Thursday, September 15, 2005


" ... asher yatzar es ha adom b'chochma..."
(" ... who fashionith man with wisdom ...")

After having undergone an appendectomy several weeks before ... one afternoon, while at work, Ben called me. I could hear alarm in his voice ...
"Dad, my staples have burst and I am leaking this stuff!"
"What?"
"There is this yellowish stuff oozing out of the incision!"
"Pack it with gauze, son, and get over to the emergency room!"
I met Ben there which happens to be right across the street ... so he was able to just walk over and check himself in. By the time I arrived, Ben had already been set up in a treatment room wherein the doctor was draining the pus that had accumulated within the infected surgical wound.
Once having cleaned, re-opened and stabilized the site, Ben was subsequently transferred to the hospital where his primary care physician was on staff. There he had to undergo an emergency surgery. Happily it turned out well, but the doctors wanted to be absolutely certain that the wound would heal properly before Ben would be released.
It was while one of the doctors held a stethescope against Ben's lower abdomen that I wondered aloud ...
"So ... doc, whatcha listening for ...?
"Listening for the gurgling sounds of his bowels moving so that I know he can pass gas ..." and then it hit me ... the meaning of the brocha (blessing) that observant Jews make ordinarily upon leaving the bathroom ...
"Baruch ata HaShem Elokeinu melech ha olam asher yatzar es ha adom b'chochma ..." (Blessed are You Ha Shem who fashioneth man with wisdom ...) how often as kids and even as adults had we laughed and joked when someone passed intestinal gas ... it has long since become something about which children make quips and giggle while adults pretend that they didn't do it! But it was precisely this for which the doctor was listening, this noise so often the butt of countless crude jokes, this gurgling that HaShem had created that it would be a sign of a healing bowel! I left the room shortly thereafter, walked into the hallway and realized what an important Torah lesson I had just learned.

1 comment:

Alan aka Avrum ben Avrum said...

Teri,

Thank you very much for your kind and supportive words! I am ...

Sincerely yours,

Alan