I have three Rebbe stories.
To begin with, I made aliyah on the third of Tammuz, 1967, one month after the Six-Day War, a date that eventually became the Rebbe’s yahrzeit. So, I’ve always had a special feeling for that date.
The second story occurred in the year 2009. More than a year earlier our then three-year-old grandson, son of our daughter Naama and Avner Cohen, was diagnosed with LCH – Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. It was challenging to arrive at a diagnosis, as it is a non-genetic and rare condition, found (at that time) in only a quarter of a million children. I have seen it referred to as one of the “orphan diseases,” meaning something so rare that there is little money for research. I remember reading at the time that the disease sometimes spontaneously resolves itself and is cured, though the patient continues to have regular check-ups, because it can develop, G-d forbid, into cancer. Naama remembers that they were told that if it manifests in three locations, chemotherapy is recommended. (Please do not accept anything written here as authoritative medical advice.)
But first, some back story:
Naama and Avner had originally lived in Atzmona, in Gush Katif. After the destruction of Gush Katif in the summer 2005, most of the residents of Atzmona – Naama’s family among them – were relocated by the Israeli government to what used to be Kibbutz Shomria, in the northeast Negev. There had been only eleven families left in the original kibbutz, and they were compensated and relocated. Daily life today in Shomria is similar to a yishuv kehilati, a community village. Its members are deeply religious and Zionistic.
While they were still living in Atzmona, on Pesach of 2005, this child was born in an army car, as Avner, an IDF career officer, was driving Naama to Kaplan Hospital in Rehovot. They didn’t make it in time, and she gave birth in the front seat, with the ambulance driver, who had arrived only seconds before, literally “catching” the baby (a term often used by home-birthers, though this one was unintentional) at the last minute.
Thank G-d he was born healthy, and they named him Oz (pronounced with a long “O”) Naftali. Oz, which in Hebrew means “strength,” a quality they felt they would need before the impending destruction of their beloved communities, and Naftali for my father, who had passed away five months earlier and to whom Naama had been close. My father had been a man who combined a great intellect and a love of Jewish learning with a dedication to physical fitness, even into his 80s, and having his name would certainly carry blessing.
A synchronistic, almost mystical, side-story was that Avner’s grandfather, who was the sandak, got very emotional when he heard the name at the brit milah. He had had a brother named Naftali who died young, and no one in the family had ever been named for him. So, everyone felt that Oz Naftali was a special soul.
In the months following Oz’s diagnosis, in 2008, while Naama held down the fort at home with their three other children, Avner spent many days accompanying Oz to Schneider Children’s Medical Center in Petah Tikvah, for a plethora of tests, including blood tests, X-rays and MRIs…not an easy reality for a three-year-old, and approximately an hour’s drive each way from Shomria.
What followed the diagnosis was a series of blessed “coincidences”; Naama and Avner were, “by chance,” in the midst of organizing the bureaucracy to fly with Oz and his siblings to America to obtain U.S. citizenship for them (grandparenting it through me). Their appointments were in Cleveland, my hometown, but we were flying through and spending time with friends in Toronto, where my husband and I had been shlichim in the 80s. As it turned out (coincidentally), the world expert in LCH was located in Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, and through Rav Firer of Bnai Brak, they obtained an appointment with her. The doctor checked out Oz, and said that the Israeli doctors were excellent and that they were doing whatever she would be doing.
We flew back to Israel, and the doctors continued to closely monitor Oz’s condition on an ongoing basis.
In 2009, I was in New York for an ATARA conference. In an extra day I had at the end, I asked a New York friend of mine to arrange for a ride for me to the Ohel of the Rebbe. I was not a Chabadnik; my interest stemmed purely from an anthropological curiosity. I wanted to see the gravesite of this giant of a spiritual leader to whose final resting place people came from all over the world.
As is customary, I took a little Tehillim off the bookshelf, stood by the kever, and let the Tehillim fall open, on its own, to whichever perek it “chose.”
It fell open to Perek 78. Or, in Hebrew, ayin zayin.
Oz.
