A few minutes later, the doctor stuck his head out into the hallway and gave me a thumbs up. Without stopping to think, I suddenly raced out to the parking lot. I’d just purchased mezuzos for someone earlier that day, and they were still in my car. I grabbed one and rushed back to the ill man.
“Hold this,” I said, helping his hand enclose the rolled parchment. I noted with satisfaction how his weakened hand clung to the mezuzah, and I returned to the lobby to continue speaking with his daughter. A short while later, the doctor gave me another thumbs up. With her father’s life now secure, I returned home.
During the drive, I scrutinized my reactions throughout the entire encounter. Had I done the right thing? What if I was just making it all up?
When I got home, I took out a volume of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s Igros Kodesh and opened a page at random. The letter spoke about the protective qualities of a mezuzah, and how just being in close proximity to one was enough to guarantee protection for one’s health.
A few days later was Purim, and I went to visit the patient, now on his way to a full recovery. I gave him some mishloach manos, and helped him put on tefillin for the first time in his life. Fittingly, his name was Mordechai!
Many years later, I was visiting new patients on my rounds as the hospital chaplain. One woman peered at me closely and asked, “Rabbi, do you remember me?” When I apologized and told her I didn’t, she told me she was Mordechai’s daughter. “I’ve never forgotten the conversation we had while my father hovered between life and death,” she said. “It had a profound impact on me. My father lived another five years after you met!”
Her diagnosis wasn’t good, and when she passed away a short while later, I was honored to fulfill her last will and conduct her funeral.
