“…so many people inside were crying, while outside an even larger crowd was singing?
An original translation by R. Yerachmiel Tilles
Gedalia Meyerovitz was twenty-five years old when he was rounded up along with the other youths of the town Marmarush in Czechoslovakia and transported to a Nazi labor camp in Germany where they were forced to work in a weapons factory. Towards the end of the war, the camp was heavily bombed in a raid by Allied planes. All of the Nazi guards in the camp fled in fear. As soon as the prisoners realized that their guards were gone, they too bolted and found refuge in a nearby city.
After much shuffling from place to place, Gedalia was able to immigrate to the Land of Israel in 1947. Still suffering from his experience in the prison camp, when his ship landed in Jaffa port, Gedalia weighed all of 35 kilograms (77 pounds)! He was the sole survivor of all his family. His parents and seven siblings had all been slaughtered by the Nazi beasts.
Gedalia made his way to Jerusalem. There he was adopted and provided for by a kind-hearted family in the Hungarian Quarter of Meah Shearim. In an effort to rehabilitate himself physically and emotionally, he decided to join Etzel (“the Stern Gang”), the most extreme of the Jewish resistance movements then functioning in Israel. The Etzel officers didn’t see much in him at first, but they quickly revised their evaluations when they discovered that the quiet skeletal young volunteer was a munitions and explosives expert with much experience.
They provided him with a cellar near the center of town where he was able to work at producing explosives for Etzel operations. Above the cellar was a postal store, managed by another member of the movement. Gedalia would help out in the store from time to time in order to give credence to his presence in the area on a nearly daily basis.
During that period, a terrible tragedy took place. A caravan of doctors and nurses trying to reach Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was ambushed, and seventy-eight of them were killed. The Jewish community seethed in shock and frustration.
Etzel decided that the appropriate response was to bomb the tower of the missionary hospital “Augusta Victoria,” since it was the base of the Jordanian murderers and from where they had set out on their deadly strike. Gedalia participated in the mission and was wounded by fragments from the explosion. Even more serious was the injury he suffered when an Arab rifle bullet shattered his right ankle. He collapsed, and was soon carted away on a stretcher to Hadassah Hospital.
The wound became infected and putrefied and quickly became dangerous. The doctors were afraid they would have to amputate part of his foot. In a last-hope maneuver to avoid the amputation, they performed a complicated surgery in an attempt to graft other bone in place of his crushed ankle. The graft didn’t take and the necrosis continued to spread. Amputation was now unavoidable.
Gedalia fell into a deep depression. He had come to Israel completely alone and empty-handed. His goal – indeed his dream — was to get married and raise a family. But who would want to marry a crippled, impoverished orphan? He sank in his misery and refused to speak to anyone, not even his doctors.
Two young scribes from Jerusalem, Avraham and Natanel Eisenbach, made a point of coming once each week to visit the Jewish patients in Hadassah. They had become acquainted with Gedalia and looked for ways to raise his spirits.
All this happened during the days of the Jewish month of Iyar. One of the brothers went over to Gedalia’s bedside and asked him in a whisper if he would like to be snuck out to accompany them to Meron, the burial place of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in the North of Israel, on Lag B’Omer, which would be in only two days.
Gedalia agreed sullenly. “Why not?” he thought to himself. “Nothing good is happening for me here in this hospital. What do I have to lose?”
He had heard many wondrous stories that took place in Meron on Lag B’Omer. Who knows? Maybe a miracle could give him back his foot.
That night the two “rescuers” came to Gedalia’s bedside, covered him with a sheet and carried him out on a stretcher. Not one of the hospital staff suspected a thing; they assumed they were witnessing the removal of a dead body.
Once outside, the Eisenbachs loaded Gedalia on his stretcher into the back of a covered pickup truck that was riding into town. Then, early in the morning, they put him into a truck that was headed for Meron.
They arrived at Meron just before sunset, a short time before the giant bonfires were to be lit. It was impossible to drive up the steep hill to the burial site because of the large crowds of people camped on the road. Kind-hearted Jews took turns carrying Gedalia on his stretcher all the way up to the top of the hill. They brought him into the room enclosing the tomb of Rabbi Shimon and laid him gently on a broad windowsill.
Gedalia began reading Psalms fervently, weeping and sobbing uncontrollably. He prayed, “G-d Al-mighty: my entire family was killed by the Nazis. Only I survived. I must build a family, so that our line will continue. But how can I marry, if I lose my leg?”
After a short time, he was surprised to hear many voices outside raised in joyous song. Never having been to Meron on Lag B’Omer before, he couldn’t understand it. How could it be that he and everyone else in the holy room were calling out and crying and passionately praying, while right outside the window there was an even larger crowd singing and making merry?
He struggled to raise himself to a sitting position in order to be able to look outside through his window. An elderly man came over to him and explained that the rejoicing was over the arrival of the Torah scroll from Tsfat (Safed). Since the mid 1800’s, the great Lag B’Omer bonfire at Meron was not lit until this scroll of the Abu family was brought to Mount Meron, after it had been paraded around the streets of Tsfat with enthusiastic drumming and dancing throughout the afternoon.
Then the man said, “I see it is difficult for you to get up, but nevertheless you should make a great effort. It is worth it, in honor of the Torah scroll. Here, let me help you.”
He extended a hand and helped Gedalia to stand and take a few precarious steps. Gedalia then limped slowly outside and managed to join the enormous circle dance for a few movements. After that, he returned to his former position inside, completely exhausted, but deliriously happy that he had managed to stand up and take part in the special rejoicing unique to Lag B’Omer at Meron.
The next day they brought Gedalia back to his bed at Hadassah. The medical staff who witnessed his return stared at him as if he were crazy. A few lectured him that he may have dangerously aggravated his condition.
After letting him rest for a day, they began preparing him for the operation to amputate his foot. Gedalia decided to sit up and tell them about his trip to Meron. When he mentioned that at the encouragement of the old man he had even danced a bit, the doctors and nurses shook their heads in disbelief.
Gedalia concluded his report with these words: “In the light of all this, you do what you have to do and the One on High will do what He has to do.”
The doctors smiled. One of them removed the bandage from Gedalia’s foot. They all stared in amazement. The vast improvement in his condition was instantly recognizable to all. The infection had dramatically receded and there were clear signs that it would soon disappear.
Only a few days later and Gedalia was discharged from the hospital. He was able to return home, walking normally on both feet. Later that year he met the woman that would become his wife and the mother of his seven children. They lived many happy years until he passed away on the 28th of Iyar, ten days after Lag B’Omer, in 1980.
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Source: Translated-adapted from Sichat HaShavua #749 (where it is told in first person by Isaiah Meyerovitz, Gedalia’s son).
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Rabbi Yerachmiel Tilles is co-founder of Ascent, webmaster and managing editor of KabbalaOnline.org and ascentofsafed.com. He has hundreds of published stories to his credit.
The books of Rabbi Yerachmiel Tilles can be purchased at https://www.kabbalaonline-shop.com/searchresults.asp?Search=Tilles&Submit=
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