On March 17th, the doctors at Miami University Hospital told me that the Covid-19 Coronavirus had gotten into my lungs and that they were going to have to sedate me. At the time, I hadn’t yet heard of anyone who had suffered so much from the disease as I had. Other people I knew who had contracted the disease were mildly sick. I thought that there was no chance that this could happen to me. I was so careful and I was doing good things for Am Yisrael in raising money for United Hatzalah. My whole life has been dedicated to saving others, so how could this happen to me, I thought?
In the last video I sent to everyone from my hospital bed, I begged people to pray for me and to do good deeds as a merit for my recovery. The doctors then put me into an induced coma. I recall them putting the injection in my arm and coming with the blade of the intubation tube to intubate me. That is the last thing I remember. Nearly 30 days later I woke up and the world had changed. It wasn’t the same world that I knew before. When I walked into the hospital, everything in the world was normal, open, and functioning. When I woke up, everything was shut down.
It took me two days to come back to myself. I couldn’t even open my phone. The only communication I had was a few phone calls with my wife and children through the hospital phone and I was too weak to talk. I had tubes everywhere and I wasn’t able to walk or even talk for nearly two days. I had lost 36 pounds of muscle and body weight.
One of the things that hit me hardest was when I saw a notice on my phone that a very close friend of mine and one of the greatest people I know, Rabbi Zvi Ryzman, was also in very serious condition in Cedars Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Rabbi Ryzman is a humble man, and yet a successful businessman, who is one of the greatest Torah scholars that I have had the pleasure to get to know. When I learned that he was also sick with the disease, I was shocked. He was a big supporter of so many great organizations including United Hatzalah. I used to talk to him quite often and I was very close to him. He was a very strong man physically, and I never heard of him suffering from anything. That is when it hit me that what I was suffering from other people were suffering from as well.
I called up one of Rabbi Ryzman’s sons and he told me that most of the family was sick with the disease but most weren’t in critical condition as Rabbi Ryzman was. At one point, the doctors in Los Angeles almost gave up, until the President of Shaare Zedek in Jerusalem, Professor Jonathan Halevy, called up Rabbi Ryzman’s wife and doctors and told them not to give up and provided medical advisement. I decided that people were praying for me, so I needed to pray for him. I started praying for him multiple times per day. I know that he was praying for me when I got sick, so it was the least I could do to return the favor.
The doctors were working really hard to save his life. Two weeks later I was so relieved to hear that he woke up. I knew what he was going through in his recuperation process and how hard it was because I had just gone through it myself. I was so relieved when he was getting better. I know that Hashem can’t give up on people like him, even though he faced tremendous challenges in this disease and recovery process.
Sometime later he called me up to thank me for praying for him. I was so humbled. I told him that I was just one of many thousands of people who were praying for him. He told me that he was calling everyone that he knew of who was praying for him.
A few weeks ago, I was in Los Angeles and I called Rabbi Ryzman to tell him that I was in town. He invited me for Shabbat and I went over. We had a few hours in the afternoon and we sat and spoke about our stories and how we went through very similar experiences. We also talked about how we can help Am Yisrael now that we both survived. I told him that I want to save more lives. He told me that he wants to write more books on Jewish thought (sefarim) and help more organizations.
I am honored that people like Rabbi Zvi and his wife Betty are my friends and are supporters of the lifesaving mission I have undertaken with United Hatzalah. When we were able to take a photo on Saturday night after Shabbat was over, I reflected on just how many miracles occurred in making the picture. I will never forget how this picture came to be and how much each of us had to go through in order to be standing next to each other smiling. I am going to hang this photo up in my office and keep it with me always.
Rabbi Ryzman in Los Angeles, and I in Florida and then Israel, underwent some of the hardest experiences that this disease was able to throw at us. I am so thankful that God chose to spare both of us so that we may each return to our respective missions, with renewed vigor, and continue to help the people of Israel in the best ways that we know how to. I am also thankful that I have gotten to know some of the greatest people in this world who have taught me so much simply by being who they are, people like Rabbi Zvi Ryzman.
(Eli Beer is the father of five, a social entrepreneur and president and founder of United Hatzalah of Israel, an independent, non-profit, fully volunteer EMS organization that provides fast and free emergency first response throughout Israel. He is also a recovered Covid-19 patient)
