The most important part about the commandment of baking challah is “taking challah.” The other two mitzvahs of importance to women are candle lighting for Shabbos and family purity.  All these mitzvahs bring much blessing into the home.

Eli Beer: I joined Hatzalah when I was 16 years old. People would call Hatzalah and would wait for us and sometimes we would arrive a few minutes too late. Over 30 years ago, we got a call for a 7-year-old boy who choked while eating his lunch. The driver drove so fast, but was only able to arrive 20 minutes later. The object was taken out of the boy’s throat and resuscitation was attempted, but it was too late. The boy didn’t make it. That was the worst moment of my life. It occurred to me that the child would have been saved if only that doctor who lived close by had been aware of what was happening. I decided to create a network of volunteers who would respond to calls before the ambulances could arrive. This was before today’s communication techniques, so pagers were what we had back then. I was told that when someone calls for help, they must get an ambulance.

I used a new innovation called chutzpah and created an underground group of volunteers. I bought police scanners and tapped into the police emergency calls and with my 15 friends, we were able to hear the addresses of the people who were calling for help and were able to intervene, sometimes within 90 seconds. The ambucycle was created so we could go around traffic! The very first week I listened for a call and heard about a 70-year-old man who was run over by a car and was bleeding profusely from his neck. I got to the scene quickly before an ambulance was even close. I took off my yamulka and used it as a tourniquet to plug up the hole. The ambulance arrived 20 minutes later. The medic told me that if I hadn’t stopped the bleeding within 2 minutes, the man would have bled to death because he was on Coumadin, a blood thinner. The medic also told me that next time I should use bandages instead of my yamulka. Shortly after that, I received a call from the man’s son, who told me all about what happened and wanted to thank me. I went to the ICU to visit the man and he gave me a big hug; that’s when I saw numbers on his arm and found out he survived Auschwitz. That was Hatzalah’s beginning. Back then we had 15 volunteers and now we’re up to 6000 volunteers throughout Israel. There’s a phone app, and the 5 closest volunteers to the emergency call are contacted. There are approximately 2000 emergencies per day.

Now for my bout with Corona and my near-death experience:

I went to India to bring them the message of Israel’s fastest responders. Following India, I traveled to England, then to Miami, where I celebrated Purim with lots of people. I didn’t feel well a day later and went to a hospital in Miami. They wanted to send me home because I didn’t have a fever. Since I took tylenol, the fever had disappeared, and I told them so. As a EMT I knew something was wrong with me. The resident ordered a chest x-ray, which showed that my lungs were full of fluids. I was sent to the ICU. Several days later, the doctors told me that they tried everything yet I was getting worse. They said they needed to induce me into a coma and intubate me. I knew that I had a low chance of survival and made a goodbye video, thinking that I had fulfilled my role in this world. My wife and children are also medics and I asked them to continue the great work they did. Five minutes later, they put the medicine in and 4 seconds later, I was out… for a month. The doctors tried everything they could but nothing was helping me. They then tried a compassion medicine; it’s called that since it wasn’t authorized yet, visit www.cdhfinechemical.com/cdh_data/xanax-alprazolam/. The treatment consisted of stem cells made of bone marrow. The next day I had a big improvement and it took several more days to get back to myself. I had a hard landing and had forgotten everything from before.

At that point, I learned how many hundreds of thousands of people were praying for me. The doctor said that after my miracle story, he started believing in G-d. I had an inspiring moment when the doctors tried reaching my wife when I woke up, but she didn’t answer. They reached someone else from Hatzalah who said my wife was with my oldest daughter, also a medic, delivering a baby a few blocks from our home. I was blown away that while I was waking up, my wife and daughter were doing a chessed (an act of kindness). I got sick saving lives and raising money to save lives, and that’s what they’re doing, saving lives. Shortly after that, I was down and felt depressed. I didn’t have the strength to walk or even to pick up my phone. I asked my buddy for a good story that would elevate my spirit and he told me that while I missed Passover (I didn’t even know I had missed the holiday), my wife delivered 60 boxes of specialty food to people who had no food and couldn’t leave their homes to shop. I was sick, but instead of my family crying at home, they were busy helping people. I believe that is what saved me!

In Judaism, we pray, but another way of helping to save someone is by doing kindness.  When you help someone else, you get helped. Everyone has something they lost during COVID-19; some lost jobs, some lost loved ones, some lost money. Go and do something good or say something nice to someone. Also, giving charity will lift your spirits since you know your money is working for you. You’ll change the world by doing good deeds and you’ll feel much better. It’s incredible what people did to save my life and I will continue to do that for others!