It was Erev Shabbos Parshas Achrei Mos, and R’ Meir found himself on the fifth floor of RWJ Hospital. Over Pesach, his vibrant one-year-old had been getting weaker and weaker, and nobody could understand why. On Chol Hamoed, they’d gone to their doctor, who ran a series of tests to find out what could be causing his sudden condition, but nothing proved conclusive.
So, two days after Pesach, Thursday of Achrei Mos, the pediatrician directed them to the emergency room. “We must discover the underlying cause of this,” he told them. “I’m affiliated with RWJ, where they’ll run additional tests, and I’ll oversee your case.” And so they did. On Thursday afternoon, R’ Meir and his wife packed their bags, picked up their baby, and headed to the hospital.
At 7:39, while they were on their way, R’ Meir received a message from his brother, saying, “Mit a bissel bitachin, ha’kol yihye b’seder—With a little bitachon, everything will be fine.” R’ Meir wasn’t so much in the mood at that point to hear chizuk, as his lifeless son’s condition was worrying him to no end.
By Friday morning, they’d performed many tests, and the results showed that their sixteen-month-old had a UTI infection. The young child was immediately infused with antibiotics, but as the day progressed, he showed no signs of improvement. He remained sleepy and drowsy.
By Friday afternoon, R’ Meir and his wife realized that they’d be in RWJ for Shabbos. You can just imagine R’ Meir’s feelings of being stuck in New Brunswick over Shabbos, away from his family and friends and barely seeing any Yidden — something new to him. Neither would he have his bigdei Shabbos and the Chassidishe bren he was used to.
R’ Meir made his way to the Bikur Cholim room to stock up on the Shabbos necessities, bringing back many goodies along with incandescent lightbulbs to “light” l’kavod Shabbos. As his wife was about to take in Shabbos, R’ Meir turned to her and said, “We will be mekabel Shabbos with simchah, and we won’t let our surroundings disrupt our simchas Shabbos.”
As his wife “lit” the candles, they saw their son, Elazar, start responding, and show minimal movement. By the time, R’ Meir was singing Lechah Dodi, Elazar was motioning in so many words, “Tatty, pick me up already; I want to dance.”
For almost a week, their son hadn’t shown any signs of life. Only when they were mekabel Shabbos b’simchah did they see the flick of the switch.
Up and Awake
Soon after that, the shifts changed, and the presiding resident doctor of the night shift came to pay a visit. The resident doctor examined the baby, but he was surprised by what he saw. “This is not the baby the previous resident told me about,” he stated. “His situation seems to have changed drastically. I don’t know how it changed, but if this is how the baby is reacting, then you’re free to go. I know it’s your Shabbat and you can’t travel home, so you can stay for the duration of the day, but your baby is fine.”
With that, the doctor instructed the nurse to disconnect the IV and remove the quarantine poster hanging from the wall. They held their son and proceeded to eat their Shabbos seuda with gratitude and praise to Hashem for giving them their yeshua.
Their simcha that they showed toward the mitzva only brought along with it more simcha.
