| Magazine Feature |

Between Two Worlds

By Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg | July 8, 2020

It started out feeling like a cold, and before I knew it, I was in critical condition with little hope for survival. Surely, the tefillos of the klal were the ropes that pulled me out of the abyss. Now, where does a person go once he’s experienced techiyas hameisim?

Rabbi Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg is rav of the Chofetz Chaim Torah Center of Cedarhurst, the founding rabbi of Ohr Moshe Torah Institute in Hillcrest, Queens, and a popular author and lecturer. He and his wife are also the founders of Ohel Sarala — created as a zechus for the aliyas neshamah of their daughter Sarala a”h. After he was struck with COVID-19, doctors gave him a near-zero chance of survival. Here is his story.

Purim 2020

his past Purim was a new kind of enjoyable for my wife and me. After years of carpooling the kids to their rebbeim and friends, and then after years of getting together with our own friends, we found ourselves alone.

A few days before Purim, when I realized we would be alone for the seudah and that my elderly mother (may she live until 120) would also be spending Purim alone in her apartment in Queens (she stopped joining us when my father a”h passed away), we decided to bring our seudah to her. Afterward, we stopped by each of our sons’ homes, where they were holding their own lively seudos with their kollel friends. We then returned home with enough time to prepare for our annual Simchas Purim with members of the shul, always a beautiful way to end this special day.

Little did I know that if not for a miraculous reprieve, this could have been my very last Yom Tov celebration.

Many people in our community, and in the Tristate area in general, had by now been hit with COVID-19, and about a week later, I too began to feel quite ill, like a bad case of the flu. My neighbor and other friends too, were not feeling well and we began to compare notes. I was a bit concerned so I was tested, and yes, I tested positive, but I wasn’t too worried, as I didn’t have high fever and seemed to be doing better than some of the others.

Then I took a turn for the worse. I called my longtime dedicated physician, Dr. Herbert Lempel, for advice. He advised me to go for a chest X-ray, as he said I sounded out of breath while talking to him. I called a Hatzolah friend who tested my oxygen level, didn’t like what he saw, and then quickly drove me to Winthrop Hospital in Mineola, Long Island — an affiliate of NYU — and pulled some strings to get me admitted right away. But still, I wasn’t overly worried. At that point the medical community was still examining how COVID-19 presents, and I assumed that if my case turned into pneumonia, I’d get some antibiotics and go home.

When I left home, I told my wife I’d be back in a few hours. And those few hours became six-and-a-half weeks.

The chest X-ray looked fine, but my oxygen level was still low, so they decided to check me in for observation and gave me a small oxygen mask to help me breathe easier. This was early on in the pandemic, so although medical staff were wearing masks and gloves, there wasn’t yet a specific COVID-19 protocol. The next morning the attending doctor came in and told me that while the second X-ray didn’t look any worse than the first, my oxygen level was continuing to drop, so they gave me a larger face mask to wear. When I asked the doctor, “Is there any serious issue here?” he replied, “No, you should be fine.”

Later that day, a nurse came in and told me that my oxygen level was still dropping despite the mask, and if it didn’t start going up by evening, they’d send me to the ICU. That put me into a panic, and I quickly texted my doctor as to what that meant. He assured me that it would all be okay. That was my last text to him.

March 25, 2020

It was two weeks after Purim, and two weeks before Pesach, when my world turned upside down. The last thing I remember before being rushed into the ICU was a doctor explaining to me what intubation means — and that they should hopefully be able to extubate within a day or two. That day or two turned into 30 days, while I hovered between two Worlds.

Within days, my condition continued to deteriorate and I was listed as extremely critical. As I discovered later, word went out from family and friends, and tens of thousands from all over the world began davening on my behalf. I’ve now been told of Tehillim chats, challah baking, and visits to kivrei tzaddikim. While I was unconscious, my soul fighting for every breath, little did I know that people had arranged for Rav Yaakov Meir Shechter to host a special Tehillim vigil in his house, for Rav Gamliel Rabinovitch to gather a group to go to Meron, the Skverer Rebbe to daven for me on a daily basis, and the entire Yeshiva Chofetz Chaim to mobilize daily Tehillim on my behalf.

