Hospital Visit - Monthly Gedolim Story

 For this months' Gadol Story, the month of Sivan, I was struggling to find one that I really connected to. I have been blessed since beginning this segment to share stories and tales that spoke to me, that I felt contained a good, simple or powerful message and this month something just was not clicking.

That is until Hashem guided me to two stories, one of which I will share now, the other, I will try share in time for Taamuz - next month.

This story first appeared as it being shared from, in "Illuminations of the Maggid" by the legendary Rabbi Paysach Krohn, as the opening story. Featuring the legendary Gadol Rav Moshe Soleveitchik zt'l of Zurich, Switzerland, this story is so special, so beautiful and shows true nosei be'ol im chavero, helping to carry your friends' burden.

I hope you find the story enjoyable,

All the best,

Yitzy Schweitzer

Hospital Visit - Monthly Gedolim Story

One late night, well past midnight, in January 1991, the Heilige Gadol Rav Moshe Soloveitchik zt'l, was learning with his married son, when the phone rang. The Rebetzin, being awake despite the hour, picked up the phone. On the line was a distraught father, (whose name in the story was changed. I will use that changed name for the purpose of the story) Rav Dovid Nadler, whose wife Pesha had been rushed to the hospital as their long-awaited newborn baby girl, who had been born very prematurely five weeks earlier, had been staying in the hospital since her birth and was now dangerously ill.

The doctors had said that the child's life was in danger. They wanted to perform certain procedures but Rav Dovid would not agree to any of them until he spoke to Rav Moshe. After a lengthy discussion, in which Rav Moshe patiently advised the struggling father about what the doctors could not do, he closed his Gemera, sat with his son and began saying Tehilim for the precious little girl's neshama.

Crying as he said each word carefully, Rav Moshe kept davening for the little baby, who was in the neonatology intensive care unit (NICU), fighting for her life. In the hospital, Rav Dovid, the father, was also saying Tehilim, crying for his little one, beseeching Hashem that she would be okay.

Around four a.m. hospital security called the Nadlers' room, saying that there was a distinguished couple at the gate asking to see them. "Are you expecting anyone at this late hour?" they asked Rav Dovid. "I cannot imagine who would be visiting me now," was his response. "Could yo ask them their names?"

After a moment, the security guard the returned to the phone "The man says his name is Soloveitchik."

Rav Dovid was flabbergasted. "Sir, please. Send them up immediately. They are very important people."

The two men fell on each others shoulders and cried with real emotion as they hugged each other while Rebetzin Soloveitchik lovingly supported Pesha with her incredible care and devotion. Rabbi Soloveitchik donned the head-to-toe white hospital gown worn in the NICU and when Pesha saw him that way remarked with awe, "He looked like a malach (angel) from shamayim. At Rav Moshe's own insistence he stood beside the little girl's incubator crying and saying Tehilim as she took her last breaths. He was the only one present during the yetzias neshamah.

Eav Nadler told Rabbi Krohn later on, "I survived that night only because of Rav Moshe being there. But, do you know what was most incredible? he asked "Rav Moshe and his wife had no idea which hospital we were in. They hired a taxi and went from hospital to hospital until they found us, in the University Hospital of Zurich. There were no cell phones or caller ID then, so the Rav and Rebetzin had no idea where I was calling from!"

Isn't that just true Ahavas Yisroel and true nosei be'ol im chavero? Rav Moshe and the Rebetzin helped a couple at a difficult point, not just with the answering of the medical questions late at night, but also,, finding out which hospital they were in with no caller ID, being with them during the little girl's yetzias neshama... true Ahavas Yisroel, in every sense.