Life. It’s not for us to comprehend. Only to bow our heads in submission when young people reach life’s end, seemingly much too early. We humbly accept, knowing a loving G-d is holding us tight and guiding us toward our lofty spiritual goals.
Some are afflicted with a disease we hesitate to even mention and see their time here on earth beginning to end. Some step forward out of their normal routine, ignoring the inconvenience, ignoring the minor aches and pains to save the life of another.
Captain Yedidya Lev was one of the latter. In the midst of his very pressing responsibilities after October 7th, he donated his stem cells to save the life of a middle-aged woman. His stem cells are now flowing in her blood stream. Because of Captain Lev, she now has a future.
And the captain? His future? For the captain who enabled another to live, there will be no future. His life was taken in service of his country but he lives on in the future of a middle aged woman he had never met.
At the funeral, his mother echoed the words of Jewish mothers of generations of long ago. . “It’s not normal for parents to cry over the grave of a son, it’s not normal for a young brother to eulogize his sibling, it’s not normal for grandparents to bury a grandson, but we are not a normal nation. We are a nation of God.”
Known only to our Creator, it is incomprehensible to the created. Our job? To fulfill our responsibilities. And so the Ezer Mizion International Bone Marrow Registry continues to grow, testing new registrants in the hopes of finding a genetic match for cancer patients whose sole chance to live is a transplant. Sometimes, the response is positive and staff, together with family, rejoice. And sometimes the response is negative. ‘Not yet but we’ll keep trying.’ As contributions from generous donors – all of you – pour in, we test more and more. They come from all walks of life, each one hoping to be the one to save someone’s life.
Meet Michael and Daniel who came to our Farajun Stem Cell Collection Center on the same day, to donate their stem cells. It was not easy for them to disrupt whatever shreds of their routine they had remaining. Both have been away from their homes in northern Israel for eight months.
Both evacuee heroes are living an abnormal reality. They each stepped out of their personal situations and came to Ezer Mizion to save the lives of two people who they know nothing about. We salute them and their families and hope for their speedy return home!
At times, the collection center is said to resemble a yeshiva (Talmudical school), filled with yeshiva students, many of them with chavrusas (study partners). Their gemorrahs Talmud books) are open. They’re learning with such joy as their life-saving stem cells accumulate, soon to be transplanted into the body of another.
Among the boys, one day, was the grandson of Rav Yitzchak Zilberstein. The donor’s father HaRav Roth shlit”a came by with Rav Chananya Chollak, founder of Ezer Mizion, to observe the process and rejoice in the privilege of hatzalas nefoshos (saving a life).
Together we all form a Triangle of Life: the patient, the donor and you, our dear friends and supporters, who donate so generously to fund the genetic testing of donor after donor after donor.
