Bs”d
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Adar 11, 5770
Dear Friends and Family,
Baruch Hashem! My heart and soul is overflowing with thanks to G-d… I am alive! I can walk! I can talk! I can laugh! I can write you this letter.
I write to you from Cedar Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where I have been granted the opportunity to truly value the life that G-d has given me.
As many of you know, a bit over two months ago I was diagnosed with Papillary Thyroid Cancer. I had a growth on my thyroid, central compartment, about the size of a ping-pong ball! It seemed to have also spread to the surrounding lymph nodes as well. The cure? Total Thyroidectamy (removal of the thyroid) and neck dissection, followed up with a treatment of radiation.
You can imagine the shock. Me? I just entered my ninth month of pregnancy! I am a healthy woman! I am busy raising a family! I am about to have a baby…I want to nurse for as long as she wants…
And so began my journey to develop my trust in G-d. Everything will be okay, I knew, but now I need to really believe that. I was afraid. I was angry. Why is G-d ‘wasting my time’ with this? He is giving me the most precious gift of a new baby… How can He now give me an illness that may prevent me from nursing her as she rightfully deserves…? So my mantra became: “Think Good and it will Be Good”, as we are taught in Chassidic Philosophy. G-d has done miracles in my life, giving me a loving and caring husband and five beautiful children… He can “pull this one off” for me too.
As surgery date approached, so did my deepest fears.
Being in the month of Adar – the month of joy, I knew the best medicine would be laughter and joy. So together with my old classmates and friends in LA, we organized an “Adar Dance Party”. This past Saturday night, I drove down and we danced and danced. We all decided we were going to “dance the night away” – chasing away all negativity, all challenges and difficulties.
Looking around at my circle of friends, as we danced and sang together, I thought about how each of us has our own share of fears, our own worries and problems. Yet tonight, I was sure – we can break the spiritual boundaries, and draw down goodness and blessings. So we rejoiced in the miracles that we were confidant would be coming our way… and boy did we dance! I got home after 1am.
Arriving at the hospital on Tuesday morning, my heart was racing. The biggest medical procedure I have ever had in my life was … hmmm… let’s see – my wisdom tooth pulled? (!!) I squirm every time I need a simple blood test!!
The nurse brought me to the Pre-Op room, and they began pricking and poking me, and telling me to put on funny looking blue shoes, a hat and gown. The room was cold. And that fear was tugging away at my heart. They are about to put me to sleep. I have never gone under general anesthesia, and to me at the moment, it felt like they were going to be taking my life away (G-d forbid)!
So I closed my eyes and spoke to myself the calming words I had been repeating over and over the past few weeks… G-d loves me. He is taking care of me. The same G-d who has sent me this challenge, will support me through it. He is literally ‘carrying’ me now, holding me in a tight embrace. Soon I will be sleeping. My healing powers will be activated. I will wake up a completely healthy person. Not a foreign cell in my body. The doctors are a tool in G-d’s ‘Hand’, they are here to help me, to save my life.
That helped. But I was still afraid.
I clutched onto the silver dollar I had received from the Rebbe. It was attached to a chain and I was wearing it as a bracelet. And closing my eyes again, I began to sing a song in my mind. It was a victory song. For those of you who have been a part of the closing prayers at our Chabad House at the end of Yom Kippur, you are sure to remember the Victory March Song that we sing, at the climax and closing of the High Holiday Service.
Every year, the Lubavitcher Rebbe would stand up, his prayer shawl over his face, singing this lively and cheerful song to signify our confidence in having been written, signed and sealed for a sweet new year… And every year, my husband Rabbi Dov, representing the Rebbe here in Oxnard, does the same! So the image of Dov, standing up on his chair singing that Chassidic melody, popped into my head. And the song filled my heart with confidence. It drove away any ounce of fear. I was ready to march towards success and healing. This year, on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, we WERE sealed for a year of life, health, happiness and blessings. It was already decided, no doubt!
The kind nurse allowed Dov to come back in for a few moments before they put me to sleep. Dov had something to share with me that brought me to tears:
Out in the waiting room, an elderly man approached him and said: “I know you Rabbi! You blew shofar for me!”
Now, don’t ALL Rabbis look alike?! So Dov smiled as he thought, this man must be mistaking me for someone else! I am not out here in LA often enough to have met this gentleman… never mind having blown the shofar for him!
Yet the man was insistent. Dov asked him, “When? Did you join us for the High Holidays?”
