The black glass building stood sentinel outside the maternity ward window of Hadassah Medical Center’s Mount Scopus campus, its sleek, modern surface standing out against the antique landscape of East Jerusalem. I had just, once again, become a father, my newborn daughter’s soft cries filling the room with life, yet my curious nature kept returning my gaze to that striking edifice. Our oldest daughter was born here two-and-a-half years ago and I was sure I had not seen this building then. Alas, the immediate demands of new parenthood pushed the building to the periphery of my consciousness.
There is a strange and often uncomfortable dynamic that unfolds while spending Shabbat in the hospital following a birth. While I am here for the most joyous of occasions, many others are here to tend to ailing relatives —some whose illnesses they fear are terminal, G-d forbid. The emotions of meeting someone in the hospital synagogue on Shabbat can be quite unpredictable.
After Kabbalat Shabbat, someone recognized me. It turns out he is from the same community as my wife’s siblings, Mitzpe Yeriho. “Did you have a baby?” he asks. “Yes,” I replied, followed by my somewhat dreaded question, “What brings you here?”
“My son was seriously injured in Lebanon.”
“Can I visit him tomorrow?” I asked a few moments later. “Sure, he’s in the new rehab,” came the reply. “The new rehab?” I asked out of ignorance. “Yes, you know that brand-new black building . . . ”
In that moment, the black glass building outside the window took on new meaning. I hadn’t imagined that it was a medical facility, as it was outside the existing hospital grounds. This wasn’t just an architectural marvel or an anonymous structure, but a place of profound significance.
Known as the Gandel Rehabilitation Center, it is a testament to rapid response and community resilience. Originally scheduled to open in May, 2024, I later learned that Hadassah accelerated the project so as to accommodate the urgent needs of soldiers injured on Oct. 7, 2023 and in Gaza, ultimately opening five months early, in January, 2024.
My visit to Evyatar — the soldier I’d learned about in the hospital synagogue — was itself a study in contrasts between construction and inauguration. My approach was anything but ceremonial; I entered through an underground parking garage, climbing stairs on Shabbat to find all the doors locked. At first, I was nervous; I soon learned that only a few floors were currently operational amid continuing construction.
Evyatar’s room told a story of its own. Israeli flags and Golani brigade banners adorned the walls, interspersed with his kids’ artwork and well-wishes from his daughter’s fourth-grade class. When I arrived, he was studying the weekly Torah portion — a profound act of spiritual resilience amidst physical recovery.
He insisted that I read a heart-wrenching, inspiring article about his comrade, Shaul Moyal, a 47-year-old father of 10 who was killed in the same attack. “He was a regular soldier, not a commander,” Evyatar emphasized, a pointed commentary on the IDF’s desperate manpower needs that saw a middle-aged father on the front lines.
Evyatar’s recollection was fragmented, traumatic. He explained how he had no memory of the attack until weeks after waking up, how the devastating realization gradually emerged that his comrades were not merely injured, but killed. The emotional weight was palpable as he described seeing his children for the first time just days earlier, deliberately waiting until he was free of the multiple medical tubes that had sustained him.
Evyatar was injured in the same incident that claimed Rabbi Avi Goldberg’s life, the first military rabbi to be killed in active combat. As the only survivor, Evyatar had endured unimaginable trauma. During surgery for his shattered arm, doctors discovered that his lungs were collapsing. They immediately pivoted, inserting temporary screws to stabilize his arm — “It was hanging by a thread,” in Evyatar’s words — and focused on saving his life. Three weeks in an induced coma followed; he was suspended between life and death.
As I reflected later on his story, I was struck by the delicate balance between fragility and strength. Here I was, surrounded by the pure, unblemished potential of new life, while he embodied the raw, hard-won testament of survival. The black glass building was more than a medical facility — it was a crucible where broken bodies and spirits were carefully, meticulously reconstructed.
The proximity of these experiences — birth and recovery, trauma and healing — was striking. In this hospital, life revealed itself in its most elemental forms: the first breaths of my daughter and the fought-for breaths of a man who had narrowly escaped death while defending our country. Each breath a miracle, each moment a testament to the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit.
The rehabilitation center, with its modern architecture and advanced medical technology, represents more than healing. It is a statement of hope, of Israel’s commitment to supporting those who have sacrificed for its people, of transforming profound loss into potential, and pain into possibility.
As Shabbat ebbed away over Jerusalem, I held my daughter close, acutely aware of the fragility and strength that coexist within us — a lesson learned from a chance encounter in a hospital synagogue, framed by a new building of sheer black glass that now seemed to shimmer with untold stories of courage.
© IJN 2024
