Last time I saw him, he looked very different. He didn’t look at me. He didn’t say hi to me.

Not because he didn’t want to. But because he couldn’t. He was in the ICU, a short time after being involved in a very bad accident, and was hospitalized at the Hackensack hospital. He was unconscious. Connected to so many tubes that I couldn’t even count.

It was Friday, and I grabbed some chicken soup, homemade challah and ran to visit. Next to his bed, his sister was crying, saying Tehillim and praying for a miracle.

Well, the picture here is the miracle— and it means so much to me.

A few days ago I posted on Facebook about a funeral of a lonely Jew, and when I asked for help with a minyan, he called me, offering to help.

“Micah? Are you the famous Micah?” I asked him.

“I guess,” he responded with a chuckle.

I told him about my visit back on that fateful Friday. “I am so sorry that I didn’t say hi to you,” he said jokingly.

Of course he came to the funeral to help with the minyan.

Rabbi Mendy Kaminker
Chabad of Hackensack