Ten true accounts of life-altering dreams that portended the future

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach

These are the weeks of dreams – dreams that changed the course of history for Yosef Hatzaddik and the world around him thousands of years ago.

Because while many dreams can be dismissed as the nocturnal playback of an overtired brain or overstressed system, sometimes they’re a way of connecting to higher realms in ways our conscious mind doesn’t understand.

Many of us have experienced a life-changing dream, a meaningful message in our sleep, or a night-time visit from the Other World.

TEN TRUE ACCOUNTS OF LIFE-ALTERING DREAMS THAT PORTENDED THE FUTURE

Rav Breuer’s Dream

For all the pünklichkeit for which Rav Breuer and the yekkishe community are known, the one area he was not meticulous about was ending his learning seder on time

IN the mid-1970s, my father, Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Weinberg z”l, started learning with Rav Dr. Yosef Breuer, the venerated rav of K’hal Adath Jeshurun in Washington Heights, New York. The chavrusashaft began at the behest of Rav Breuer’s family, who sought to set up the elderly rav with a chavrusa so he could maintain his sedorim even as his eyesight waned. Every morning, my father walked to the home of the Rav’s daughter, Meta Bechhofer, at 50 Overlook Terrace, where he would join Rav Breuer in his study for their 10 a.m. sessions.

Surrounded by large tomes of Gemara (one volume on the shared desk, a second on a shelf that pulled out from the desk, and yet another on the stool nearby), the pair would blissfully submerge themselves in the Yam HaTalmud as they methodically made their way through the Gemara, Rashi, Tosafos, and the main Rishonim on each daf, basking in the joy of pure limud haTorah. The session officially went until noon, but for all the pünktlichkeit (punctuality) for which Rav Breuer and the German community are known, the one area he was not meticulous about was ending his learning seder on time.

The very fact that my father and Rav Breuer could learn together was inspiring and wondrous: My father, a Polish Gerrer chassid originally from Lodz, was in his forties. The Rav, a leader and scion of an aristocratic German Jewish family, was already in his nineties. Yet despite their vastly different backgrounds and even a formidable language barrier — my father spoke in the chassidishe Yiddish of his youth and the Rav conversed in a sophisticated German — they transcended the barriers of semantics.

Rav Breuer is remembered for his profound writings, for the large kehillah he built, and for being the foremost expositor of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s hashkafah of both Torah im derech eretz and austritt — Rav Hirsch’s principle of an independent, Torah-true kehillah without any association with Reform Jewry.

But those who knew him well remember Rav Breuer first and foremost as a brilliant talmid chacham and an unbelievable masmid. Before the war, he had served not as rav, but as rosh yeshivah of the Frankfurt yeshivah, devoting himself completely to limud haTorah. Even after assuming the mantle of community leadership, Rav Breuer prioritized limud haTorah for his balabatim and took great nachas when younger members of the kehillah attended the great yeshivos and commited themselves, as he taught, to Torah learning, irrespective of what they did in life.

In the early 1950s, a stream of survivors who had been in DP camps since the war’s end started to trickle into America. Many of them, even those of Polish and Hungarian origin, were attracted to the beautiful kehillah in Washington Heights, including my family. We were welcomed with open arms by Rav Breuer and the kehillah, and I grew up in Washington Heights and attended the “Breuer’s” school.

When we first arrived in the Heights, my father, an outstanding talmid chacham, began learning in the Dombrover Shtiebel. He later joined a chaburah that attended a twice-weekly Gemara shiur given by Rav Breuer in his home. There their relationship was kindled, because even with the age and language barriers, my father understood Rav Breuer. When the Rav’s eyesight weakened to the point that he could no longer read the text of seforim, the Breuer family requested that my father learn regularly with the Rav.

Their chavrusashaft enjoyed not only an unlikely and beautiful camaraderie but also a great deal of siyata d’Shmaya, as one anecdote reveals. It almost went untold — in fact, we learned of it neither from Rav Breuer nor from my father, but from a family friend.

One day, my father and the Rav came across a puzzling kushya. The difficulty consumed the remainder of their seder together, and they left off without resolving it. The next morning, my father arrived as usual at 10 a.m., and as soon as he entered, it was clear that Rav Breuer had been eagerly awaiting his arrival.

“Last night, I had a dream,” the Rav told my father. “The Chasam Sofer came to me and said, ‘I had the same kushya, and I wrote a teretz in my sefer.’ ”

The Rav could barely see at the time, yet he knew exactly where each sefer was. He pointed to the spot on his seforim shrank where a worn copy of Chiddushei Chasam Sofer al HaShas sat. The Rav asked my father to take it down and to turn to the daf they were learning. There, precisely where he anticipated, was an answer to their kushya.

Neither Rav Breuer nor my father felt the need to share the story with their families, that day or ever; the story came to light only after my father met a descendent of the Chasam Sofer who was Rav Breuer’s talmid and mentioned it to him.

The fact that a gadol of a previous generation had come to reveal a teretz to their question was of little import to the Rav and to my father. The main thing was that their kushya was now resolved, and the two chavrusas sat down to continue their seder.

Rachel Elbaum is the general studies principal of Bais Brocho D’Stolin Karlin. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.