“No”, said the man… I think I was just taking a stroll with my wife… my wife who is right now having very serious surgery… we were at the Fisherman’s Wharf in Oxnard… just browsing around…”
And then it all came back to Dov. He remembered this man, and his wife – may she recover speedily – very clearly. It was after the services on the second day of Rosh Hashana. Dov’s lips were literally numb from all the shofar blowing throughout the entire service. We had all done the “Tashlich” service over at the harbor. Dov ran back to grab something he “happened” to forget. He sees a very sweet couple strolling by. They look curious. Tired and worn out, do you think Dov will let a curious glance, from a ‘Jewish looking’ couple, slip him by? No, not our Rabbi! He’s already in discussion with them, finding out that they are both Jewish and had not heard the Shofar yet this Rosh Hashana!
So Dov whipped out his Shofar. Now the room where the shofar was kept was experiencing an ant problem… (perhaps from all that Rosh Hashana Honey?!) So believe it or not, the shofar was infested with ants! Yes, they were literally crawling all over his shofar! This was going to be one interesting Rosh Hashana service! He tried shaking the ants off, but to no avail. They were crawling all over his hands by now! But Dov stuck it out. Out in the parking lot at Fisherman’s Wharf, against all odds, numb lips, ants crawling, and total exhaustion, Rabbi Dov gave this Jewish couple the opportunity to hear the shofar blowing on that momentous Rosh Hashana day! He gave them the opportunity to usher in a year filled with blessings for them and their family…
Now standing in the hospital waiting room, Dov shared his thoughts with the husband: “Do you realize how incredible this is? You and I came together to have a very special and unique shofar blowing experience… one that signed us up for a year of blessings. It is on Rosh Hashana that G-d decides all events to transpire that year. And here we are – we meet again – miles and miles away from where we first met. And your wife is in surgery, and my wife is about to go into surgery. It was that shofar sounding that will grant us both the good news we are about to hear!”
Family members stood around listening, crying silently. All chanted the Shema prayer together, as Rabbi Dov helped the elderly man lay Tefillin. All feeling, it will be good.
The next the thing I know, I see the surgeon’s smiling face telling me that surgery is over! It was a wonderful success! He said he experienced many miracles while operating. The tumor had been very close, but never ‘stuck’ to anything important, like wind pipe, nerves, voice box… enabling him to do a very ‘clean job’.
All I could think was “Thank G-d! Thank G-d! This is all now BEHIND ME! We can celebrate!”
The best news came when the Endroconologist came by to let us know that although the pathology shows that the tumor was definitely malignant… he is confidant that I can nurse my baby peacefully, and delay radiation, as long as I continue to be monitored. He says we may even be able to delay radiation – permanently!
The doctors and nurses are so pleased and surprised with my rapid recovery, considering the very ‘involved’ surgery that I had… But I am not surprised! I have my baby, Menucha, waiting for me at home, and her four older siblings… I have the strongest will to heal and get back.
Thank you Hashem! Thank you for a husband like Rabbi Dov who has been so patient, kind and loving all along. Who has room in his heart for every last person in need. Who has the patience to stop and blow the shofar for a Jewish couple, blessing them with a year of health… There is no doubt in my mind that it was that extra shofar-blowing that is what merited OUR family to a year of health and blessings as well!
Thank you G-d for returning my health to me!
I want to pay back now, with even more vigor and strength. I want to do Your Will. I want to do all that is in my power to transform this world into the world You intended it to be – a place of love, peace, spirituality, and full of the light of Torah and Mitzvot. A world of Moshiach and Redemption!
Our family has experienced the modern day “Purim Story”. A story filled with worry, pain, fear – yet miracles disguised in nature. This Saturday night and Sunday, we will celebrate Purim – but with a whole new meaning. The miracle of Purim continues to take place in our lives. G-d is intimately involved in every detail of our lives, especially in challenging moments.
So I ask of all of you – in the merit that I continue to recover smoothly and speedily – to please celebrate Purim this year! Celebrate the wonderful miracles that G-d brings to our lives, however ‘hidden’ they are. Celebrate by joining the Megillah reading, by giving charity, by distributing packages of food to a friend. Celebrate the miracles that are yet to come. The miracles of Moshiach and the time of redemption that is imminent!
Any extra mitzvah that is done this Purim, in our merit, will have made this all worth it!
Thank you all for being like family to me.
Thank you for inundating the Heavens with your prayers for me. It worked!
I miss you all and look forward to seeing you very soon.
With love,
Racheli
