Learning from Susan Baram


Each Friday night at Beth Yeshurun we offer a prayer for the sick. "Mi sheberach avoteinu," "O may He Who blessed our ancestors, bless our loved ones and friends." On Saturday morning, we go further and actually read the names of those for whom prayers are on our lips.

For the last two years, Susan Baram's name was on that list. Starting this week, it is no more.Susan came to Houston some two years ago, the last stop on a journey from one great medical center to another, to find a way to add years to her life. An American who made aliyah to Israel many years earlier, Susan suffered a massive heart attack at the young age of 51. By the time we met her here in Houston, her heart was only beating at 14 percent of its capacity; she had precious little energy and her doctors cautioned her against exerting herself. That didn't stop Susan, though. Week after week, she pushed herself to leave her apartment and to come to her adopted synagogue, Beth Yeshurun.

Susan was a delightful woman to know and a portrait of courage to all who knew her.She needed all of that courage and more to endure what awaited her for the two years she was here.She needed a heart transplant; nothing else would do. And yet, month after month of treatments were unable to lower her body's antibodies to a level that would allow a new heart to have a fighting chance in her body. Each time a new protocol was developed, Susan volunteered if there was even a chance the experimental treatments might enable her body to accept a new heart. But none of the treatments worked. In fact, she once told me that, after one particularly tough go-round, her antibodies were still at their pre-treatment levels!

Yet she remained confident, almost defiant. "I'm going to lick this, and I'm not leaving Houston without a new heart." And she always added, "When the day comes that I die, it will be in Israel from old age, not here. I'm going to get well and I'm going home."

But two years is an awfully long time. And it took its toll even on someone with Susan's exuberance and enthusiasm. And so, not many weeks ago, she came to see me, in tears. Her doctors had given her their prognosis: Her chances of being a candidate for a heart transplant were only remote, and there was little more that could be done for her here in Houston. Perhaps, her doctors suggested, she should make her peace with her situation and enjoy the days, months or years left to her.

There were no new protocols she could try, except perhaps going to a different transplant center, but with no guarantees of a transplant here or anywhere else. And so she came to me, torn, crying.

I urged her not to give up, to grasp at any hand stretched out to her; that if she was going to die, then die after having exhausted every possibility. And she left my office feeling, I think, somewhat encouraged and more like the defiant Susan we had come to know and love.

Then a miracle happened.

Only a few days later, she received a call. A heart was available! An amazing match just right for a person like Susan with a high antibody count. But she had to come to the hospital right then, immediately. Her odds of surviving remained guarded. Though only in her 50s, she was frail and her heart was growing increasingly weaker. She might not survive the surgery itself; the recovery would not be easy; and her body might yet reject the new organ.

She, a woman who professed little faith, called me, her rabbi, to please come to the hospital to be with her. I raced to the operating suite and found her ready to be sedated. She clutched my hand and pleaded with me to say a prayer, lots of prayers, and to not let go of her hand until I had to. We said one "Misheberach" after another- for her well-being, for her soul and her spirit, and for the lev hadash, the new heart, that was waiting to be placed in her body.

Her two children gathered around her, and together we embraced one another. And knowing the odds that she was up against, Susan said to her children, "I don't know what is going to happen to me, but if this is our last time together, then I want you to have my blessing." And like Jacob, when he gathered his children and grandchildren around him at the end of his life, Susan proceeded to bless her children, and to tell them her prayers and wishes for them, and her hopes for them. She thanked them for all the nachas and love they had given her and for all that had happened in the last two years that had brought them so close together.

Then, with tears in everyone's eyes, Susan released my hand and the hands of her children, and was taken from us, into the operating suite. And now she is gone. Not from life, but from Houston, for today, this very day, she boarded a plane to begin that journey home to Haifa, to Eretz Yisrael, to Israel with a strong, healthy heart, a lev hadash, and with the prayerful wishes of everyone she met and touched here in Houston. Yes, she survived the surgery. She survived the recovery. She survived the weeks of recuperation and strength- building. And now she is whole again, strong again, and bursting with enthusiasm and a thirst to live again.

What did I learn from Susan?

I learned, first, about courage, and about how much courage we can find in ourselves when we are so sorely tested and pushed and challenged. We think we're frail, we think we're not strong enough to take one more step, but then we discover something inside us - is it God? - that pushes us and challenges us to go on. That same kind of courage I saw in Susan. I learned about friendship and selflessness, from the people who watched over her and brought her into their hearts and into their lives-people who never knew Susan until she came here two years ago, and people who may not see her again.

I learned about the capacity for giving and loving from the people who loved and cared about Susan. I learned about the power of that great gift of donating one's organs so that others might live. Susan's new heart came from a young man whose own life was tragically cut short, but in his passing, he gave life to Susan and at least six other people! So doing, he fulfilled one of the great mitzvot of Judaism, pikuach nefesh, the overriding commandment to save another human being's life.

What is the old saying? There are no atheists in a foxhole. I love the Hassidic teaching that the flame of faith burns inside us all; sometimes it becomes so small, we don't feel it and we think it's gone. But then something happens that causes that flame to grow, and we are filled with it and we feel its warmth and energy. And so to Susan, I say: Go in peace. On the wings of a great jet, return to your land, to your home, to your life. As we prayed so many times, may we pray yet again: May the Lord who blessed Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebeccah, Rachel and Leah, bless and heal you. May He watch over you and grant you a complete healing of body, soul and spirit. And may He bring you Peace. Amen.

Rabbi David Rosen copyright 2002 rosen@bethyeshurun.org

The above is from a recent sermon given by Rabbi David Rosen. Rabbi Rosen is the senior Rabbi at Beth Yeshurun in Texas, working with Rabbi Jack Segal, our own Michael Segal's father! Rabbi Rosen is married to the former Marcie Leva, and is the father of two children, Alysa and Dov.

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