The Lukemia that Wasn't
From the Memoirs of Rav Moshe Fhima
In one of the summer camps that Yad Yisroel led in Ukraine, we had a teacher from our school who had evolved into being one of the educators for the children. At first he was responsible only for their health and safety, but after we came to know his intelligence and patience, he became responsible for their education as well. His name was Mikahil, but we called him by his Jewish name of Chaim. He also had his two teenaged sons with him at camp.
One day I came upon him and found him crying. Chaim was about 50 years of age and to see a 50-year-old man crying can take you aback. When I asked him what the problem was, he couldn’t even control himself enough to talk. I put my arm around him and got him a drink of water and as we sat there I asked him again to tell me what was wrong and that maybe I could help.
“You’re not a doctor. You can’t help.”
“Just tell me. You have nothing to lose and anyway, it is not as if it will become worse.” So he told me. Our camp was for six weeks and for the last several weeks he had been going back and forth to the town of Chmelnitski. His son had not been feeling well and so he had been taking him to see a doctor there. Some tests had been made and today he had been told that his son had been diagnosed with Leukemia.
Leukemia of course is a very bad. But to have Leukemia in Russia is worse, because the technology is not as up-to-date as it is in the west. So the first thing I did was to make a phone call to one doctor Adler, a world famous surgeon in London. This doctor is a good person and I asked him what could possibly be done for Chaim’s son. He asked me if I could bring him over to London, something that we had done from time to time when it was really needed. He then went on to describe what treatments were possible, how long the road was and the percentages of chances for recovery. I thanked him for his time. This was going to require a lot of thought.
My thinking of what to do took the form of prayer and that night I asked G-d for assistance in showing me the best road that we could take. It was early that morning that a thought came to me. Our camp was in the village of Letichev which was only eight kilometers from the Kever, the burial site of the Bal Shem Tov. It is said that praying at the Bal Shem Tov’s grave has made miracles, why not go there and start the process by praying there for some help in this situation?
Right away I found Chaim and told him about Doctor Adler and what he had said. And then I added that I wanted to go down to the Kever. The father at first looked a bit embarrassed.
“You know Moisha, I don’t really know about this business with the Bal Shem Tov. And also, and I am a little ashamed to say this, but I have never really prayed in my life. It is just not our way here.”
“Well, I understand this, but what have you got to lose? And besides, the BeSHT was from Russia, so he will probably understand you if you prayed in Russian and not Hebrew.”
We got into my Fiat two door, the first car that I ever had, drove the eight kilometers to the small town of Medzhibozh and went straight to the Kever, the burial site of the Bal Shem Tov. Chaim went inside and I heard him speak to the BeSHT as one would speak to a friend. This is about how I remember what I heard him say:
“Listen, Bal Shem Tov: I have never really heard about you before, but I hear that people say that if you want to, you can make wonders. I have a son, and I love him very much. But he is in trouble right now and I don’t really know what else I can do. So I have come here to make a deal with you.” He paused for a moment and then went on, “I don’t know that I have been the best Jew in my life, and there is so much that I don’t know. But if, when we go to the doctor tomorrow morning we should find that the Leukemia has disappeared, my two children and I will put on tefillin every day. I will not put another piece of food in my mouth until I know how to recite a blessing before eating food. And thirdly, I will never again smoke on the Shabbos. But if not, well, a deal is a deal and we go back to the way things were; I don’t know you and you don’t know me.”
I had gotten such a feeling from this prayer and thought that because it had come from such a deep place in Chaim’s soul that really, it might just move heaven.
We went back to the camp, got his son and straight away went down to Chmelniitski.
We found the doctor who had made the original diagnosis and asked him to give another blood test to see of the boy had Leukemia or not. This was a pretty typical Ukrainian doctor and he shot back at us:
“What do you think? Are you making fun of me? I don’t know my job? We just diagnosed him yesterday. I am sorry, I know you are upset, but the results are how we have said.”
We asked him to just do it, but he wouldn’t. We even begged him to make the test and still he refused. So I went with an old standard that always had gotten results in the former Soviet Union: A fifty dollar bill. I took this out of my pocket and offered it to him.
“Could you please make another test? What do you care?” He took the money.
“Of course we can make a second test for you. Come right this way.”
So they made a second test. It was some time before the results came but when we got the call, we straight away went to the clinic to speak with the doctor.
“Aha, so you were making fun of me.” He started. He was reading the results from the second test. “You brought the boy’s twin here to take the test.”
“What are you saying?”
“The other boy has the Leukemia. This one does not. I understand that you were worried, but just because one twin has Leukemia does not mean that the other has it as well. This game was unnecessary. You could have simply said that you wanted the brother tested as well.”
We all three looked at each other and understood that a miracle had happened. The disease had somehow simply gone from the boy’s blood. It had happened because of the deep faith that the father had in the Tzadik and the deeds that the father had taken upon himself in order that his son should be able to continue.
From here we can see that the depth of prayer that a person has, if it is really sincere and if one really believes that G-d can make miracles- even if it is only for one’s personal values, Hashem always helps us out.