A picture of HaRav Shteinman zt"l (left) around the time of the story
This year is the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. We mark this milestone through recounting a story of a dramatic dream experienced by HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman at the time.
HaRav Pelman relates: "On Yom Kippur, 5734, I was making my way to the Vosikin prayers when I met up with HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman walking towards the Kollel Chazon Ish from Rechov Rashbam. This was not the direction he should have been coming from since he lived on Rechov Chazon Ish.
[Note: This was less than 12 hours before the outbreak of the Yom Kippur War.]
"I asked him why the change and he said: "While sleeping, I was shown in a dream the words 'Kra Soton', with the letter 'Reish' hovering above the word 'Kra.' When I awoke, i was seized with dread, and went immediately to the Steipler and told him of my dream. He gave me a Tehillim and we both recited chapters for a long while. Now I am coming from his home to daven Vosikin."
Some while later, when HaRav Pelman went to visit the Steipler, the latter said: "Who knows what could have happened if not for those pirkei Tehillim which we said that night. Prayer before a harsh event is much more effective than one during the actual trouble itself."
HaRav Ben Zion Pelman related this in public at one of his shiurim, but when HaRav Shteinman heard about it, he asked him not to tell it again.
There is an additional testimony to this. When the Yom Kippur prayers of 5734 were concluded at the Kollel Chazon Ish, as he was leaving the shul, HaRav Moshe Bornstein (a disciple of the Ponovezh Mashgiach) met up with HaRav Shteinman, whose face was ashen and distraught. When he asked him why he looked so disturbed, the latter told him about the dream and said that he was truly alarmed.
Before Mincha, HaRav Shteinman met HaRav Moshe again and said that the interpretation of the dream might be found through the warning siren [of the impending war] which had been sounded.
Several years ago, HaRav Edelstein mentioned this story in a talk he gave, saying, "Even before the war erupted, HaRav Shteinman's soul already sensed it out of his great love for Jewry. This is a level of Ahavas Yisroel which can be attained but it also depends on heredity. And yet, it can be reached through thought and concern for others, coupled with prayer and concentration, whereby one reaches a purity of soul and one's soul becomes intertwined with the soul of all Jewry."
