Weekly Chasidic Story # #591 (s5769-26 / 28 Adar 5769)

Three Cures for Headache

After the Tzemach Tzedek passed away , the headache cure was no longer effective.

(Connection: yahrzeit date)

Three Cures for Headache

There was once a chasid of the Rebbe Tzemach Tzedek whose wife suffered from terrible recurring headaches. After describing his wife's symptoms, the Tzemach Tzedek instructed her to wash her head in hot water every time she felt a headache coming on.

The advice worked. All the woman had to do was stick her head in the hot water and the pain would disappear.

After the Tzemach Tzedek passed away in 1866, however, whenever the headaches began, the hot water had no effect. The chasid went to the Rebbe Maharash and asked him what his wife should do.

The Rebbe Maharash listened and then smiled, "Nu, if hot water doesn't help, let her wash with cold water!" he said. The woman tried this and the pain went away immediately.

In this manner the woman found relief from her headaches for the entire reign of the Rebbe Maharash, but after his passing in 1882, the cold water also lost its healing effect.

Neither could hot water do anything to ease her pain. When the headaches began to recur the woman sent her husband to the Rebbe Rashab to ask him what she should do now.

After the chasid had related the peculiar story of his wife's headaches, the Rebbe Rashab smiled and said, "Nu, let her mix both hot and cold water together!"

The woman did, and the headaches disappeared.

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[Selected and adapted by Yrachmiel Tilles from the rendition in Extraordinary Chassidic Tales, vol. 1 [Ozar Sifrei Lubavitch] by Rabbi Rafael Nachman Kahn, as translated from Hebrew by Basha Majerczyk]

Connection: Yahrzeit dates

Biographic notes:
Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn [29 Elul 1789-13 Nissan 1866], the Third Rebbe of Chabad, was known as the Tsemach Tzedek, after his books of Halachic responsa and Talmudic commentary called by that name. He was renowned not only as a Rebbe, but also as a leading scholar in his generation in both the revealed and hidden aspects of Torah.

Rabbi Shmuel Schneersohn (2 Iyar 1834-13 Tishrei 1882), the fourth Lubavitch Rebbe, known as "the Rebbe Maharash," was the seventh and youngest son of his predecessor, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneersohn, "the Tsemach Tsedek".

Rabbi Sholom-Dovber Schneersohn (20 Cheshvan, 1860 - 2 Nissan, 1920), known as the Rebbe Reshab, was the fifth Rebbe of the Lubavitcher dynasty. He is the author of hundreds of major tracts in the exposition of Chasidic thought.

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