Here is a bank with Talmud study that saves lives. We don't have that at our local Bank of America.
By RABBI DAVID ELIEZRIE
It's hard to believe that a bank could save a life. But that is exactly what happened to my son in California.
Twenty-two months ago he had a bone marrow transplant. The donor, Moshe Price, is a young yeshiva student in Jerusalem. Walking one day together with his sister, he noticed a sign on the wall of the Bank of Jerusalem advertising a bone marrow drive. In a split second he made the decision to walk inside, and he and his sisters became members of the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Project.
Two months ago I had taken a tour group to shop in Mea She'arim. I decided to take a detour and I walked into the bank on Rehov Ya'acov Meir. The bank is nestled in the midst of the religious neighborhood of Geula, adjacent to Mea She'arim. The managers, tellers and all the staff are religious.
I walked over to the manager's office and stuck in my head. In Hebrew and Yiddish I told him the story. "You remember the bone marrow drive you did here some four years ago?"
"Yes," he replied.
"Well, it saved my son's life."
The reaction was astonishment. A bone marrow drive, that was a nice idea, but to be told by the father of the recipient, from California no less, that it saved a life, that the decision to use the bank for the drive would have such palpable results, was a quite a surprise. The staff gathered around; the Internet was checked for articles about the story. The "wow" effect was amazing.
I had decided to walk in since the Torah teaches us that the recognition of the good that someone else does for you is important. We are told to be grateful for all the good in our lives, first to God, and secondly to the humans who are the emissaries of that good.
A few years after Moshe's visit to the bank, he got a call. There was a match, his marrow could save another life. Moshe didn't know the recipient was to be another yeshiva student across the ocean in California. All he knew was that he might save the life of another.
The marrow arrived in California by special courier. When the bag of lifesaving blood was brought to my son's room, he spied a yellow tag attached to it. It said "Schneider Children's Hospital, Petah Tikva." Quick, he told me, rip it off before the nurse comes back. One of the doctors had let slip that the donor was from Israel, but now the information was confirmed.
Six months ago Moshe and my son met when he came to the US to see some relatives. It turns out that many bonds connect them. Both are yeshiva students, his family Americans who made aliya years ago. Moshe's cousin is married to one of my son-in-law's cousins. Many other connections of mutual friends and associates are links that existed that we never knew about.
It was Ofra Konikoff, director of the Ezer Mizion Bone Marrow Project, who told me of the greatest bond. "When a Jew is in need, he must come back to his source, to Israel and the Jewish people." Our bond is our common destiny reaching back to Sinai and continuing until today. There are 11 million people registered worldwide in the network of bone marrow registries. Some 600,000 of them are Jews, primarily part of Ezer Mizion in Israel or the US Gift of Life Program. In most cases it takes a Jew to save a Jew.
A few days after the first visit, I returned again to the bank with my wife, Stella. She too wanted to thank them. It was near the end of the business day. In the office of Shmuel Deitsch, the branch manager, a group was immersed in Talmud study. "Every day we spend a little time and the end of the day in Torah study," Shmuel told me.
As I left the bank, it dawned on me. One mitzva brings another. Here is a bank with Talmud study that saves lives. We don't have that at our local Bank of America.
And as for Moshe, the donor, at the time he was buying a house near Jerusalem and had applied to Bank of Jerusalem for a loan. As we left we told the manager, "Drop the points and give him a good rate."
And my son was recently in Israel on a birthright trip. After the tour finished, he stayed for another two weeks. On the top of his itinerary was a visit to Moshe's new home in Kiryat Telz Stone. Hopefully they will visit the bank together.
So if someone tells you that you can't save a life, and your actions don't really make a different, don't believe it. A small decision on Rehov Ya'acov Meir in Geula gave life to another person on the other side of globe.
rabbi@ocjewish.com
if(catID != 151){
var cont = `Take Israel home with the new Jerusalem Post Store