Agunah

The group of Chassidim were travelling, and they stopped off at an inn (as Chassidim were wont to do, to provide for so many chassidishe maasiyos). They noted that the proprietress appeared to be a woman in a very advanced age. She, in turn, noticed them, and called them to her. “I see that you are Chassidim”, she said to them, “let me tell you my story”:

‘When I was a young woman’ she began, ‘my husband disappeared without a trace, leaving me alone with our baby. Someone directed me to the holy Baal Shem Tov, and I went to him, brokenhearted and grasping my baby in my arms, and begged for his brocho and advice.

‘The Baal Shem Tov looked at me with great compassion, and said to me as follows: “My daughter, I have searched, and I don’t see your husband, neither in this world, nor in the world to come, and I am afraid, therefore, that you are destined to a hard life of loneliness”.

“However”, he continued, “if you promise me that you will remain faithful to the Torah and continue to live as a good Jewish daughter, then I promise you a long life, much wealth, and you will see many descendents from this child in your arms”.

“Boruch Hashem”, the woman concluded, “the Tzaddik’s brochos were realized in their entirety. I have reached a ripe old age, I have attained great wealth, and that (man/woman?) is the child that I had with me at the time, and from whom I have seen by now many children, grandchildren and great grandchildren”.