Two years later, those Covid-inspired kabbalos and resolutions are still keeping us going. Eight personal accounts

Project Coordinator: Rachel Bachrach
Illustrations: Marion Bellina

As told by Dovid Shurin to Sandy Eller

Did I know that my life would change forever almost half a century ago, standing with my grandfather outside 770 Eastern Parkway under a starry nighttime sky? I was completely clueless.

It was Motzaei Yom Kippur when Zaide and I gathered outside with a crowd of men and boys to say Kiddush Levanah, the ceremony of sanctifying the new moon several days after the first sighting on a clear night in which the moon is visible. Of course, we were all hungry after our 25-hour fast, but our meal would have to wait a few minutes more so we could seize Tishrei’s relatively short window of opportunity to recite these special tefillos now that the Yamim Noraim were behind us.

To me he was simply “Zaide,” but to the rest of the world he was Rav Moshe Dov Ber Rivkin, a revered rosh yeshivah at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath for almost 50 years. And on that early October night, Zaide shared with me that in addition to the joyous tenor of Kiddush Levanah, Chazal tell us that one who observes this mitzvah won’t die a sudden or accidental death. I was 26 and had never heard this before, and coming from Zaide, who had been diagnosed recently with stage four lung cancer and was told he wouldn’t survive more than three months after Rosh Hashanah, you can bet I said Kiddush Levanah with more than a little extra kavanah and enthusiasm.

I can’t tell you if our heartfelt tefillos that night played any part in the fact that Zaide defied the prognosis, and that he was even well enough to continue giving his Yoreh Dei’ah shiur at the yeshivah the entire year. What I can tell you is that his words had a profound impact on me, and while I’d always tried to be consistent about saying Kiddush Levanah until then, I became positively vigilant about it from that moment on. In the 45 years since that Motzaei Yom Kippur, I’ve never missed Kiddush Levanah.

And then came Covid.

During the dark days at the onset of the pandemic, my name was probably one of those that popped up on your WhatsApp chats with an urgent request for Tehillim. I was hospitalized on Rosh Chodesh Nissan, that terribly frightening time when people were taken by ambulance to medical facilities so overwhelmed, the staff didn’t have a moment to update family members about their loved ones.

I don’t have a lot of clear memories of my hospital stay. My oxygen was so low, I coded twice; I was delirious for ten days straight. I do vividly recall arguing with the doctors when they wanted to put me on a ventilator, a prospect I was sure would make things worse. Thankfully, the staff worked with me, changing my position and pumping me with high levels of oxygen so I could keep breathing on my own.

While I was fighting for my life in the hospital, the world was on lockdown. Schools were closed, shuls were shut, and people were scrambling to chart a path forward as they did their best to keep Covid at bay. My family, like so many others with loved ones in the hospital, hovered by the phone awaiting updates while doing their best to tip the Heavenly scales in my favor.

Given my passion for the mitzvah of Kiddush Levanah, it became a focal point in our home and the vehicle with which my nearest and dearest hoped to bring about my refuah sheleimah. My daughter Chana messaged her friends and asked them to have their families sanctify the moon for me, and my son-in-law urged the mispallelim in his shul to do the same. Just about the entire shul was out on their porches, hoping their mitzvah would bring about positive results.

Baruch Hashem, I turned a corner on the 11th day of Nissan. Having barely managed to eke out Krias Shema twice a day during the blur that was my first week-and-a-half in the hospital, it was a relief to be able to daven, put on tefillin, and even eat a little. Speaking to my family was the greatest gift of all. I was on the phone with my wife, Esther, the next day when reality hit me like a ton of bricks: We were 12 days into the month, and I hadn’t yet said Kiddush Levanah!

With a 45-year long streak going, you can bet I wasn’t going to let a little thing like being stuck in the hospital, on oxygen, and hooked up to an IV, get in the way of my special mitzvah. I knew I couldn’t get outside, and saying the tefillah over FaceTime with Esther wasn’t exactly l’chatchilah, but it was the best I could do. Despite the fact that she was knee-deep in Pesach preparations, Esther went to the back porch with me on FaceTime. Drawing on everything I knew about astronomy and the positions of the heavenly spheres from Maseches Rosh Hashanah, I tried to figure out where the moon was. Baruch Hashem, there was a beautiful visible moon in the southeast sky over our garage, so I opened my siddur and said Kiddush Levanah from my hospital bed like never before, albeit without Hashem’s name, Zaide’s voice ringing in my ears.

Hashem continued to shower me with kindness, and three days later, on the first day of Pesach, the hospital was ready to discharge me. My family asked Rabbi Yisroel Reisman if I could come home on Yom Tov, and he told them, “Get him out of there, now!”

I was packed into an ambulance, oxygen tank and all, and in a personal Yetzias Mitzrayim, I headed home. When I mentioned to Esther what a long week it had been, I was shocked to find out I had actually been gone for a full 14 days.

Close to two years have passed since then, and I still muster my reserves of kavanah and joy as I say Kiddush Levanah, month after month. As I stand outside under the stars with my fellow daveners, exchanging shalom aleichems and aleichem shaloms, I think about Zaide and the incredible gift he gave me all those years ago.

Can I tell you I’m here today because of Kiddush Levanah? Only Hakadosh Baruch Hu can answer that. But I’ve seen the positive results of this mitzvah, and I can only suggest that you make Kiddush Levanah a priority in your life.

Because you just never know which mitzvah is going to tip the Heavenly scales in your favor.

Dovid Shurin is a musmach of Yeshiva Torah Vodaath, the longtime president of Yeshiva R’tzahd, former president of Agudath Israel of Madison, and a former member of Hatzolah of Flatbush, all in Brooklyn, New York.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 900)