Chapter 86

I took the child in my arms, and we descended the stairs with him to leave the ward. The child was filled with joy. He quite literally danced in our arms from joy and gladness, moving his hands and feet. With his mouth he virtually sang and laughed, saying, “Ah, ah,” from joy and gladness. It was wondrous in our eyes to behold the child’s joy upon leaving the hospital.

No human power of hand or mind can depict or assess our own joy as we stood and sat there beside the round table, recalling all the torments we had endured until then, and as we left with the child. It was truly like the joy of Israel when they go forth from exile to redemption.

Blessed be Hashem, on Tuesday—the day on which “it was good” was stated twice—of Parashas Chukas, the twenty-sixth of Sivan, precisely one year after the day on which I first saw this child following his birth, we merited receiving him back into our home. Blessed be Hashem that we merited reaching this point. Through this we perceived with our own eyes that even in our affliction “our God did not abandon us, but extended kindness to us.” We attributed everything to the merit of our holy Rabbainu and to the merit of the Godly Tanna Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, may his merit protect us, amen, who had become a guarantor for the child, as occurred with his disciple, the Tanna Rabbi Yitzchak, in the incident brought in the holy Zohar.

We left the hospital with the child in my embrace. Everyone quite literally rejoiced together with us in our joy. We entered a taxi and traveled home. We considered going to Meah Shearim and entering the home of my father-in-law to bring him this good news. We then reflected, however, that it would be difficult for the child to wander to Meah Shearim and then onward. Since a taxi had become available to us, we hired it to take us as far as the city. Thus we traveled with the child in great joy, and all of us rejoiced together.

We reached the city at the gate of Batei Machseh. We immediately fulfilled the vow we had made verbally—that the child’s first visit would be to the Western Wall. We therefore left the taxi and went directly with the child to the Western Wall to thank Hashem, may He be blessed.

Along the way we distributed charity to every poor person seated throughout the road to the Western Wall, and likewise to those seated at the Wall, omitting no one, just as we had said. Thus we fulfilled our pledge. We walked the entire way. Although this was apparently difficult for the child, we did what we had undertaken. We reached the Western Wall and kissed it; the child likewise kissed the Wall. We thanked and praised Hashem, may He be blessed, with thanksgiving and praise for all the kindness He had bestowed upon us in His mercy and abundant lovingkindness: “Were our mouths as full of song as the sea,” and so forth. We remained a short while, immediately returned with the child, and reached our home in great joy.

My wife, may she live, immediately took the child to the Tipat Chalav clinic and presented the card. The nurse was exceedingly astonished by the child’s illness. She said that not even one in a thousand—and not even one in a thousand of those—emerged alive from such an illness, and that the child’s survival constituted miracles beyond the natural order.

The nurse weighed the child, as was her practice. She also told my wife to follow the written instructions given by the hospital concerning the foods required to sustain the child and restore him to health. The nurse possessed a charitable fund for poor and weak infants, for whom she prepared a soup consisting of several kinds of food in order to sustain them. Since she knew our circumstances and the condition of this weak child, she agreed to provide this food for our child as well.

My wife, may she live, took the child to the Tipat Chalav clinic, but she had already missed the morning feeding and returned home. In the afternoon she again took the child to the clinic and there gave him the aforementioned food among the other children who ate there. The practice was that these children ate there twice each day, once before midday and once in the afternoon. Each day one woman—the mother of one of the children—was required to clean all the utensils and the premises; on the next day another child’s mother would do so. They therefore stipulated with my wife that on the following day she would clean the utensils, as stated above.

The child was so exceedingly weak that this cannot be measured. On that day she gave him the aforementioned cooked food at the Tipat Chalav clinic. Nevertheless, his condition was not good at all; he remained profoundly weak. We possessed no counsel as to how to strengthen and sustain him, particularly with the foods that the physician at Hadassah had prescribed. The food at the Tipat Chalav clinic did not strengthen him very much.