Parshas Ki Seitzei 5786
- Torah Tavlin
- 2 hours ago
- 3 min read
בנים אשר יולדו להם דור שלישי יבא להם בקהל ה' ... (כג-ט)
Many people have talked their way out of receiving a traffic ticket using all sorts of excuses, ranging from urgent emergencies to elaborate fabrications. But perhaps no one ever had a better, more heartwarming excuse than a woman from Crown Heights who found herself pulled over by a New York City traffic officer. Standing outside her open car window and watching her fumble nervously through her handbag for her driver’s license, the officer’s eyes caught sight of a picture tucked inside her purse - a photo of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, R’ Menachem Mendel Schneerson zt”l. Pausing, the officer looked at her and asked if she was a follower of that Rabbi. When she replied that she was, he calmly closed his ticket book and announced that he wouldn’t be giving her a ticket after all. Touched by her visible surprise, he offered to share the reason why, mentioning that while it was his absolute favorite story, he had never actually told it to a Jewish person before.
He explained that years earlier, he had served in the police escort that accompanied the Rebbe once a week to the Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, where the leader paid respects at the resting place of his predecessor, R’ Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn zt”l. During those trips, while the Rebbe was inside davening, the officer got to know some of the young chasidic men in the entourage. They were remarkably friendly, and as they chatted, the young men would share stories about the Rebbe’s extraordinary empathy and his endless devotion to helping people in need. Curious, the officer had half-jokingly asked his buddies one day if the Rebbe’s willingness to help extended to non-Jews as well. They assured him without hesitation that the Rebbe helped anyone who asked, warmly inquiring if he had a personal burden of his own.
That conversation stayed with him, touchingly close to a private pain he and his wife were enduring. Later, in confidence, the officer confided in one of the young chasidic men about their silent heartbreak. He and his wife had been married for nine agonizing years without children. They had exhausted their savings on fertility treatments and consulted world-renowned specialists, running around relentlessly for seven long years, only for doctors to finally deliver the devastating news that they had tried everything humanly possible and there was no longer any hope. The heartbreak was crushing, leaving his wife in constant tears and bringing the officer himself to a point of helpless weeping. Understanding his pain, the young man gently advised him to stand by the door of the Rebbe’s car during the next cemetery trip and simply ask the Rebbe for a blessing.
Taking the advice to heart, the officer positioned himself right at the vehicle’s door the following week. As the Rebbe stepped out, the officer nervously asked if he blessed non-Jews as well as Jewish people. The officer recalled with striking clarity how the Rebbe looked at him in that moment - not with distant detachment, but with the warm, deeply genuine gaze of an old friend. The Rebbe assured him that he tried to help anyone in need and instructed the officer to write down his name, his father’s name, his wife’s name, and her father’s name on a slip of paper so he could include them in his prayers. Though the officer found it slightly amusing to hand over a slip of paper covered in traditional, heavy-duty Irish names, he did so with a faint ray of hope.
What followed was nothing short of a miracle. Within a remarkably short time, his wife discovered she was expecting, and nine months later, almost to the day, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. The medical team was flabbergasted, unable to find a rational explanation for the sudden turn of events, scratching their heads in disbelief when the officer attributed the joyous outcome entirely to a Rabbi’s blessing. The officer’s face glowed with pride as he reached the apex of his memory, revealing that he and his wife had named their newborn son Mendel in honor of the Rebbe. His wife had initially resisted, worried the name sounded neither conventional nor Irish, and their extended family strongly objected out of fear that the boy would face cruel teasing for carrying a uniquely Jewish name. But the officer stood firm in his gratitude. He reasoned that if his son ever came home upset about being picked on, he would use it as a profound teaching moment, reminding the boy never to mirror that hostility, but instead to treat others with unconditional kindness and love. He wanted his son to carry the story of his birth proudly, using it to show others that without a compassionate Jewish Rabbi named Mendel, he wouldn’t even be here today.