Trying Unsuccessfully to get Pregnant - An Angel Comes to Town

Now I know that some of you will not believe this story, but it is absolutely true. By 1986, I had been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant for three and a half years. I had gone to the big fertility doctors, ingested the horrible chemicals, and endured the wretched, painful procedures, all to no avail. Every month I started a new cycle of hope only to be bitterly disappointed by month's end.

At that time, I was working at a Yeshiva, (Orthodox Jewish) high school in Connecticut. Of the three Rabbis there, my immediate boss had ten children, and the two others had eight and six kids, with no limit in sight. They all felt sorry for me and offered many well meaning suggestions like becoming an Orthodox Jew and following the laws relating to family purity. For those of you unfamiliar with these laws, the gist of it is that you refrain from marital relations for the first two weeks of the menstrual cycle, get purified in the Mikvah, (Ritual Bath) and then resume relations until the end of the cycle. The theory is that you will always have relations when you are ovulating thus increasing the chance of pregnancy.

Thanks, but I don't think so. Anyway, one day a taxi drove up to the Yeshiva and discharged a passenger, a little old man with a long beard dressed in the Ultra-Orthodox manner. The cab driver, an unobservant Jew told me he didn't really understand the old man, since he didn't speak Hebrew and the old man didn't speak English, but with signs and gestures and a few words, the old man communicated that he wanted to be taken to Jews. I thanked the driver and said the old man would be welcome here. I turned him over to the Rabbi and went on with my work.

After a while, the Rabbi came into the office and explained what he was doing here.. Rabbi Ben-Ami, needed an eye operation that could only be performed at a hospital in Boston. Since he couldn't afford the operation, he was traveling up and down the New York to Boston corridor seeking funds from charitable Jews. We all felt terribly sorry for him and I was ready to empty my checkbook to help him.

He asked the Rabbis about me and they told him of my infertility problem. With one of the Rabbis translating, Rabbi Ben- Ami politely suggested that I read the Book of Samuel; (Prophets) each night, letting Hashem know that I wanted a baby. He thoughtfully produced the book and handed it to me. I accepted it with a tight-lipped thank you, thinking that there was no end of Jewish mumbo jumbo regarding pregnancy. Still, it was better than the ritual bath, so I thought I'd give it a try.

One of the Rabbis took him home that night and brought him back the next morning. It was to be my job to drive him back to the train station. We all gave him money to help his cause. On the way to the train station, we communicated in broken English, Hebrew and Yiddish. He was trying to understand if there was an environmental reason for my inability to conceive. How long you have been married, he asked. Seven years, I replied. Was an evil mother in law living with us? Who lives in your house, he asked in Hebrew. I do, I answered and my, uh, my uh, I couldn't think of the Hebrew word for husband but I did remember the one for groom. My groom, I replied, just me and my groom. Rabbi Ben- Ami laughed. Seven years married and you are still calling your husband, your groom. Don't worry, he said, you will have a child. He blessed me and went on his way.

When I went back to work I asked my boss if he had gotten Rabbi Ben Ami's address in Israel so we could write to him and find out if the operation was a success. The Rabbi looked at me in a very peculiar manner. When I asked him for it, he said he gave it to you. To me?? No he didn't. We shrugged at each other and went on with our day. The very next month, I conceived and nine months later I gave birth to our beautiful daughter. We named her Samantha after the Book of Samuel. And as for the Rabbi, we never saw him again