Mendel is in Israel, at the Wall, living and loving life. That is all, the rest is commentary. Here’s the commentary:
About 3 months ago, on May 14, a quiet Shabbat afternoon, I picked up a supplement in a Jewish magazine devoted to stories of miraculous outcomes achieved by praying at Kever Rachel, the tomb of the Matriarch Rachel, in Beit Lechem, outside Jerusalem. They all sounded way too good to be true. One story was presented in comic strip format: A family had all but given up on their sons, who had become estranged from them. Somewhere inside me, where I allow dark and pessimistic thoughts, I saw myself in this story and I thought: me too, I think I’ve also given up on my son. Years of trying so many ways to unlock the mystery of Mendel- who is clearly so intelligent, so trapped inside himself- and so little progress to show for it… it wears you down. I’ve pushed so many doors, tried so many things and yet he remains as stuck as ever. My eye fell on the next comic strip: “the names of the sons ( and their mother’s name) are sent to Kever Rachel”— and the mother’s name is my exact (very uncommon) Hebrew name, in the exact (very uncommon) spelling. I was totally taken aback. I resolved to see this as an opening; maybe, maybe we’d see some sort of miracle. After Shabbat, I reached out to Hindel Swerdlov of Jerusalem, someone I knew through her friendships with family members. Hindel went straight to Kever Rachel and prayed her heart out for Mendel, telling me to update her when the miracles started pouring in. I’m a bit of a skeptic, I told her, but I was grateful.
That very week, two things happened .
The first was that, after much effort, we were able to finalize our tickets to California to work with the amazing Julie Sando Johnson. I just checked my text message history to her: Monday May 15: “We’re booked and so excited to see you!”. If you’ve followed my social media, you know the miracles that came pouring out of that visit.
The second took longer to unfold, but here we are. That Wednesday, we got a call to host a sleeping guest for Shabbat. The caller was the director of the Friendship Circle of Jerusalem, an incredible woman named Chana Canterman, and the guest she was hoping to find a host for was Rafi Yellon, a young man who is the Head Counselor of her 10-day Friendship Circle Summer Camp for young men in Jerusalem, who needed a place to stay in Manhattan. It was entirely providential that she called us, and she wasn’t even aware of our special needs son. But as we started talking, I said: you have a camp? I have a son who has never been to Israel. Maybe he can attend! I said it as something of a joke. I did not believe it could ever be possible. But something larger than us was clearly at play, and that very Shabbat, the head counselor of the camp arrived, met Mendel…. and…. to skip to the good part: Mendel is now in Israel in his camp, where he is already having the experience of a lifetime.
This entire saga is so miraculous, that the final piece seems to fit right in, and here it is:
Mendel was in Boston for the weekend, and the plan was for my husband to fly from NY to Boston on Sunday at 1pm, wait six hours in the airport ( he gave himself tons of extra time in case of a delay) and meet Mendel, who would be picked up from his school by our friend Eric, for an El-Al flight to Tel Aviv leaving at 8:30pm. At 1pm my husband boarded the plane in NY… and was kept waiting for five hours on the runway. The calls from Eric, waiting in the airport from 5pm with an increasingly anxious Mendel, were getting more frantic. He put an El Al ticket agent on the phone. I said to her: you don’t understand what this trip means. My husband and son MUST make this flight! Of course, Mendel’s passport was in my husband’s pocket; he could not check in or do anything but wait at the counter helplessly with Eric. Yuda Silverstein at Joy Travel, our exceptionally dedicated travel agent, sent a picture of the passport to the head of El-Al in Boston Logan Airport: this young man needs to be on tonight’s flight!
My husband’s plane from NY finally landed at 7:55pm, five and half hours late, in a totally different terminal. He raced across the airport, was met by an El Al agent who checked him and Mendel in, whisked them both through security, and—- there is no logical explanation for this: made it onto the flight at 8:27pm, just in time for takeoff.
Our hearts are filled with gratitude at all those who helped us make Mendel’s dream of travel and exploration, and visiting the Holy Land, come true. To Chana Canterman and the Friendship Circle of Jerusalem, to the dedicated volunteer staff, to the friends in NY who sponsored Mendel’s trip, to the incredible caring people of El-Al (the ONLY airline worth flying to Israel!), Rachel Chandali of El Al at Logan Airport, the station manager and the entire team— thank you and may Hashem bless you!
A final word: Friendship Circle of Jerusalem sponsors this camp in honor of special needs children and the costs are enormous. Thanks to a very special friend of Mendel who wishes to remain anonymous, Mendel’s trip is almost completely sponsored but if you would like to contribute to this incredible endeavor ( all gifts go directly to the Friendship Circle of Jerusalem) here is a special link set up by our dear friends Rabbi Shlomo and Sara Gutnick in our local FC- NYC website : http://friendshipcirclenyc.org/mmetzger
If you’re still reading: may the miracles flow in your life as they are for Mendel. ❤️
