Rabbi Fischel Schachter
Saving a Life
כי ד' אלקיך הוא ההלך עמך
For Hashem, your G-d, goes with you (Devarim 31:6)
As a family once decided to take a vacation in Teveria, the wife and two daughters made their way down to the Kineret for a swim while the husband traveled to the gravesite of R’ Meir Baal HaNeis. While the girls continued to enjoy themselves swimming in the water, the older daughter began drifting off a bit too far and being unable to competently swim, started to drown. It was then that the mother, frantic and herself also incapable of swimming, began hearing her daughter yell for help.
Running to the highway, the mother began flagging down oncoming cars in a plea of desperation. After much effort, a luxurious car pulled over to the side and out walked a well-dressed man. “My child is drowning! Please, can you help?” the mother cried. Without hesitating, the man removed his coat and ran into the water, his wife screaming in the background, “Remember, you just had a heart attack!” Jumping into the water, after a short while, the man located the girl and brought her ashore.
Letting out a sigh of relief, the mother looked at her daughter, grateful that she survived. But then she looked again and gasped. Laying before her was not her older daughter, but younger daughter. Her younger daughter must have swum into the water to help her older sister. “I still have another daughter in the water!” the mother screamed back at the man. Diving back in, the man looked around asking, “Where is she?” “Over there,” cried the mother as she pointed to the water. Finally spotting the girl, he began dragging her to the shore.
By now, a number of people had gathered around nervously watching the man in the water. As the man continued holding the girl, he soon was met by a throng of bystanders yelling, “Her head is still in the water! Lift her head out!” Realizing that the girl’s head was still submerged in the water, he immediately lifted it up and placed her body on the sand. Within moments, a medic rushed over and started performing CPR, after which an ambulance crew arrived to take her pulse. But, unfortunately, they did not seem too optimistic. “Her head was in the water too long,” they said. Rushing her to the hospital, the doctors as well returned with sullen faces. “There doesn’t seem to be too much hope.”
While the family began fervently and anxiously praying for the girl’s recovery, she was administered an MRI. After its completion, the doctor walked in with the results. “I don’t believe it,” he said, “but your daughter has regular brain activity; she is perfectly healthy.” Two days later, the girl was released from the hospital. “We never saw anything like this before,” the doctors said. “With her head underwater for quite a while, she couldn’t breathe and should have suffered major brain damage.” But, to everyone’s relief, she miraculously pulled through.
A few days later, the family arranged a seudat hodaah (meal of thanks) thanking Hashem for the miracle. Looking to invite the man who saved the two girls, they called the hospital thinking that perhaps he had called to find out how the girl was doing. And sure enough, he had done so. Receiving his phone number, the family contacted him and invited him to the meal. He was an attorney from a non-observant kibbutz who had never experienced any close connection to Yiddishkeit his entire life. Yet, it seemed that he had something on his mind which he wished to tell the family. Asking that he share his story with the family, he went on to relate the following:
“Just before this incident, I had been recovering from a heart attack. My wife and I were traveling up north for a vacation when we saw a woman frantically waving down cars in the street. My wife told me to keep on driving as it didn’t seem that there was any major problem, but I stopped to help. I used to be an Olympic swimmer, but after becoming ill, I hadn’t swum in years. Just last week, though, as part of my recovering therapy, I had decided to swim laps in the hotel I was staying at. My wife at the time mentioned that it was dangerous for me to swim, but I replied that for some reason I felt like I needed to do this. Now, I know what I meant when I said that. If I hadn’t practiced my swimming then, I don’t think I would have been in shape to save your daughters.
“So I jumped in. Coming back with your first daughter, you then told me that your other daughter was still in the water. I then dived back in again. But this time, as I neared the shore, it was brought to my attention that I had kept her head underwater. Unable to deal with what I had done, I came back crying to my wife. “I killed the girl!” “What do you mean?” asked my wife. “I didn’t pull her head out of the water! It’s all my fault that she’s now dead.” I didn’t know what to do with myself.
“And so, sometime after the incident, I decided to drive back next to the water and climb to the nearby mountaintop. When I finally made it up there, I began to talk to Hashem. “Ribono Shel Olam, never in my life have I prayed. I grew up in a kibbutz and scoffed at the idea of prayer. This is the first time in my life that I am doing so. If this girl dies, I will never be able to live with myself again. Please consider as if I had prayed my whole life, and combine all those prayers to save this girl.” After finishing my prayers, I proceeded to drive to the hospital and check up on the girl.
“And as soon as I arrived, I was updated with the news. Your daughter had woken up an hour ago and was doing much better. She would survive and soon return to her full health.
“The moment I heard that, I couldn’t believe my ears. She had awoken during the very few moments I silently stood in prayer on the mountaintop. At the exact time I had turned to Hashem in heartfelt tefillah, she came to her senses.”
Instead of giving up and despairing, this man took his broken heart and poured it out to Hashem in prayer. It was a tefillah he had never uttered before in his life, and it wrought a miracle. Even at a moment we think all hope is lost, nothing is ever lost. Never are we to give up when trying circumstances confront us. Our words emanating from the heart directly reach Hashem, and hold the potency of effectuating miracles.
