In a certain town, a young woman had been married for years but could not conceive. Her husband loved her, and they prayed together for a child, but month after month passed with no answer. The couple consulted physicians and sages, but nothing helped.
Then a neighbor whispered a dark suspicion: there was a witch living at the edge of town who was known to prevent births through sorcery. She would take a clay figure, inscribe the name of the woman she wished to curse, and bury it beneath the threshold of the victim's home. As long as the figure remained in the ground, no child would come.
The husband went to the local sage, who listened carefully. "If what you say is true," the sage replied, "then the solution is not to confront the witch directly, for that would only provoke greater harm. Instead, we must rely on the power of prayer and the merit of the righteous."
The sage instructed the couple to recite specific psalms for forty days, to give charity to the poor, and to immerse in the ritual bath. On the fortieth night, the husband dreamed that an angel appeared before his door and pulled a blackened clay figure from the earth beneath his threshold.
According to the account in the Sefer HaMaasiyot (chapter 72), the witch's spell was broken that very night. Within the year, the woman conceived and bore a healthy son. The witch, meanwhile, fell ill and never recovered her powers. The tale was told for generations as a reminder that no sorcery, however potent, could stand against the prayers of the faithful and the mercy of God.