Embracing Faith Amidst Crisis: A Shabbos Tale of Healing, Community, and Divine Intervention

0:02 You can't prepare for situations like these. This was totally out of the blue, unexpected. It was this past Shabbos that I woke up and went to go see my two-year-old daughter when I noticed that she had a little bug bite that wasn't doing so well. It was inflamed. It seemed to be maybe being infected. It was swollen. It's a sacana, maybe. Is it not what to do? Do we need Hatzalo? Is it refuah on Shabbos? What do we do?

0:42 Do we go to the hospital? And after a crazy day, I learned a lot about myself and a lot about the Jewish world, and I'd like to share some of the takeaways with you. Perhaps you will find them to be of value. The first thing I learned is when I'm me, my wife, we decided that I would take my daughter to Shul to find a Hatzalo member, and I learned that there are a whole lot of Hatzalo members in the Jewish world, for I was swamped with the Hatzalo agents of sorts. It came over to help me and I was blown away by how caring and loving each one was. When they phoned the head medic with their famous walkie-talkies, I met an even nicer individual who coached me and examined my daughter, and that it doesn't look very serious, but it needs to be checked out to make sure it could be that there's a sacana.

1:31 I then want to speak to the Rove to see how do I go about going to the hospital, getting this CAT scan or X-ray of sorts on Shabbos, and I learned the importance of having a Rove to answer these questions. But there's a lot of ambiguity and certainty of how to go about Shabbos and breaking the law on Shabbos. What do you do? But when you have a Rove who tells you definitively, with clarity this is what you do, it's worth a million dollars, not more. Then, ordering an Uber on Shabbos was a weird experience, but if you're going on Shabbos COVID anionic you got to do it right. You got to get a nice Uber XL Traveling on an Uber in an Uber on Shabbos.

2:13 We then got to the hospital. My daughter is in good spirits and she meets this elderly white gentleman, a Caucasian fellow, in a bright red suit that we call Santa Claus, and she mistook him for Uncle Maishi. I learned how sheltered my daughter is. I say that fondly. Then, eventually, when we got some prescription, we got a medication. She's totally fine. Everything was happy and we took the Uber back. We're back in time for Mincha, for the Suda. It's never too late for some herring. Everyone was feeling totally well as a bracha from Hashem Crisis averted, thank you to the Almighty. I learned that, oh yeah, it's Shabbos.

2:56 I didn't feel like Shabbos. I was in a hospital. There was a TV on with National Geographic, we were in a car. I learned that well, it's not up to us that every seventh day of Shabbos it's Makadishah Shabbos, that Hashem makes it holy. But we're commanded, zachar of Hashemur, to dress the part, to hold up your hand with a glass of kiddish wine, to gather the family together to sing Zmiros. And I learned that we are in control of creating our own vibe, our own atmosphere and that aura of Shabbos. I learned that if one doesn't, then it's hard for one to feel Shabbos.

3:42 And how we treat mitzvos and inyane kadooshah is very much how they will reciprocate and inspire and give off their light. Perhaps this is why we kiss our Sepharim, we march around with the Toyras and we put on our beautiful Shabbos begadim, kovid and inyane, because when we give Kovid and inyane to Shabbos, to a mitzvah I learned this past week but then the mitzvah reciprocates and we really feel it.