There are many aspects of life in Eretz Yisrael that I love, but I do miss being near my family. Sometimes we are so busy with our everyday life that it is a back-burner issue. Other times it comes more to the forefront, like the Friday afternoon hustle and bustle on our block as numerous families pack up children and strollers to travel to Bubby Bnei Brak or Savta Yerushalayim for Shabbos. Yamim Tovim are a flurry of families coming and going, and Chanukah means eight days of family parties all over the country. Not for us! We can commiserate with our children who feel so left out, but we can’t make it up to them.
I feel it the most, however, when things in life get hectic and out of control. Those weeks when all the kids are home sick and I’m under the weather as well, I would love to be able to pick up the phone and say, “Mommy, can we come for Shabbos?” When my sisters in Baltimore tell me that Bubby is coming to babysit because they’re desperate for a nap, I wonder if they realize how lucky they are.
When push comes to shove, how do I manage? Let me share with you a personal story of the incredible chesed that goes on in klal Yisrael.
Last year my parents came to visit us for Succos. While they were at our house, I had some serious pregnancy complications and was told that I had to be on total bed rest for the next many long months. My mother helped out a tremendous amount over Yom Tov and we got by. After Yom Tov, my father had to go back to work, but my mother, who was between jobs at the time, extended her ticket by two weeks to help out.
Running a strange house, doing laundry, cleaning, and taking care of my very active bunch, who hardly knew her, was a big task on its own. Israeli children come home at lunch, and stay home. Cooking was a different experience for her as well. Add in the many different hechsherim and the fact that many more vegetables in Israel need to be checked for bugs than their American counterparts do, and my mother had a huge job. A friend of mine recommended that I contact Ezer Mizion, which would provide us with meals, thus taking one job off my mother’s shoulders.
We have an incredible program in town to provide meals for any family who has a seriously ill family member, someone in the hospital, or a mother stuck in bed. Hundreds of families volunteer for it. Once every four weeks, each volunteer family gets an empty plastic container dropped at their front door. Over the course of the week, they can prepare any main dish they want, or just double something that they are making for their own family. They place it in the container and freeze it, marking on the label the contents and the hechsher. The following Sunday, the containers are collected by volunteers and dropped off at Ezer Mizion. Other volunteers prepare side dishes in Ezer Mizion’s kitchen, and yet others pack it all up and drop it off at the doors of those who need. There’s an entirely different volunteer system set in place for Shabbos meals. Hundreds of meals are prepared each week in this fashion.
For years, I had made meals for others. Now it was my turn to receive.
With meals taken care of, my mother tried her hardest to keep the rest of the house running smoothly, while I whiled away my days flat on my back. Unfortunately, a week later, my mother caught pneumonia from one of my children. So not only was I stuck in bed, along with my sick daughter, but my mother was too! My poor husband was trying to hold down the fort. As if this was not enough, one of my sons was scheduled to have surgery that week.
Surgery patients must show up at the hospital at unearthly hours of the morning, long before one can get there by public transportation. What does one without a car do? No problem! We called Ezer Mizion’s hospital transportation hotline and told them which hospital we needed to get to, how many seats we needed, and when we needed to get there. The volunteer coordinator sent out a message to a team of locals who work out of town, looking for someone who worked near said hospital and was traveling at that time. Within a short while, everything was arranged.
Once my husband and my son were whisked away by the Ezer Mizion volunteer driver, I got to work on some other fronts. As the hospital they were going to does not have kosher food, I picked up the phone and dialed the by-now familiar phone number of Ezer Mizion. They referred me to the branch that deals with that particular hospital. I called up and told them that my son was having surgery that day and he and my husband would need food that day and the next. When I told the woman on the other end of the line my name, she responded, “Yes, we have your name on the list already,” and proceeded to tell me my son’s room number!
I double-checked to make sure she wasn’t mistaken; after all, I had not yet requested food, and my son was not even in a room! Apparently, the Ezer Mizion volunteers go into the surgery ward each morning and ask the nurses if any chareidim are having surgery that day, and then add their names and room numbers to the list. I guess my husband’s black hat gave them away. They took care of our needs before we even had a chance to ask them!
As an aside, this was a repeat surgery. The first one had been done eight months previously but was not successful. How did we pick a surgeon this time? We called the Ezer Mizion medical referral service, of course! They looked at the documents we faxed over and based on the medical situation were able to advise who they felt would be the best shaliach for the surgery. Baruch Hashem, the second time it was successful.
That Thursday evening, I was feeling quite overwhelmed. My husband and son were away in the hospital; my mother and daughter were sick in bed with pneumonia; I wasn’t allowed to get out of bed, let alone sit up; and Shabbos was coming. The lovely woman in Ezer Mizion with whom I was in contact called me up and took down detailed instructions as to my family’s food preferences for Shabbos. She assured me that all the food would be taken care of and then assigned a volunteer who would come to my house twice a week for an hour to straighten up, do laundry, wash dishes, and more. (My mother flew back to the States as soon as she recovered from the pneumonia – she couldn’t stay for a few months.)
But Ezer Mizion didn’t just attend to the practical details. Knowing that I had a lot on my plate, they took the time to write up a really nice, encouraging note, which was delivered to my door on erev Shabbos along with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. What a nice personal touch!
We live in a city in which everything is closed on Shabbos. What do you do if you need medical attention? Ezer Mizion has a non-Jewish doctor on call in their office every week from two hours before Shabbos till late at night on motzei Shabbos. The doctors see a full range of illness and accidents in those twenty-plus hours! We have personally utilized their services too many times to count. Any time my asthmatic kids need attention on Shabbos, I just hop over to Ezer Mizion, where there are nebulizers set up in the waiting room. At times they’re left running and anyone can come use them, and at times you have to pop into the doctor and tell him you need to use it.
Once I brought along my own medication for the child’s inhalation, and the machine was already running in the waiting room. I went into the doctor’s office and told him I needed the nebulizer. He knew it was on, saw me holding the medication, and immediately understood what I needed. He took the medication from me, cracked open the packages, and handed it back!
The clinic also runs a full medicine loan service, providing any medications that the doctor may prescribe on Shabbos. After Shabbos, you get the prescription from your doctor and return the medication to Ezer Mizion. There it stays till the next person needs it on Shabbos.
The services they provide are endless, from programs for disabled children, medical equipment loans, and numerous other programs that I don’t even know about. I’m sharing this story just to show how a typical family, without any major life-threatening illnesses, baruch Hashem, has benefitted from this organization in so many ways. The more I hear about this incredible organization and how it’s picked up on the various needs, big and small, of so many people, the more I continue to be amazed. Mi k’amcha Yisrael!
Postscript: I am in no way affiliated with Ezer Mizion. I am sharing a somewhat personal story out of hakaras hatov to the organization. It is my hope that it will inspire others to donate to this worthy cause.
Ezer Mizion is a countrywide organization with over 50 branches throughout Israel. With a yearly budget of $100,000,000, they count on friends from around the world to help support their amazing activities. You too can help this incredible organization continue to thrive by participating in its yearly Chinese auction, due to take place on February 24th. To participate, go to http://www.emraffle.org/ or call 877-EZER-MIZION or 718-853-8400.
