Struck Speechless
When I was receiving people at the Zer home in Bnei Brak, a couple came in with their four-year-old son. One day, without warning, this boy had completely stopped talking. In spite of their visits to the top specialists, the boy remained mute.
“Did you perhaps purchase a new apartment recently?” I asked the father.
To say the man was thunderstruck would be an understatement. “How does the Rav know about our new apartment? He never met us before; we heard about him only now, when we needed advice for our son. Does the Rav have ESP?” These were the thoughts running through his mind.
He confessed that he had recently bought a new apartment.
“Did you purchase a new car, as well?”
This time, the man was too stunned to speak, and merely nodded in agreement.
I then turned to the couple with my diagnosis. Since they had purchased both a new apartment as well as a new car in a very short time span, their son was most likely suffering from the effects of ayin hara. This resulted from begrudging and envious onlookers.
I immediately offered them various types of tikkunim, in merit of which Hashem would remove the ayin hara from them and their son would be completely cured.
A number of days later, I returned to France. How happy I was to hear from the Zer family that, with Heavenly kindness, the young boy’s speech had returned.
