The doctor wrung his hands in despair.
""There's nothing to be done, my dear, you'll probably have to carry this pain for the rest of your life. We're not finding a source for it, and anyway we don't have any medicine that will help with the pain.".
The elderly Jew burst into tears, this was the moment that broke him most.
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What hadn't he tried? What hadn't he done? He had always hoped and wished that the complex medical examination would find the cause of the chronic leg pain that had accompanied him for many years, and now, the doctor's cruel answer had brought out of him all the great pain, physical and mental, and he couldn't stop crying.
Moshe Cohen (pseudonym) has been through it all.
In his old age, he could proudly tick off all the common ailments of humans. He had already treated his abnormal blood pressure and high cholesterol. He had even undergone one or two catheterizations and had visited the internal medicine department at Shaare Zedek Hospital several times. He had overcome all of these ailments, and he had overcome them all. The many medications he took every day were a thousand witnesses to the triumph of progress over the ailments of the past. His busy schedule left him no room for complaints, and he absorbed everything with love.
But the leg pain that attacked him many years ago never gave him any rest. At first he felt a tingling sensation, like a kind of numbness, and slowly his legs began to really hurt. The pain was bearable at first, he dragged himself from place to place, and added paracetamol and Nurofen pills and other painkillers to his daily medication basket on an hourly basis.
But recently, the leg pain began to become more and more dominant and really interfere with his life.
The pain was excruciating, bothersome, and prevented him from living – literally. He had difficulty walking, he felt the pain even when sitting, and it would wake him up in the middle of the night. His hands would hit his aching muscles hard almost constantly. The hit on the muscles, he thought, would slightly reduce the unbearable pain in his legs. But nothing helped, the hit added pain to his pain, and the grief was unbearable.
In his distress, he turned to the most senior doctors, who for their part did the most comprehensive tests possible, but none of them found anything. He was referred to other doctors, to vegans, to energy healers, and he also received acupressure, but nothing helped.
""If there is no disease," a wise doctor once told him, "then there is no cure.".
There may not have been any illness, but there was pain, oh, how much there was.
•
One day, his daughter approaches him and tells him about a very senior doctor who specializes in chronic pain, who is coming to Israel for a very short period of time. The cost of a visit to the specialist is astronomical, but Moshe's pain was so severe that no amount of money was significant compared to it.
She made him an urgent appointment to see the specialist, and he, in turn, did all the necessary tests: he checked his blood type, tried to rule out dangerous diseases, but he too, ultimately found no cause for his annoying leg pain.
""You'll probably have to live with the pain," he told him at the end of the examination, and Moshe broke into pieces.
This was the exact moment when everyone realized that there was one doctor in the world, a doctor of all flesh, to whom one could turn, and only in his hands had the power to help and heal. It was not that Moses and his family did not shed tears like water and tear the gates of heaven in prayer, but they always hoped and expected a doctor who would help and find the cause of the root of the pain.
But now, as soon as even the greatest of doctors gave up, prayer to the Creator of the world became a 'prayer for the poor,' meaning we have nothing – only you. And such a prayer, as we know, is guaranteed to be answered.
The prayer was warm, from the root of the soul. Moses shed tears like water and silently begged the Creator of the world to save him from his torment.
•
One day, Moshe went to one of the great men of the generation to receive a blessing and advice. The compassionate rabbi looked into the tormented Jew's eyes and asked him to check if he had ever hurt anyone, an injury that could cause him such severe torment and pain.
Moshe, an elderly Jew and a man of his people, raised his eyes, looked at the greatest of the generation and said with emotion and pain: "No, Rabbi, I have never hurt anyone. I am an elderly Jew, loved in the community, who loves people and brings them closer to the Torah.".
The rabbi did not let up.
""Try to search in your younger years, in your teenage years, in your childhood, whether you hurt someone, a child or an adult. Try to remember," the rabbi encouraged.
Moshe frowned, spent all the years of his life, and suddenly his eyes lit up, he remembered something.
""Yes, Rabbi," he turned to the great man of the generation, "when I was a child, many years ago, during a time of great poverty, a tender child studied with me in class who, due to the difficult situation of his parents, would walk in torn shoes. The spectacle was extremely funny, as the tear was right at the end of the shoe, and with every step he took, a big mouth would open. I remember now how we shamed him and made fun of him time and time again," he told the rabbi.
""But we were young," Moshe tried to soften the serious act, "we had no knowledge.".
But the rabbi did not smile.
""Seek him," he instructed the tormented Jew sitting across from him, "seek him and ask for his forgiveness, only in this way will you be healed of your excruciating pain.".
""How will I find him?" the man exclaimed, "That was many years ago.".
""Do you remember his name?" the rabbi asked him.
""Yes," said Moses. "His name was Joseph.".
""I am Yosef!" Rabbi Ovadia cried. "I was the poor child, and you hurt me during those years.".
The Jew almost fainted. "Please forgive me, our Lord," he begged.
""Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me," said the great Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to him.
The rabbi greeted them warmly and dismissed them, and from then on, Moshe's fathers disappeared as if they had never existed.
[Adapted from the book 'Sher and Great']
• Menachem Man is an ultra-Orthodox writer and publicist: [email protected]
