By writer to jewishjournal.com
I take heed to the radio on the morning of Erev Yom Hazikaron, the eve of remembrance day for the fallen troopers of the Israel Protection Forces (IDF) and I begin to cry. I cry due to those that’ve misplaced their lives defending my nation, due to these near me who have been killed in terrorist assaults, who will even be remembered immediately and I cry for Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Haber.
Rav Haber was the founding father of the Matnat Chaim (Present of Life) nonprofit kidney donation program right here in Israel, who handed away on the age of 55 on April 23 from issues of COVID-19. Rav Haber was instrumental in my receiving a kidney 10 months in the past.
Rav Haber was the founding father of the Matnat Chaim (Present of Life) nonprofit kidney donation program right here in Israel, who handed away on the age of 55 on April 23 from issues of COVID-19. Rav Haber was instrumental in my receiving a kidney 10 months in the past.
I’m crying for him as a result of I’m listening to an interview on the radio with Israeli educator Miriam Peretz — an icon in Israel who misplaced two sons within the IDF in addition to her husband. She’s speaking about how she raised herself up from despair by telling herself that her sons died for a motive, and that if she’d given up on life, then their deaths would have had no which means. They’d served and died along with all components of society – Jews and Arabs, spiritual and non-religious, left and proper – as a result of they believed that that was the nation that wanted defending – a united nation made up of all of its residents. They’d been raised on values of giving, equality, sharing the burden and of an entire society searching for one another.
Rav Haber wore a black hat and labored as a rabbi and trainer till he was in his 40s, and in Israel some could have assumed by taking a look at him that he could not have shared the values Peretz spoke of. However these values being recited on the radio have been what introduced me to tears pondering of what we’ve got misplaced with the passing of this nice and humble man.
I first met Rav Haber on a Saturday evening in June 2019. He rolled into my room in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem shortly after I arrived to “check-in” for the preparations for my kidney transplant the subsequent morning. I used to be nervous a couple of life-changing operation and he was checking to see how I used to be and if I wanted something. He additionally advised me to not fear and that he would make it possible for they took excellent care of me. The subsequent time I noticed him was lower than 24 hours later when he got here to verify on me post-op.
He got here in with a smile and amusing, an enormous presence and an intimated assure that each one could be good. I had simply watched the toxins in my blood drop by 90% in 5 hours because of the profitable transplant, and will solely hope and pray that he was proper. I solely discovered later that he did this for each one of many 800 transplant sufferers that he discovered altruistic kidney donors for, no matter hospital they have been in across the nation. I noticed him once more six instances within the week and a half that I used to be in Hadassah, as a result of that was the variety of transplants he had chaperoned in a single week in that hospital alone.
On the identical time, and unbeknownst to me, each donor was going by means of the identical expertise, however from the opposite aspect. My donor Moshe Halberstadt advised me he remembers Rav Haber calling him on the Friday earlier than the operation, to present him private phrases of encouragement and thanks. Though Moshe was honored and impressed by the private consideration of such a revered chief, Rav Haber regularly emphasised how honored he felt to be chatting with such a righteous particular person.
Moshe additionally recollects the numerous time Rav Haber and his spouse spent within the hospital at his bedside, seeing to his welfare and personally providing needs for his restoration, whereas at all times emphasizing the kindness of Moshe’s act. Rav Haber additionally provided sensible recommendation, and despatched out medical details about fasting after donation, whereas providing his private cellular phone quantity for questions at any time.
It was Rav Haber’s private story that led him to opening Matnat Chaim in Israel. He was 44 and on dialysis when he met a 19-year-old by the title of Pinchas Turgeman who was on dialysis within the clinic with him. Turgeman was in horrible situation and Rav Haber, himself in dire form, got down to discover Turgeman a donor. Finally, he discovered one, however as a result of the method took so lengthy, Turgeman died ready. Simply the way in which my father did 36 years in the past in Australia, and the way in which so many do on daily basis.
He determined that he would depart his instructing publish and dedicate his life to discovering kidney donors in order that nobody must stay on dialysis, and nobody must die for lack of a kidney.
Turgeman’s demise was transformative for Rav Haber. That day he determined that he would depart his instructing publish and dedicate his life to discovering kidney donors in order that nobody must stay on dialysis, and nobody must die for lack of a kidney. He began the group when there have been 800 folks on the ready checklist. Now, 11 years later, in a symbolic flip of occasions, Rav Haber — who himself acquired a kidney transplant 12 years in the past — noticed the 800th transplant coordinated by his group.
However his dream and life’s work was not restricted to 1 group of individuals, one faith, one sect, one age group, one ethnic background. Rav Haber discovered donors for Jews and Arabs, women and men, spiritual and non-religious. He discovered a donor from the hard-right city of Itamar, who donated to a hard-left activist from Tel Aviv. He discovered a non secular Jewish girl who donated to an Arab girl. He discovered Hasidic Yeshiva college students who donated to secular businessmen.
Rav Haber discovered donors for Jews and Arabs, women and men, spiritual and non-religious.
And each a kind of donors has a reference to their recipient, be it a single assembly on the hospital or a lifetime friendship. And each a kind of folks has a household and neighborhood that sees this super present of life. And each certainly one of them is aware of that there are people who imagine that we’re all human, all the identical within the eyes of God, all a part of this nation, all answerable for one another, all right here to present to one another and all right here collectively for the long term.
These have been precisely the phrases of Miriam Peretz this morning on the radio, they usually have been precisely the phrases of Rav Haber himself. The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, eulogized Rav Haber saying he was an angel strolling on this Earth within the type of a person. An angel that thought nothing of his personal ache, his illness, his problem strolling, his monetary state of affairs. An angel that by no means judged anybody, however noticed that each one who suffers as he did, for lack of a working kidney, is de facto struggling in useless. As a result of if only a fraction of society would embrace the concept that we’re all answerable for one another, that we’re all more likely to need assistance sometime and that we will reduce the struggling on this world by means of our personal actions now, then this is able to be a much better place. This might be a spot the place angels stroll, as a result of folks can increase themselves as much as the extent of angels right here on Earth, simply the way in which Rav Haber did.
An angel that by no means judged anybody, however noticed that each one who suffers as he did, for lack of a working kidney, is de facto struggling in useless
Rav Haber handed away after dedicating each ounce of his super power to serving to others. Could his reminiscence be a blessing for us all.
Miles Hartog is an architect dwelling in Israel.
— to jewishjournal.com
