Last Wednesday. The time is 9:00 PM. More or less.
I'm at home. Babysitting with the kids. My wife and daughter are on their way from Bnei Brak, on a shopping trip before the holiday eve.
The siren beeps and the dispatcher announces: 3 Ezra Street... Unconscious. A person who collapsed in the street.
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I glance at my eldest son - who smiles and says: "Dad, go out. I'll watch until Mom gets back...""
The child is used to it. There is nothing to say.
The March is pulled out of the device. "4747 is on its way.".
Runs to car, starts. Drives 75 meters. After about 40 seconds, sees a crowd on the sidewalk, around the man who is lying down.
""4747 place," I report.
Gets out of the vehicle, a brief review, and begins CPR.
A few seconds later, two good friends of mine join the CPR. The man who collapsed receives an electric shock, and another from our automated external defibrillator. A volunteer doctor and paramedic also arrive - and we are in long rounds of advanced CPR. An MDA paramedic also arrives. Medications are pulled out. The drama is immense. The pulse returns and disappears.
The sweat is dripping like streams. Anyone who doesn't know what massages are for 45 minutes straight won't understand what kind of effort it is.
Hope is mixed with despair. We look at the monitor and pray that the heart will start working again.
The man's wife, who was walking with him, sits sobbing on a folding chair. One of the neighbors from the building across the street hurriedly lowered it.
Every time I finish a round of CPR, I look up and see another child, another boy and another girl, running and hugging their mother. They look in disbelief at their father lying on the sidewalk.
After about an hour, the doctor gave up. After a brief consultation with the paramedics, he decided to end the effort.
I accompany him as he approaches the woman. From that moment on, she is his widow.
The moment of delivering the terrible news is even harder than a continuous hour of CPR.
The extended family, who had gathered in the meantime on the street, received the news with overwhelming tears.
""We're sorry. We did everything we could," says the doctor.
""And the truth is - we did more than we could," I try to add.
The team of volunteers, exhausted and frustrated, begins to gather up the equipment and clean up the scene. Then a professional discussion begins around the question: What is the presumed cause of the man's collapse?.
What, really, is the cause of death?
After a few minutes, we disperse in silence, each to his own home, to his family, to deal with the feelings and frustration.
In a conversation with my wife, the token 'fell' to me. This end was decreed for the Lord about 340 days ago...
We have a pretty solid habit from Tishrei to Kassele that in any bad situation, we immediately mutter: "Oh, that's too bad. We didn't pray properly in the different Rosh Hashanah..." (-Rosh Hashanah).
After a while, around Tevet to Nissan, the Mehadrin still mention in national tragedies (or equivalent) that everything is determined on Rosh Hashanah.
But who remembers that in the month of Av (and at the beginning of Elul) everything was decided for us "then..." on Rosh Hashanah last year.
It scared me. It shocked me.
I remembered a Thanksgiving party I had the privilege of attending about five years ago. A well-known rabbi, who also practices practical Kabbalah, summoned the team that had been treating his young daughter - who had been seriously injured in a car accident. Thanks to the quick and professional treatment of United Hatzalah volunteers, she came back to life, and after several months of hospitalization and rehabilitation, she even returned to school and a normal life.
The girl's father wanted to say words of thanks to us, interwoven with words of Torah.
And so he said: In the holy books it is described that when a person is sentenced to death, God forbid, the Angel of Death descends and marks a black mark on the person's forehead (the righteous of the generation can indeed 'see' the mark on the person's forehead and act to correct or cancel the decree).
""My little daughter was also marked with the same black mark...", her father said, his voice choked with tears. "And you, angels from United Hatzalah volunteers, came and saved her life.".
""And how can you act against the judgment of the Supreme Court, and the ruling of the Angel of Death?!" asked the Rabbi.
And this was his answer: "Now you will understand, dear volunteers, what the true meaning of a right being overturned by a rightful owner... and what the mighty power of that rightful owner is to overturn a decree and absolute verdict of a court of law above.".
See you next year.
About a week and a half before Judgment Day. In the days when everything that happens to us stopped last Rosh Hashana, I want to wish all the readers of my column: Happy New Year. A year of health, a year in which you will be blessed with double the blessings of every blessing you can think of.
Thank you for all the encouragement you have given me throughout these months.
Thanks to all my readers abroad (yes. It turns out there are a few more. And there are even some who were offended that I thought I only had one reader from the US and bothered to send me emails as proof of that).
Thank you for the comments, responses, and clarifications you take the time to write to me via email and in chats.
That's the only thing that makes me sit down and write another column. The love I receive from readers.
And it amazes me every time how many readers this column has and how many comments are sent.
This also requires me to apologize to anyone who may have been offended by my words. Directly or indirectly. Anyone who thought I was speaking or writing against them, or anyone who thought I was referring to them.
So I want to say clearly, and in a loud voice: I did not mean to offend, and if I did, I ask for forgiveness and pardon.
The things written over the past few months were written as a hobby and from my perspective, a narrow and limited angle for my ability to observe. And yes. Sometimes it is a narrow angle.
So my friends, my neighbors, and my beloved (in the plural), may we all be written down for a good life, in the book of the perfect righteous. Amen.
This will be the last column until after Rosh Hashanah.
imply.
Comments, Happy New Year wishes, requests for forgiveness, checks and jars of honey can be sent to: [email protected]
And with God's help, all who ask will be answered.
