Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka was a close colleague of the Baal Shem Tov. His son, Rabbi Simcha, married the Baal Shem Tov’s granddaughter, Feiga. Their son, the famed Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, became the founder of Breslov Chassidism. The Baal Shem Tov once asked Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka to deliver a letter to Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezritch (who later became known as the Mezritcher Maggid) in which he attempted to persuade Rabbi Dov Ber to become his disciple. Upon receiving the letter, Rabbi Dov Ber said, “I see an auspicious sign in the student who bears this letter. If Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka is such a holy tzaddik, how much more so is his teacher—the Baal Shem Tov.” Rabbi Dov Ber then agreed to meet with the Baal Shem Tov and later to join the Chassidic movement.
During the summer months, from the Shabbat after Passover until the Shabbat before Rosh Hashahah, we study a weekly chapter of the Talmud's Ethics of the Fathers ("Avot") each Shabbat afternoon; this week we study Chapter Four.
From a talk in 1991:
The fall of the communist dictatorships of the Eastern Bloc was a kind of miracle that has no historical precedent. Never before were so many people affected by such radical change with so little violence.
The miracles of the Gulf War were open miracles. The same Scud missiles that took countless lives in Iran were impotent when they struck their targets in Israel. The soldiers and officers of the allied forces saw inexplicable miracles in their victory.
Other miracles took some thought to realize that they were miracles, that the laws of nature were not the only thing at play here. But anyone who saw what occurred in the Gulf War saw openly that this was miraculous.
And yet people ask, “Where are the miracles today?”