My heart skipped more than one beat as I stood there davening, with tears in my eyes. Incongruously, the musical line that spontaneously flowed through my mind was from the 60s Neil Diamond song, I’m a Believer, and then I took a close look at the pesukim I was reading in that perek, including, “You are the G-d who works wonders; You have manifested Your strength among the peoples.”
In the car on the way back to my hostess’ home, I called my daughter in Israel and said, “Naama, Oz got a bracha from the Rebbe.” She replied, “Ima, we were in Schneider this week and the doctors gave him the all clear.”
Oz Naftali, who continued to be periodically monitored and is baruch Hashem healthy, recently turned 19 and, like his great-grandfather, is a young man of intellect who loves Torah learning and physical fitness.
My Own Story
In late November, 2016, I was diagnosed with breast cancer, while I was in the midst of producing and directing a revival of our Raise Your Spirits Theatre musical, “Ruth & Naomi in the Fields of Bethlehem.” I continued in my work, hoping that the adjuvant chemotherapy would not prevent me from completing the task, which was to bring the show to the stage in February.
As chance would have it, a few years earlier a friend of mine, Alizah Blake Hochstead, had given me one of the volumes of the Rebbe’s Igrot HaKodesh and explained to me the Chabad minhag of opening it to anywhere, if there was an issue that bothered you, and reading the “random” question that had been sent to the Rebbe, and his reply.
I opened the book and my heart skipped a beat again. I don’t remember the exact language of the question, which came from a female teacher, but I remember the Rebbe’s answer. He wrote, “Continue to teach the daughters of Israel to sing and to dance.”
A reply read by me, in the midst of directing a musical. I continued, and found the strength. It was easier feeling that a blessing from the Rebbe had my back.
A Prequel
According to Alizah, originally from Cleveland, mentioned above, “The Kazens were a well-known family in Cleveland from the 50s when they first came to Cleveland at the behest of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. They arrived from the former Soviet Union and immediately strengthened the existing Nusach HaAri minyan, and with the help of the Madorsky family, were able to move the shul to Lee Road where it is still a vibrant shul. In those days, there were immigrants from Russia in the shul, and today there are many young couples.”
In the early 70s, when my mother, Helen Klein, of blessed memory, became aware of how they had helped a young man in the neighborhood, she thought she could do something to help even more young people find themselves and draw closer to Judaism.
We were not a Chabad family, but, in addition to her regular work, my mother had always been involved – as a volunteer – in raising money for Jewish schools and causes, and even sometimes for general causes as well (like a library, a halfway house and more). Among other projects, she had been a board member and a successful fundraiser of what was at the time Cleveland’s highest-level Jewish after-school Talmud Torah, the Yeshivath Adath B’nai Israel, that I attended for six years before switching to a day school (Yavne) for high school.
So, her “go to” mode inspired her to join in raising money for a proper Chabad House in Cleveland.
She approached several well-known philanthropists, who had contributed to projects she promoted in the past, and succeeded in raising donations of a stunning amount to help get the ball rolling.
She never sought recognition or honors, so I’m grateful for the opportunity to put this good deed of hers in the record.
The Beat Goes On
One of the theater groups I direct in Israel is a women’s Playback (improvisational) theater troupe, called “Na’na.” We often receive requests to perform for Chabad events – a female principals’ retreat, end of year staff parties, bat mitzvot and more. Depending on how in depth my preliminary planning conversation is with the representative who contacts me, I sometimes tell them the story of our grandson, and my own story, and the story of my mother’s zechut. They are always deeply moved.
I also open every performance for a Chabad audience with the announcement, “I made aliyah on Gimmel Tammuz.” It always gets a loud round of applause.
One of my favorite lines is Hamlet’s, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” I have always taken that to mean that there are things that happen, “coincidences” and supposedly “random” events, that we have no explanation for.
So, there you have it. My Rebbe stories, that include nods to Neil Diamond and Shakespeare (I don’t think the Rebbe would have minded), and perek ayin zayin in Tehillim, continue to accompany me in these deeply challenging times for Am Yisrael.
