The Chofetz Chaim had a daughter by the name of Rebbetzin Feiga Zacks. Rebbetzin Zacks lived a very long life. I remember seeing her in Yerushalayim when I was a bachur. She lived in Yerushalyim and she would tell over that she remembers hearing when the  Chofetz Chaim was becoming very, very famous, and people wanted to know from his mother, “What zechus did you have to have the Chofetz Chaim?” She thought about it and said, “I don’t really know. There is nothing special that I did”.

They pressed her further and asked her to please think. She said, “If you want to know, there is one thing. On the day that I got married, my mother asked me for a moment of my time. She sat down with me quietly and handed me a siddur. She said to me, my daughter, today you are zocheh to walk down to the chuppah. My tefilah is for you to be zocheh to very soon have a family, and you should be zocheh to raise your children in Torah and yiras shamayim. You’re job is to daven for them. That is why I bought you a siddur for the day of your chasunah. That is the key.” The Chofetz Chaim’s mother said, “If you want to know why I think I was zocheh to the Chofetz Chaim it’s because whenever I had a free moment, I would take out my siddur and cry for my little Yisroel Meir, for my little Srulik to become a talmid chacham and a yarei shamayim. ~ R’ Yechiel Spero