By Rabbi Ephraim Eliyahu Shapiro
A number of years ago, Beinish traveled to Los Angeles to receive a bone marrow transplant at the City of Hope hospital. He was told that he’d need to remain nearby the hospital for several months in case he needed to be called back for a check-up. In the meantime, two of his friends from back home in the East Coast flew out to visit and support him as he underwent a long period of recovery and recuperation.
While Beinish, along with his friends, spent some quality time together, they discovered that there was a Jew from Jerusalem who was also at the hospital and scheduled to have a bone marrow transplant. They decided that they’d visit him together.
But when they arrived, it was too late. “He had the transplant a half-hour ago,” said the lead nurse. “At this time, he’s not able to see any visitors.” They had missed the window of catching him before he went in for the procedure.
The Nurse Asks for a Favor
About to turn around and head the other way, the nurse called out. “Wait,” he said, giving pause to the three men. “Can I ask for a favor?”
The three of them glanced at each other. What favor could they offer the nurse? But they’d listen.
“I always tell the patient before the transplant begins what to expect. For about forty-eight hours afterwards, they won’t have much strength. They’ll feel very weak and lack nearly all their energy. Mostly, they’ll lie down without moving much. But I tell them not to worry, because this type of post-op recovery is normal.
“The thing is,” went on the nurse, “I wasn’t able to tell this to the man who came in today from Jerusalem, because he speaks Hebrew and I speak English. I didn’t know how to communicate this to him, and there was no one around who could interpret for me. But you three speak Hebrew. His wife is over there, and it would be important for her to know this information, so both she and her husband can be prepared.”
Observing a Most Unreal Scene
As the nurse stood talking to the three of them, from behind a glass wall in the distance, the men began observing an unreal scene. It was the man from Jerusalem who had just had the transplant a half-hour ago. He wiggled his feet off the bed, albeit slowly, stood up and grabbed hold of the IV pole, made his way to where his clothing was and put on his black hat, walked to the sink and washed netillas yadayim, and then got back into bed. Stunned, the nurse began mouthing aloud, audibly, “It’s not possible... It’s not possible!”
One of the three men, witness to the incredulous scene, approached the nurse. “Excuse me, but I’d say there’s one of two explanations. Either we just witnessed a one-in-a-million medical miracle, or, by your own admission and because of the language barrier, it was the first time you couldn’t convey to the patient what they wouldn’t be able to do. Maybe when you don’t tell somebody what they can’t do, they are able to do it.”
The nurse took such words to heart, and from that point on, never again so forcefully told a patient what they can’t do. There would be recommendations and precautions given, but nothing ever set in stone.
When you tell somebody their limitations and what they can’t do, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. They become unable to do it. But if you don’t tell someone what they can’t do, they might surprise you and accomplish the unexpected and the extraordinary.
The man from Jerusalem wasn’t told to expect staying bedridden for two days, and when he didn’t know what he couldn’t do, there were no limitations.
And he did the so-called impossible.
Reprinted from the Parshat Bechutai 5784 edition of the Torahanytime Newsletter edited and compiled by Elan Perchik.
