From Mount Skopus to Mount Meron

Isaiah Meyerovitz

My father, Gedalia Meyerovitz, was twenty-five years old when he was rounded up along with the other youths of the town Marmarush in Czechoslovakia and transported to a Nazi labor camp in Germany, where they were forced to work in a weapons factory. Towards the end of the war, the camp was heavily bombed in a raid by Allied planes. All of the Nazi guards in the camp fled in fear. As soon as the prisoners realized that their guards were gone, they too bolted, and found refuge in a nearby city.

After much shuffling from place to place, Gedalia was able to immigrate to the Land of Israel in 1947. Still suffering from his experience in the prison camp, when his ship landed in Yaffa port, Gedalia weighed all of 35 kilograms (77 pounds)! He was the sole survivor of all his family; his parents and seven siblings had all been slaughtered by the Nazi beasts.

Gedalia made his way to Jerusalem. There he was adopted and provided for by a kind-hearted family in the Hungarian Quarter of Meah Shearim. In an effort to rehabilitate himself physically and emotionally, he decided to join Etzel ("Stern Gang"), the most extreme of the Jewish resistance movements then functioning in Israel. The Etzel officers didn't see much in him at first, but they quickly revised their evaluations when they discovered that the quiet skeletal young volunteer was a munitions and explosives expert with much experience.

They provided him with a cellar near the center of town where he was able to work at producing explosives for Etzel operations. Above the cellar was a postal store, managed by another member of the movement. From time to time Gedalia would help out in the store, in order to give credence to his presence in the area on a nearly daily basis.

During that period a terrible tragedy took place. A caravan of doctors and nurses trying to reach Hadassah Hospital on Mount Skopus was ambushed, and seventy eight of them were killed. The Jewish community seethed in shock and frustration.

Etzel decided that the appropriate response was to bomb the Christian hospital "Agusta Victoria," because it was from its tower that the Jordanian murderers had set out on their deadly strike. Gedalia participated in the mission and was wounded by fragments from the explosion. Even more serious was the injury he suffered when an Arab rifle bullet shattered his right ankle. He collapsed, and was soon carted away on a stretcher to Hadassah Hospital.

The wound became infected and putrefied, and quickly became dangerous. The doctors were afraid they would have to amputate part of his foot. In a last hope maneuver to avoid the amputation, they performed a complicated surgery in an attempt to graft other bone in place of his crushed ankle. The graft didn't take and the necrosis continued to spread. The amputation was now unavoidable.

Gedalia fell into a deep depression. He had come to Israel completely alone and empty-handed. His goal and his dream was to get married and raise a family. But now, who would want to marry a crippled, impoverished orphan? He sunk in his misery and refused to speak to anyone, even his doctors.

Two young sofrim (scribes) from Jerusalem, Avraham and Natanel Eisenbach, made a point of coming once each week to visit the Jewish patients in Hadassah. They had become acquainted with Gedalia and looked for ways to raise his spirits.

All this happened during the days of the Jewish month of Iyar. One of the brothers went over to Gedalia's bedside and asked him in a whisper if he would like to be snuck out to accompany them to Meron, the burial place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in the North of Israel, on Lag B'Omer, which was only two days away.

Gedalia agreed sullenly. "Why not?" he thought to himself. "Nothing good is happening for me here in this hospital. So what do I have to lose?"

He had heard many wondrous stories that took place in Meron on Lag B'Omer. Who knows? Maybe a miracle could give him back his foot.

That night the two "rescuers" came to Gedalia's bedside, covered him with a sheet and carried him out on a stretcher. No one of the hospital staff suspected a thing; they assumed they were witnessing the removal of a dead body.

Once outside, the Eisenbachs loaded Gedalia on his stretcher into the back of a covered pickup truck that was riding into town. Then, early in the morning, they put him into a truck that was headed for Meron.

They arrived at Meron just before sunset, a short time before the giant bonfires were to be lit. It was not possible to drive up the steep hill to the burial site because of the large crowds of people camped on the road. Kind-hearted Jews took turns carrying Gedalia on his stretcher all the way up to the top of the hill. They brought him into the room enclosing the tomb of Rabbi Shimon and laid him gently on a broad window sill.

Gedalia opened a Psalter and began reciting Psalms fervently, weeping and sobbing uncontrollably. After a short time he was surprised to hear many voices outside raised in joyous song. Never having been to Meron on Lag B'Omer before, he couldn't understand it. How could it be that he and everyone else in the holy room were calling out and crying and passionately praying, while right outside the window there was an even larger crowd singing and making merry?

He struggled to raise himself to a sitting position in order to be able to look outside through his window. A an elderly man came over to him and explained that the rejoicing was over the arrival of the Torah scroll from the Abu family in Tsfat (Safed). Since the mid 1800's, the great Lag B'Omer bonfire at Meron was not lit until this scroll was brought to Mount Meron, after the great celebration with it the entire afternoon in the streets of Tsfat.

Then the man said, "I see it is difficult for you to get up, but nevertheless you should make a great effort. It is worth it, in honor of the Torah scroll. Here, let me help you."

He extended a hand and helped Gedalia to stand and take a few precarious steps. Gedalia then limped slowly outside and managed to join the enormous circle dance for a few movements. After that, he returned to his former position inside, completely exhausted, but excitedly happy that he had managed to take part in the special rejoicing unique to Lag B'Omer at Meron.

The next day they brought Gedalia back to his bed at Hadassah. The medical staff who witnessed his return stared at him as if he were crazy. A few lectured him that he may have dangerously harmed his situation further. After letting him rest for a day, they began preparing him for the operation to amputate his foot. As they were about to administer the anesthetic, Gedalia suddenly sat up and started telling them about his trip to Meron. When he mentioned that at the encouragement of the old man he had even danced a bit, the doctors and nurses shook their heads in disbelief.

Gedalia concluded his report with these words: "In the light of all this, you do what you have to do and the One on High will do what He has to do."

The doctors smiled and one of them removed the bandage from Gedalia's foot. They all stared in amazement. The vast improvement in his condition was instantly recognizable to all. The infection had dramatically receded and there were clear signs that it had weakened and would soon disappear.

Afew days later Gedalia was discharged and able to return home, walking normally on both feet. Later that year he met the woman that would become his wife and the mother of his seven children. They lived many happy years until he passed away on the 28th of Iyar, ten days after Lag B'Omer, in 1980.

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Yrachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed, and editor of Ascent Quarterly and the AscentOfSafed.com and KabbalaOnline.org websites. He has hundreds of published stories to his credit.