It was a battle between two Worlds. Each day was worse than the day before, yet Klal Yisrael didn’t stop storming the Heavens with their tefillos.

Rebbetzin Avigail Ginzberg remembers

Those first weeks when we couldn’t visit, when so many Covid-19 patients were left alone and helpless, often dying alone, we knew we had to be as proactive as we could. We were constantly on the phone calling the ward, driving the staff nuts. Things were so crazy during those early weeks and the staff was so overwhelmed that they didn’t even have time to think about the patients’ families, but because of us — when they saw how we were calling all the time asking for reports and demanding that we speak to doctor, a nurse, a PA — they instituted a new procedure, putting someone in charge of calling patients’ families at least once a day.

Mrs. Ilana Jeger shares

When my father was admitted to the ICU, my husband and I were in constant contact with the doctors and nurses. We live two blocks away from my parents, and my husband and I are very close with Dr. Tuvia Marciano, who was one of our main contacts and a real malach who was instrumental in my father’s survival. And as Hashgachah would have it, a friend of mine from high school who I have not spoken to in years, happened to be a nurse in my father’s unit and reached out to let me know that she’d be there for us and do whatever she could. This wonderful nurse, Huvie Novack-Peltz, became like part of our family. Along with the chat she started with my mother and me to constantly update us, she would also go into my father’s room — even though it meant suiting up each time — and would give him chizuk and messages from us.

Our family understood the direness of the situation based on our previous encounters with the world of hospitals and illness. My husband and I are unfortunately quite familiar with this world, as we lost our bechor, Chanoch a”h, when he was almost three years old — he contracted meningitis a few hours after birth, and we spent the next three years practically living in hospitals. And when my sister Sarala passed away in 2015, my siblings and I took an active part in her care. So none of this was foreign to us.

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Comments (5)

0
Shloime Wertenteil
5 years ago
Reply

My family and R’ Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg go back to elementary school days. Let’s see what we can learn from his harrowing COVID-19 experience and ongoing recovery and from unforeseen ordeals that jut out of life’s landscape.
Graphite is a soft, black form of carbon used primarily for pencils leads and lubricants. A diamond is a hard form of carbon. Two totally opposite derivatives produced from the same element — carbon! How is that?
Carbon, when left alone, will remain graphite. However, when carbon is subjected to astronomically high temperatures and pressure, it transforms into one of the most precious and desired commodities on earth, the diamond.
Adam, formed from the adamah (earth), has the same inherent nature as earth. Bnei Yisroel went through the iron cauldron of Mitzrayim to refine their nature and mold them into the People of Hashem, suited to accept and keep the Torah. This is also true for all the vicissitudes that, perforce, everyone goes through in life. A great rabbi once said he would never “trade in” his sufferings for any recompense. When one goes through a tzarah — trouble — he is yotzer (creating) a new higher tzurah (form).
Night gives way to morning. Light not only dispels darkness but, as in the formation of the glittering diamond, actually comes from the darkness.
0
A Proud Wife
5 years ago
Reply

As I was reading the article about Rabbi Ginzberg and his experience with COVID 19, I couldn’t help but compare my experience with his. His story is pretty much what happened to me. Chasdei Hashem I survived too. It was definitely ratzon Hashem and the tefillos of Klal Yisrael that saved me.
But as much as I love sharing my story, the real hero is my husband. I went to the hospital two days before Pesach, leaving a house that was not at all ready for Pesach because I was so sick. My husband got the house and food ready for Pesach, all the while worrying about me. He led the Sedorim with strength because he knew our children needed some “normalcy” on Yom Tov. After Pesach, he made sure the kids were all calling into their schools on the phone. He kept the house running smoothly all the while not knowing how I was doing.
Once I got intubated, he really was in the dark. All he got was one phone call a day. Baruch Hashem, he had the support of my parents, his parents, and families. The rabbanim, community, friends and strangers rallied behind him and gave him the support he needed.
So yes, I went through a tremendous trauma and baruch Hashem experienced a neis, but the real shout-out should go to him!
0
Still Hurting
5 years ago
Reply

