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Chassidic Story
#244
(s5762-40/ 9 Tammuz)
THE CHASIDIC HOSPITAL
During the Holocaust, the Klausenberger Rebbe traversed
every level of Hell … he vowed that if he survived he would …
THE
CHASIDIC HOSPITAL
[The Klausenberger-Sanz Rebbe passed away
in the same week as the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This year his yahrzeit
falls on Wed. June 19.]
In the summer of 2000, a 127-day doctors' strike finally drew to
an end. The number of lives lost in the course of the strike is still
to be tallied, and the long-term health consequences will never be
known.
At Laniado Hospital in Netanya, however, the strike never began. Since
its founding by the Klausenberger-Sanz Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Halberstam,
in 1975, there has never been a strike by any hospital employee or
work stoppage of any kind. Just as soldiers cannot strike in the midst
of battle, the Rebbe taught, so too those involved in healing may
not strike no matter how legitimate their grievances.
During the Holocaust, the Rebbe traversed every level of Hell - Auschwitz,
ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, work camps, and death marches. In the
course of that journey, which claimed his wife and their eleven children,
he vowed that if he survived he would build a monument to chesed
-deeds of kindness- that would stand in the starkest possible contrast
to the inhumanity of German "men of culture and science."
Laniado is that monument. It took the Rebbe fifteen years to raise
the money to build the hospital. His mission was to show the world
a Jewish approach to healing and that the highest medical standards
are fully consistent with the highest standards of Jewish law.
When the Minister of Health scoffed at the Rebbe's dream, and told
him that three permits had already been issued for new hospitals in
the Netanya area, the Rebbe replied that none of them would be built.
(He was right.) To the Minister's offer to let the Rebbe supervise
religious affairs at the government hospitals in the region, the Rebbe
countered that he would run his hospital and let the Minister affix
the mezuzot.
In a speech to the entire staff of the hospital upon its opening,
the Rebbe said, "Our Torah is a Torah of lovingkindness. Everyone
can understand that a rabbi, and indeed every believing Jew, wishes
to establish Torah institutions. Everyone should therefore understand
why a rabbi established this hospital, which is, in fact, a magnificent
Torah institution."
Building a hospital was another aspect of teaching Torah in the Rebbe's
eyes. (He later founded Mifal HaShas, under whose auspices
thousands are tested on between 20 to 70 folios of Talmud every month.)
The Rebbe was careful that nothing should ever detract from his main
goal of demonstrating to the world a hospital based on the Torah.
When a female employee began distributing in the hospital material
on the laws of family purity, the Rebbe stopped her immediately. "They
will say I built this hospital to proselytize - to have kosher food
or to pass out pamphlets," he explained.
The Rebbe succeeded in creating the unique Torah institution he had
envisioned. The rabbi of the hospital, Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Schwartz,
is involved in every aspect of medical care - not just giving instructions
on heating water on Shabbat. He meets frequently with every department
head to discuss halachic questions, and is a constant presence
on the wards. In the nearly quarter century of Laniado's existence,
he has not taken a single day of vacation!
The average hospital Laniado's size has six respirators. Laniado has
25 so that no doctor ever has to set priorities in the allocation
of respirators. Once a patient was unconscious and believed brain
dead on a respirator for 55 days following a near drowning. Today
he is alive and well.
Most important is the attitude to healing with which the Rebbe imbued
the staff. In his opening speech he pronounced the most vital quality
for the staff as "a warm Jewish heart." The protocols of
the hospital, drafted by the Rebbe, specify that employees should
be "full of love for their fellow Jews and every other human
being."
The Rebbe told the staff that their goal must always be "to cure
the patient not just cure the disease," and he insisted that
concern with their pain was crucial to that task. Asked which of two
types of syringe needles the hospital should purchase - one that was
slightly less painful or one that was half the price - he immediately
ordered the more expensive needles.
Dr. Andre deFreis, the former director-general of Beilenson Hospital,
later served at Laniado. He described the difference in Laniado: "Here
I feel I'm a healer. There is a feeling of being involved in holy
work." He told a medical conference, "At Laniado, I learned
that the patient is a person."
A man once came to the Rebbe in America to thank him for saving his
life. He had been in critical condition in a hospital for several
days, and two young nurses did not leave his side during that entire
period. They explained their dedication, "We are graduates of
Laniado nursing school. And we once heard the Rebbe speak on the merit
of saving lives. We felt that with constant attention we could save
you."
One Rosh Hashana, a woman began to hemorrhage badly during child birth.
She needed a massive transfusion of a rare blood type immediately.
An order went out that every student in the adjacent yeshiva
should immediately rush to the hospital to have their blood type tested.
Prayers were stopped in the middle of Musaf of Rosh Hashana.
The women's sister, herself a nurse, told the staff later, "There
is no other hospital where she would still be alive today."
The Rebbe told the nursing school students that if they ever heard
of a woman contemplating an abortion, they should tell her that the
Rebbe would raise the child as his own. One woman convinced by a nursing
school student in this fashion to carry to term a baby she had been
told would be deformed delivered a perfectly healthy baby.
The Rebbe once explained why there have never been any demonstrations
-against Shabbat violations and the like- in Kiryat Sanz. "When
you come to a place of darkness, you do not chase out the darkness
with a broom. You light a candle."
Few have lit so bright a candle.
_______________
Taken from an article in the Jerusalem Post by Jonathan Rosenblum,
who writes a weekly column offering a spiritual perspective on current
events in Israel. He is the director of the Israel office of Am
Echad. This article was submitted to Ascent by <chazon@netvision.net.il>.
Biographical note:
Rabbi Yekutiel Yehuda Halberstam [1904-9 Tammuz 1994]
the Klausenberger Rebbe, also became the post-war Rebbe of
the Sanz Chassidim. One of the foremost Chasidic leaders of
his generation, he is best known for his revitalization of the study
of Talmud through "Mifal Shas" and the building of
a hospital, Laniado in Netanya, that functions at the highest standards
of Jewish law and medical practice.
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