We were a young couple, barely out of yeshivah and seminary, and we were new parents to a sweet baby. Something about her behavior didn’t seem right to us, and we took her to the doctor. The doctor examined her and he announced, “You must go to the hospital immediately! She needs emergency surgery. You don’t have to take an ambulance, but it’s urgent that you get there ASAP.”
We walked out of the doctor’s office shell-shocked. We had never imagined that this is what we would hear. Not long before that, we’d been holding on to our parents’ apron strings! We called them up immediately. My parents were away on a long trip, and they didn’t have their cell phones with them. My wife’s parents were not available at the time to answer our call, and we understood that there was no one else who could take responsibility for the decision. We were the parents, and now the responsibility was ours alone. What to do?
I remembered that there was a family with a similar story, who had taken a private doctor, but the surgery was not so successful. My wife called her aunt, who told her that it was very important to take care of the problem, lest such and such occur, and we should hurry up. Which hospital? Perhaps it was really critical to take a private doctor?
There was no one to answer our questions, and at that point I told my wife, “I decided to take a private Doctor – the best and biggest Doctor there is: the Ribbono shel Olam. He will be our daughter’s Doctor.” I reminded her of the Nefesh Hachaim’s segulah, concentrating fully on the words “ein od milvado.”
We took a sefer Tehillim, and we prepared to go. We went home, packed a few items, and went downstairs to the main road. There an avreich from the neighborhood called out to me from his car, “Do you need to get to Yerushalayim?”
This was special hashgachah pratis. Never before had he offered me anything like this, and here he was offering something I had not even asked for. He took us to the hospital, and there the emergency room experience began. We waited for about three hours, and I saw that it was almost shekiah. I went out to a nearby shul to daven Minchah, and my wife, seeing that the baby was asleep, stood up to daven as well.
One cannot compare a Minchah uttered when life is peaceful to one uttered in times of difficulty. She davened from the depths of her heart, slowly and patiently, before the great Doctor on High, and it was just then that the nurse finally called our family name; the doctor had arrived. My wife heard the nurse calling her, but she said to herself, We decided that we’re taking a private Doctor. I’m talking to him now; it makes no sense for me to stop a discussion with the big Doctor in order to speak to a flesh-and-blood doctor. She continued her tefillah without hurrying, and when she finished, she asked the nurse what was happening.
“The doctor was here. We called you and you didn’t come. Wait now until he comes by again.”
We waited. Three more hours passed, and finally, the doctor arrived. He looked at the girl, examined her, and said, “She really needs surgery, but now it’s already late. Come tomorrow.”
“But they told us it was urgent.”
“If it’s so urgent, how is it that you didn’t come over to the nurse the minute she called you? I came especially for you, and you didn’t come. Because of this, you’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”
He had decided to teach us a lesson, and I saw this as a nisayon to see whether we would regret having davened Minchah slowly. We stayed at our parents’ home in Yerushalayim overnight, and in the morning we ordered a taxi to take us to the hospital. Ordinarily the taxis arrive quickly, but this time there was a serious delay. We waited and waited until it finally arrived, and we went to the hospital. This time we were greeted by a friendly doctor who was wearing a kippah. He checked the baby, and he cried out in surprise. “Listen – the problem has been resolved. You can see how most of what needs to come out already came out on its own. Let’s wait a bit more and see that everything that’s left comes out as well. I don’t think you need surgery.”
In the meantime, we were called in to the operating room to prepare the baby. I told the nurse, “The doctor said we don’t need surgery,” but they responded, “It says here that she needs surgery.” I ran to call the doctor, and he came in at the last moment, reexamined her, and said, “We don’t need surgery. Your baby is healthy. Go home.”
It was clear as daylight: All the setbacks were meant to bring us to the point when the doctor would say that everything was okay. Throughout all this time that we had to wait, our daughter was being treated by the greatest private Doctor. Hakadosh Baruch Hu healed her without any surgery.