Anybody who read the article about the special Hashgachah pratis merited by Rabbi Ginzberg and his devoted family can’t stop giving thanks to the Ribono shel Olam.
There is one thing that bothered me, which has nothing to do with Rabbi Ginzberg and his family. The article mentioned that on Erev Pesach, the doctors felt that they were losing the battle and wished to disconnect the machines. A good friend of the Ginzbergs called the executive vice president of NYU and on his instructions, the medical staff was told to redouble their efforts, including a personal update every two hours.
Clearly, someone who has “pull” gets a second chance in our medical systems today.
Of course we all believe that everything is destined from Above, but what gives the hospital the right to decide they don’t have to fight for every single patient?
Imagine how this incident came across to those people who lost close family members. Imagine if they had a family member waiting in the emergency room for a bed to be available — when suddenly a patient arrives and the hospital chaplain, who knows the patient well, gets him a bed right away. And that bed ends up meaning the difference between life and death.
Who gives the hospital staff the right to do this? The families who lost members can never forgive them.
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Shoshana (Ginzberg) Goldsmith
5 years ago
Reply

Thank you for sharing with your readers the neis our family experienced with my father’s recovery. Many of them have davened for him and the article was a true testament to the koach hatefillah.
There is another story there however, a special zechus that pushed those tefillos straight to the Kisei Hakavod. It’s the story of the power of the purest and unquestioning emunah of our mother, Rebbetzin Avigail Ginzberg. Her strength and fierce faith that everything Hashem does is good is no doubt what carried all of us siblings through this ordeal.
When my mother would tell me about a doctor’s report, no matter how grim, it followed with: “Remember! This is only a doctor talking, we know and believe there is no limit to what Hashem can do, don’t forget that for a second!”
The night a name was added to my father and my mother was given a terrible prognosis was a sleepless one for me, filled with paralyzing terror and tears. I was across the world from my family, terrified what the next phone call would bring. In the morning, upon sharing my fears with my mother I finally said, “Ima, please tell me your secret! How do you sound so normal?”
Her response will be etched in my mind forever. “I couldn’t sleep either, so I asked myself to imagine a world famous COVID specialist calling me, saying he understands the disease 100 percent and knows exactly how to treat Abba. How calm and comforted would I feel? Abba is so clearly in the Hands of the Master Doctor, how could I not sleep well?”
Well hidden behind our father and family is a giant of a mother and wife whose ironclad bitachon and love for HaKadosh Baruch Hu pulled us through and enabled us to emerge strengthened and inspired.
Besuros tovos for all of Klal Yisrael.
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Mordechai Kamenetzky
5 years ago
Reply

As a longtime chaver of Rav Chaim Aryeh Zev Ginzberg, ever since he moved in to the neighborhood decades ago, I was extremely moved, as was my entire family, by reading the personal account of his miraculous journey from the threshold of death to his miraculous recovery.
Rav Ginzberg has been a pillar of support for so many in this community and has always been there for the institutions of Torah and chessed that make the Five Towns a paradigm of the three pillars that hold up the world.
Throughout the years, our entire community lived with the Ginzberg family’s trials and tribulations, their joys and their sorrows. We cried with them in their losses and danced with them in their joys. They have shared their most private grief with so many of us, only to help others take solace and faith in emulating their fortitude. We cannot thank them enough for allowing what would be so private a matter to be recorded for eternity for all to share. Their sharing the story with the world will only serve as a roadmap of emunah and bitachon to any family enduring medical crisis.
It is not the first time they have afforded the opportunity to glean from their emunah in HaKadosh Boruch Hu and the gedolei Torah of our generation. The powerful hespeidim that Rav Ginzberg gave for his grandson and daughter, may they have a lichtigeh Gan Eden, still reverberate in my heart. More so, their taking those difficulties and transforming their tragedies into the conception of joy for others, takes a vision that transcends a life led for personal meaning and transforms it into a life lived for others.
There is no doubt that all the tefillos said throughout Sarala’s life, and the chesed and tzedakah realized after her passing stood at the gates of Heaven, forcing them all to ensure that Rav Ginzberg sees many more long and healthy years to continue together with his Rebbetzin to be a force of tzedakah, chesed, and inspiration for many years to come.