The Righteous Who Help Remember the Barren

"This is the day the LORD has made; let us be glad and rejoice in it" (Psalms 118:24). Rabbi Avin said: We do not know in what to rejoice, whether in the day or in the Holy One, blessed be He. Solomon came and explained, "let us be glad and rejoice in You" -- in You, in Your Torah; in You, in Your salvation. Rabbi Yitzchak said: In You -- in the twenty-two letters that You wrote for us in the Torah. Bet is two, kaf is twenty. As we have learned there: If a man married a woman and remained with her ten years and she did not give birth, he is not permitted to neglect procreation. If he divorced her, she is permitted to marry another, and the second husband may remain with her ten years. If she miscarried, he counts from the time she miscarried. The man is commanded concerning procreation, but not the woman. Rabbi Yochanan ben Beroka says: Concerning both of them it says, "And God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28). There was an incident in Sidon concerning a man who married a woman and remained with her ten years and she did not give birth. They came before Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai to be divorced. He said to her: Any precious thing I have in my house, take it and go to your father's house. Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai said to them: Just as you were joined together amid food and drink, so you shall not part from one another except amid food and drink. What did she do? She made a great feast and got him very drunk and signaled to her maidservant, saying to them: Take him to my father's house. In the middle of the night he awoke from his sleep. He said to her: Where am I placed? She said to him: Did you not say, any precious thing I have in my house, take it and go to your father's house? And now I have no thing more precious than you. When Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai heard this, he prayed for them and they were remembered. The Holy One, blessed be He, remembers the barren, and the righteous remember the barren. And are these things not a matter of inference from minor to major? If a human being rejoices with joy and gives joy to all, then when the Holy One comes to gladden Jerusalem, how much more so. And Israel awaits the salvation of the Holy One, blessed be He, how much more so. "I will greatly rejoice in the LORD" (Isaiah 61:10).