Rabbi’s brush with death deepened his gratitude for life

By Dan Bloom

CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan — Rabbis come in all varieties, and their diversity in ideas and wisdom widens the communities they minister to.

For Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, a close brush with a medical emergency changed his life and made him a better man.

I know Rabbi Wolple only from his weekly newsletter of thoughts and mini-sermons that pops in my mailbox in Taiwan via the miracle of the Internet, and the other day I came upon an appreciation he had written on the life of the late Martin Gilbert, biographer of Winston Churchill.

“Martin Gilbert, who recently passed away, completed the official biography of Churchill and wrote many other books on Jewish, general, and British history,” Rabbi Wolpe wrote. “But he was also an extraordinary mensch. I experienced his kindness myself.”

Intrigued by the opening paragraph, I kept reading because I wanted to know more.

“Gilbert was invited to be scholar in residence at my synagogue over a decade ago,” the rabbi continued. “I had read several of his books but never met the eminent historian and was excited to do so. Shortly before he came [to our syngagogue], I fell ill with a seizure and brain tumor. I was recovering, and unable to go anywhere, the weekend he spoke. We had a brief conversation on the phone and I told him I was always interested in WWI, about which he had written a fine book.

Three weeks later from England, a package arrived: five books on World War I, all signed by the authors who were friends of Gilbert’s.”

There was more to the story, too.

“A few years later when I recovered and was traveling in England. he invited me to his house to finally meet,’ he added. “Over dinner I told him how much his gracious gesture meant to me. He was characteristically diffident and humble. To be an historian of Gilbert’s caliber is extremely rare. To be renowned and so kind is a model from which all can learn, and so honor the memory of this true scholar and gentleman. May his memory be for a blessing.”

I emailed Rabbi Wolpe in Los Angeles after reading the above, and wanted to know more about his brush with a brain tumor illness, which happened I later learned, in 2003.

Seven year later, in 2010, Rabbi Wolpe wrote a Huffington Post column about his experience which explained that he had suffered a grand mal seizure followed by the diagnosis of a brain tumor.

“After a 10 hour MRI assisted brain surgery and a year on anti-seizure medication, life calmed down,” he wrote. “In 2006 I was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and had months of chemotherapy. Now after two years I am completing Rituxan, a follow up on the earlier treatment that is intended to extend remission.”

The rabbi said in his Huffington Post piece that he was never taught that God promises us forever.

“Each day is graced with beauty, with the certainty that this world is not all,” he noted. “I am not owed more years. I do, however, desperately wish for them.”

In my email the other day, after reading the appreciation of Martin Gilbert and his 2010 Huffington Post article about his illness. I asked him if I could write about all this, and he said: “Absolutely.”

And when I asked Rabbi Wolpe what he might say about his earlier experiences as a patient, more than ten years ago, and how they have shaped his life as a rabbi, he replied: “As you see, I have written about my medical trials, but don’t at the moment have much more to say about it. I guess it has made me far more aware of the trials of others, their difficulties and fears.”

We often think that rabbis never get sick and never have close brushes with death and never get diagnosed with brain tumors. But some do, it’s true, and when they recover, it makes them even more grateful and aware of what life really is all about. Rabbi Wolpe knows.

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Bloom, based in Taiwan, is an inveterate web surfer.  Your signed comment may be posted in the space provided below or sent to dan.bloom@sdjewishworld.com

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