Rivka bat Yael Update: Deja Vu

Thank you to all of you holy moms for your ongoing concern and prayers for 4-year-old Rivka bat Yael Razel, who is still in Intensive Care following her accident last week.

For all of you who have requested updates on Rivki’s condition: this has been a rollercoaster week for Rivki and her parents (whom we should also keep in our prayers, Yael bat Chava and Yonatan Adi ben Rachel, that they should be blessed with strength and faith during this incredibly challenging time).

After doctors released Rivki from her medically-induced coma on Sunday, her condition improved somewhat. But yesterday Rivki required emergency brain surgery yet again. Thank G-d, as of this morning her condition had stabilized, and her doctors are generally optimistic about her long-term prognosis.

But Rivki remains in critical condition and is still desperately in need of our prayers! Please make sure to recite at least one psalm a day for a complete recovery for Rivka bat Yael. If you are interested in committing to reading the Song of Songs before dawn for Rivki (a tremendous segula for miraculous healing) or reciting Psalms every day for her recovery, please contact trilling@netvision.net.il

Déjà vu.

This whole week since Rivki Razel’s accident, my husband and I have been trying to figure out why we feel like we’ve been here before. Why we feel like we’ve feared these same fears, experienced this same obsessive concern, and fought this same exact battle with despair that comes when a neighborhood child is in the ICU.

And I realized yesterday that we feel like we’ve been here before, because we have been. We’ve been here a few times, in fact, and the reason we don’t clearly remember that we were ever here is because we have seen miracles with those hospitalized children.

8 years ago, Yedidya Witt was in a coma after he fell 3 stories at his junior high school, and people around the world prayed and prayed that he should live and recover. And today Yedidya is a devoted husband, father, and gifted rabbinical student with no remaining traces of the terrible ordeal he experienced.

9 years ago, at the age of 2 weeks, Eden Sasson was also fighting for her life on account of a rare and devastating heart defect. But after a week in a coma, 8 hours of delicate heart surgery, and again, prayers recited all over the world for her survival and good health, Eden experienced a complete recovery, and today she is a 100% healthy, bright, and adorable 3rd grader.

Yesterday I ran into Eden’s mother, Shuvi, and we were talking, of course, about Rivki. Any updates? Any news?

And then Shuvi reminded me of a conversation that I didn’t remember we ever had from nine years ago.

Shuvi said, “Do you remember when Eden was in the hospital, and I ran into you on the street? You blessed me that Eden should have a quick and complete recovery. And I told you that while I also hoped we would soon have this experience behind us, I also hoped I would never ever forget what it felt like to have a child in the ICU.”

Shuvi continued, “You asked me why I didn’t want to forget those weeks fighting for Eden’s life, so I explained that while that experience with Eden was the hardest one of my life, it was also in a way the most important, because during those terrible weeks I experienced a kind of clarity I had never felt before…”

“During those terrible weeks I knew as clearly as I know my name that there is nothing that matters in the world besides family and good health, and I didn’t just feel, I KNEW, that G-d runs the world, and that everything is in His hands at every single moment…”

My teacher, Rabbanit Yemima Mizrachi, gave little Rivki a beautiful blessing last week. She said that a person’s name, and especially a name from the Torah, shapes who they are. And just like little Rivki Razel, our mother Rebecca, Rivka Imenu, was the only character in the whole Torah to fall. She fell from her camel when she saw her intended husband, Isaac. What a scary moment! But Rivka Imenu rose up from that difficult fall, and she thrived and grew up to become one of the greatest women in Jewish history, a matriarch who established the entire Jewish nation.

In the merit of all the prayers being said all over the world for little Rivka bat Yael Razel, may Rivki soon also rise up in complete health with a miraculous recovery. Amen!
Photo courtesy of Flickr.com user brykmantra

One comment

  1. any news on rivki? may we hear only good!!

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