Behaalotcha: To Healthier Days – and Willie Mays

This post is dedicated in memory of my father, Yaacov Zeev Yisrael ben Shmuel.

Last weekend I wasn’t feeling very well and at the start of this week I went to my doctor who advised I take a Coronavirus home-test as a precaution. Well, I took the test (twice, just to be sure) and it came up positive for Covid-19.

So, I have been resting all week in my apartment by myself (wearing a mask if forced to go out to the store for supples). I have watched a lot of TV (including the entire first season of a new American game show “The Floor” which is quite good), but I am doing ok. Only mild symptoms all week, thank God.

I have had Covid-19 just once before, exactly 2 years ago (a full 2 years after the pandemic began), but since then I mostly forgot what it and what quarantine feel like.

Anyway, now, about a week later, it seems that things are on the right path to recovery, I just need to be a little bit more patient – but nobody likes to wait.

Speaking of wanting ‘instant’ healing, this week’s Torah portion Behaalotcha concludes with the episode of Miriam.

In a nutshell, what transpires is that Miriam speaks negatively of her brother Moshe, and is immediately punished by God with the biblical skin affliction tzara’at. Moshe pray a short but effective prayer for her healing, and the entire community waits seven days for her recovery, while she, much like me, was put in a quarantine away from everyone else for a full week.

 I want to focus on Moshe’s (short) prayer on behalf of his sister (Numbers 12:13) –

וַיִּצְעַ֣ק משֶׁ֔ה אֶל ה’ לֵאמֹ֑ר אֵ֕ל נָ֛א רְפָ֥א נָ֖א לָֽהּ:

Moshe cried out to the Lord, saying, “Please God, please heal her.” 

Chizkuni interprets Moshe’s prayer in accordance with Onkelos – “God, please heal her now.” He explains the repetition of the word “please” (na) in Moshe’s prayer as follows: “The first [time] is an expression of appeal, and the second is an expression of immediacy.”

When I read this interpretation this week about the same word, ‘na’ meaning both ‘please’ the first time and ‘now’ the second, I chuckled because it reminded me of this iconic dinner scene from the first Addams Family movie (1991):

Speaking of ‘salt’ and wanting things NOW, does anyone remember the brat Veruca Salt of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory movie from 1971 and her “I want it now” song?

Some say that God accepted Moshe’s prayer and healed Miriam immediately (or some say she was only healed a week later), but God still commanded that she be quarantined for a week, in accordance with the law brought down in the laws of the metzorah back in Vayikra. And the entire camp of Israel did not move forward for a week until the waiting period for Miriam was over.

When we, or others, and not feeling well, we always pray to God for a רפואה שלימה – a full recovery – but we also pray for a speedy recovery.

They say we Israelis have chutzpah, that whatever we want, we want it now. But maybe we learn that trait from our greatest leader in history Moshe Rabeinu. Did he mean, “Please God, please heal her” or was it “Please God, please heal NOW!“

Of course God grants requests according to HIS timing and not ours, but if it was ok for Moshe to requst healing NOW, maybe we should too. After all, it was the great sage Hillel who said:

I could conclude right here, but I learned a great lesson about the importance of patience from the Hall of Fame baseball player Willie Mays who passed away this week at the age of 93.

Willie Mays

Mays was only 20 in 1951, when he received the phone call to join the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds in New York City.  Mays got off to a rocky start in the majors, going hitless in his first 12 times at bat (over 3 games). 

At one point, Mays admitted, “Yes, I was crying. I was crying in my locker and (first-base coach) Freddy Fitzsimmons came in and he saw me and he tells Leo, ‘You better go see about your boy. He’s in there crying.’” Mays later said, “So I’m nervous now. (Durocher) is going to send me back very quickly because that’s the way they do it in the majors. If you don’t hit, you’re gone.

“Leo came out and said to me, “You’re my center fielder. Don’t worry about anything else. Just go on home and relax.’”

 Other managers might have panicked and sent the rookie back to the minors, but the Giant’s Leo Durocher had faith in his young centerfield, and Mays broke his hitless streak with a home run blasted over the left field roof.  It took another 13 at-bats for Mays to get his second major league hit, but he soon got the knack of hitting major league pitching and hit another 19 home runs before the season was out.  His spectacular fielding was already making headlines. He went on to become a legendary player for the New York and then San Francisco Giants, a Hall of Famer, and one of the best baseball players to have ever played the game.

So, if I, Yonatan, have learned anything from the great Willie Mays (I remember I did a book report on him in the 5^th grade), it is to be patient.

Me if front of the Willie Mays statue outside of the SF Giants ballpark in San Francisco.

Good health to all and Shabbat Shalom.