The Real Reason My Father Refused an Injection

By Batya Schochet Lisker

“I decline the injection,” my father said politely to the nurse. “Not today.”

It was Shabbos morning. A few family members were gathered in my father’s room at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Patients understandably want to get treated close to home. Since getting the care he needed in Toronto was impossible, we traveled to New York.

The top-notch nursing staff at Sloan Kettering mirrored the incredible doctors and medical care. This particular nurse was actually our family’s favorite. She understood that the experience as a patient is humbling. The comfort and compassion she extended to us, coupled with her commitment and competence, went a long way to mitigate our fear during this time of pain and uncertainty.

My father explained his refusal when she questioned his decision. “It’s Shabbat, and you are Jewish. You can’t give me the shot today,” he said. It took every bit of her professionalism to remain composed, but the nurse left the room visibly insulted and upset.

At the beginning of the week, the doctor had started my father on daily heparin shots. Heparin is an anticoagulant, a blood thinner, used to help prevent harmful clots from forming in blood vessels. When the injection caused some bleeding at the injection site, those around him were concerned about the blood staining his hospital gown or his skin.

My father instead saw a shayla (halachic question) in Hilchos Shabbos. He immediately asked the doctor if he could receive the heparin in pill form. The doctor responded that it is not absorbed well orally. My father then asked if it was vital for him to receive the heparin injection daily or if it would cause him serious harm to skip a day. The doctor admitted that although it was very important for him to get it, nothing would happen if one day was missed.

My brother-in-law instantly understood exactly why my father had not allowed the Jewish nurse to give him the injection. He began offering my father a variety of kulas, leniencies from stringent halachic observance, that might be applicable in this situation, which he rejected.

With his wry humor and a twinkle in his deep blue eyes, my father smiled and said, “After being a Rav for decades, you don’t think I know all the kulas? No one calls me asking for chumrahs (stringencies of or beyond Halacha).”

When the nurse returned a few minutes later with a solemn poker face, my father turned to her and said, “I just paid you a huge compliment, but I realize that you may not have understood it.”

She raised her eyebrows and turned to him questioningly.

My father continued, “You and I are the same. I am not holier than you. You have the same piece of G-d that is your Jewish soul within you. If I can’t do something on Shabbat, then you can’t do it for me. You are just as Jewish and holy as I am.”

A smile spread over the nurse’s face as she peered at my righteous, saintly father and saw her own G-dliness reflected back at her. She straightened her shoulders, held her head up high, and walked a little prouder. Beaming, she left the room as if someone had just presented her with a most precious gift.

All of us need to place the Torah’s profound truth that the Rebbe exemplified in the forefront of our relationship with others: One Jew is not better than another regardless of his Torah observance. Every Jew, no matter how seemingly secular or far removed from G-d, has within him or her a spark of the Divine. All we need to do is to feed that flame, and like the bush in which G-d first appeared to Moses, it will burn so strongly with the fire of faith that it will never be consumed.