters but he did not observe anything. It wasn’t something you could discuss with him. His father had fled Europe when the Holocaust began and almost his entire family had perished. His parents were bitter about the Holocaust and left Torah and mitzvos. That is how Peter was raised.

Devorah became a baalas teshuva and a faithful Chassida of the Rebbe. Her father was not upset by this; on the contrary, he derived much nachas from her and her family.

“Dad, what do you care? Just write to the Rebbe, even a short letter. Something … it’s a special opportunity and a shame to miss out. Write all the requests you have…”

But Peter was firm in his refusal. “Please leave me alone about this. You can do as you please but don’t force me to do things I don’t want to do.”

But Devorah would not relent. “You know what Dad, don’t write. I will write for you. Tell me your requests and I will write them.”

Her father agreed to that and said: Tomorrow morning I am going out to fish. I want a blessing for my fishing.

Devorah was so disappointed. That is what he requested? But she could not press him anymore. She put the letter on the pile and put them all into a bag which contained many letters. Since they could not get the package to the Rebbe in time, they decided to put it on a grave of a tzaddik as the Rebbe had said to do.

After sunset, R’ Mordechai took the big package of letters and went to the cemetery with his brother Menachem. It was dark and not a living creature could be seen in the area. It was a bit scary as they walked around the cemetery with the help of a flashlight. After some searching, they found the grave they were looking for, the grave of Rabbi Asher Abramson, who was a great Chassid, an Av Beis Din, and a well-known and esteemed rav. They placed the letters on his grave and then returned home, happy and in good spirits.

At six in the morning, the Hasofer family was asleep. Suddenly, they heard banging at the door. R’ Mordechai jumped out of bed in a fright. Who was knocking so early in the morning? At the door, to his great surprise, he saw his father-in-law, Peter. Peter looked emotional.

They went into the house and sat in the kitchen over a cup of tea and cookies, and Peter told his incredible story:

As I told you Devorah, I planned on going fishing with a friend early in the morning. This is what I do every week. I sat in the boat at one end, and my friend, Richard, sat on the other end. We headed out to sea and got to work. I sent down the fishing line and brought up a big, fat fish. I had never caught anything like it before. Richard put his line in but got nothing.

Dropping my fishing line in once again, I brought up a big fish, something special, and Richard again got nothing. This repeated itself over and over. I brought up great fish and Richard got nothing. At first we joked about it, but when it happened again and again, Richard seemed upset. We tried to trade places in the boat but nothing changed. I caught large fish while Richard did not catch even one small one.

I suddenly remembered the letter you had written for me to the Rebbe. I got goosebumps thinking about it. I felt frightened. Fear of G-d. I felt it was like G-d had announced Himself to me: Here I am, within you.

But after a few moments I tried to calm myself and to cool off the feeling of holiness I had felt. But then there was another sign. Opposite us the entire time was an Italian ship. I saw it heading toward us. At first we were frightened but then we saw that they wanted to tell us something. When they came close enough, the captain shouted, “How did you manage to catch so many fish? Do you have a direct line to G-d? We have been trying for hours without any success.”

I suddenly realized how unusual this was. For forty years I have been fishing and never had such success. Within two hours I had brought up fish that usually take at least four or five hours to catch. It had to be the Rebbe’s blessing.

***

Peter finished his extraordinary story and Devorah and Mordechai went out to see the catch for themselves. To their amazement, all the fish were kosher. Peter gave them some fish for Shabbos and distributed the remainder of the fish to his friends as he told them that there is a Rebbe, a prophet in Israel.

A few Shabbasos later, Peter told his daughter that he saw Lubavitcher children pointing at him and saying, “There’s the man who could ask for whatever he wanted and he only asked to be able to catch a lot of fish…”