Dear Rabbi Chananya Chollak and Ezer Mizion,Shalom! My name is Avishalom. I serve as a Rabbi in the Beit Hora’ah in ABC and as a dayan in the Beit Din Exxx Vxxx. I am married and the father of four children ages 6-11, baruch Hashem.To my great sorrow, my acquaintance with Ezer Mizion in recent years stems from my wife’s serious illness. In the recent past, she has undergone difficult treatments in the Davidoff Cancer Center in Petach Tikvah. At the time, she recovered baruch Hashem. Unfortunately, during this past year, she had to resume treatments.

This is not the place to describe all the trials and tribulations we are going through, nor is that the reason I decided to write this letter. You probably are far too familiar with such cases and others even more painful than ours. I’m sure I have little to tell you that you don’t know already. May G-d have mercy on the Jewish people and send a full recovery to all of us.

The reason I decided to write to you personally is that our family was privileged to receive from you a precious gift called “life.”

Our everyday life in this world is filled with non-stop challenges – day after day and hour after hour of endless running, aggravations, fears, anxieties and doubts, without a moment’s rest. From Ezer Mizion, we receive peace, tranquility, happiness and… life.

At these very moments, my wife is getting ready to go to a hotel in Nir Etzion. I heard her this morning getting up with a song on her lips and singing to the children as she got them up to go to school and kindergarten (and this after yesterday’s treatment…) She was so excited that a trip was in the offing to grant her life.

We have not yet gotten over the Chanukah event that you organized for the children at the farm, which gave all of us a boost of joy and vitality. We still bask in the memories of past events that brought us joy and…life.

At moments of tension, of medical tests, of thoughts about things that we fear to say in words, we recall these exciting events, picture the smiles on the faces of our happy children – and thanks to you, we receive life.

These moments of “joy and life” are worth a fortune to us. If we could, we would keep those moments alive forever. If we could, we would stop the “film” and remain suspended in this state of joy and life without returning to our challenges, but…

At present, all we can do is, at the very least, to say – thank you for everything, and to express our deep appreciation for your tremendous life-giving enterprise.

I also want to stress another special, beautiful aspect of your operation.

As a matter of course, when a patient and his family come to an event arranged for them free of charge, they feel a bit “inferior,” “unfortunate,” a kind of “social case” that needs to be cheered up in his misery. That’s how the patient and his family tend to feel deep inside.

Furthermore, as a rule, the organizers, on their part, give off a certain degree of superiority.  After all, they are the ones on the giving side. It is thanks to them that we are receiving this injection of life.

The organizers have every reason to feel self-important. And even if they feel more than a bit, after all is said and done, they deserve it. After all, they are the givers, and whoever isn’t comfortable with that, can leave.

But with Ezer Mizion, I can say in the most definite way, that it is not the case at all!!! I – and all the participants in your events – can attest that the common denominator to all these activities is that always – and I mean always – we feel like “VIPs”, the “sought after ones,” as if we are members of royalty, and we are the ones pulling the strings…

You know how to give us the feeling that we are determining what is good for us and what we prefer. There is a unique and wonderful feeling that everything is functioning as we want. If we have requests or objections, they are immediately addressed. Never did we hear a single word of complaint or the hint of a groan that would indicate that we are burdensome – not from Zevi, Rivka, or Batsheva, nor from anyone else (I don’t know all the names).

You do your job in the most perfect way – both from the logistic standpoint as well as on the plane of human relations. We always come out feeling as if we are doing you a favor by coming… and I am speaking about all the staff members and volunteers, without exception.

I must tell you that I am gripped with emotion every time I see the “comradeship” that prevails between you and your staff. More than once, I overheard conversations between staff members in which they spoke of you with reverence and love.

The unique bond with the volunteers, the humility and simplicity, the natural, open communication with the patients and their families,- it is clear to me that it all starts from the top, and that is why we feel this way.

For all this, we want to “thank, praise and extol,” and to say thank you in our name and in the name of all those who receive the gift of joy and life.

May you merit always being among the givers, the healthy, the granters of life, and the happy – forever! Amen – may it be G-d’s will!

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