“My wife was meant to be flying out to Morocco from Israel (I was already there with Moranu Rav Eliezer Berland, shlita, and some of his other students), but on the Shabbat before the flight, she didn’t feel well, and fainted. Over the course of that Shabbat, her situation just continued to deteriorate, and she fainted a number of times.
“So, she set out on the journey with her nephews and family, and the whole way she felt simply awful. She couldn’t stand on her feet, to the point that they had to start pushing her in a wheelchair. She got to Morocco, and even though she hadn’t seen the Rav for half a year, she went straight to the hospital, and didn’t even come to the prayers. I understood that she was in a very difficult situation, and her eyes were mamash glazing over.
“After mincha and maariv, the Rav came up to the hospital, and stood in the entrance, where he gazed at the ceiling, while saying: “She will be healthy.” And he repeated this a number of times. It really looked like the Rav was pronouncing a judgment. When he left the hospital, he told us again “She will be healthy”. But, we could all feel the judgment, the din.
“My wife started breathing in short, rapid bursts which terrified me in a way that’s very hard to describe. It was 3am, and my wife really was no longer with us. I went to tell the Rav what was happening, and he told me that she had experienced a brain hemorrhage, and that he was going to travel to kivrei tzaddikim, to ask for mercy on her behalf.
“The following morning, we’d apparently reached the end of the road. While we were waiting there (in the hospital), the head professor came to sign on her death certificate.
That morning, I told Moranu Rav Berland what was happening, and he told me that after the prayers, he would come once again to the hospital. At the hospital, the Rav started reciting the Tikkun HaKlali seven times. In the middle of reciting it for the second time, one of the nurses came and told my mother-in-law that my wife had just woken up.
“We were all in shock, and my mother-in-law went in to the room to speak to her daughter, and to ask her if she wanted the Rav to come in and see her, but she didn’t respond. So, my mother-in-law told her that if she wanted the Rav to come, she should squeeze her hand, and she did that.
“The Rav came into the intensive care unit and started to talk to my wife. Initially, all she could do was shake in response, but as the Rav continued to speak with her, until she managed to talk back to him. This was a miracle, because the doctors had already told us that it would take a year and a half of intensive treatment with a speech therapist for her to even have a hope of being able to talk again. After all, we were talking about a serious brain injury, here. Afterwards, my mother-in-law told me that when she’d got to the hospital that morning, my wife’s hands were already cold, and the nurse had told her that she’d already passed away.
“That evening, my wife experienced another stroke, and she started jerking all over the place in a terrifying manner. I spoke with the Rav’s attendant, who told me that the Rav said he would come again to the hospital, the following day. I set up a table before my wife with the letters of the alphabet, so she could tell me what she wanted or needed.
“When the Rav came, she followed after the Tikkun HaKlali with her eyes. This was the Tuesday before Tu B’Av. The Rav told us that by Tu B’Av she would start to speak again.
“The third time that the Rav came to the hospital, he recited another Tikkun HaKlali, and didn’t even enter Intensive Care. Before Tisha B’Av, my wife insisted that she was going to fast, so I contacted the Rav, who told me that under no circumstances should she fast. That was only way I could get my wife to back down from insisting on fasting.
“In the days leading up to Tu B’Av, her situation started to improve with each passing day, but she still couldn’t walk. On Tu B’Av, Nachman Fuchs said to me: “The Rav said that this is the day that she’d start to talk again, so tell your wife to start trying to talk!” So in complete innocence, I went and told her to start trying to speak, so she tried to recite the words of the evening prayers – and wonder of wonders, the words came out of her mouth. Of course, with great difficulty, but the words still came out of her mouth.
“None of the doctors in Israel, Paris or Morocco were able to tell us the reasons why my wife had fallen so ill. When we got back to Israel, an ambulance was waiting to take her to intensive care, and they were shocked to see her get out of the plane on her own two legs. This was another miracle, mamash, techiyat hametim (the revival of the dead). It’s hard to believe what happened.
“Before we left Morocco, the Rav told us that she would be healthy, and that she wouldn’t need any surgery. But the doctors there were insisting that she needed a heart operation. I asked the Rav, and he told me they should operate. But, after the Rav had told me before that she wouldn’t need surgery, we decided not to operate.
“My father-in-law was very against doing the operation, and he found a different way of treating her, that wouldn’t involve surgery. The also Rav gave her a special diet to follow, which was designed to return her to full health without needing any medications. At our last appointment, they told us that they couldn’t find any trace of the illness, now.
“Jackie Kadosh really helped us to piece together all the pieces of the puzzle, and with my own ears, I also heard a number of other stories where the Rav told people to come to him in Morocco – and where they didn’t come, and there was very bitter fruit from that decision.
So ends the story of the man whose wife returned from the dead in Morocco in the zchut of his emunat Tzaddikim, his belief in the true tzaddikim.
[1] Head of the Jewish community in Morocco, at the time this story occurred.
