I felt an overwhelming pity for him — a Jew so lost without Torah

When my wife and I arrived at the hospital for her bone marrow transplant, we didn’t know what the outcome would be. We didn’t know what effects of chemo she would experience, or whether the transplant would be rejected. We didn’t know if she would make it.

But there was one thing we did know: The hospital would be our home for the next few months, and we were going to make the most of this time. Sloan Kettering is synonymous with cancer treatment, and many people consider it a pretty gloomy place. Someone once told me “you can see the malach hamaves walking the corridors.” But we knew we wanted something good to come out of this, so we actively looked for opportunities to reach out to the people around us.

To that end, when Pesach approached, I decided to lead a Seder for any interested Jewish patients in the ward. It was a unique experience, and uniquely challenging. Some participants had a lifetime of knowledge and practice, some had never been at a Seder before. I had participants who were experiencing their first Seder and participants who believed that this Seder would be their last. I wished I could infuse them all with a lasting optimism and faith, as I tried to create a joyous Yom Tov spirit at this heartrending, heartwarming Seder.

Our daughter Miri joined the effort too. Miri is an accomplished musician, and she wanted to bring her keyboard to the ward to spread some joy and fun. I asked around, but it seemed that such a thing was against regulations — certainly it had never been done before. I passed this information on to Miri, but one day she showed up with her keyboard, set it up in her mother’s room and turned up the volume. Patients and staff started trickling into the room, overflowing into the hallway. Miri had just wanted to cheer up her mother, but this was turning into a full-fledged concert for the entire wing. If the malach hamaves was walking that corridor, Miri sent him running for cover.

One of the patients I developed a relationship with was Albert, a nonreligious Jewish attorney. Although he had cancer and was undergoing chemo, he felt relatively well and would spend a large part of the day in the ward’s family room, working at his law practice. He was a nice guy, and didn’t mind when I stopped to chat with him, even if I insisted on sharing Torah thoughts and perspectives. He even began calling me “my rabbi.”