A Pasuk and a Prayer 

Late on Friday afternoon, the doctor on call came to update me. “We see something on your lung,” he said gravely. “It could be due to COVID or… Something Else.”

The pandemic had just arrived in the US, and the very thought of having contracted it was so scary. Equally scary was the Something Else. My COVID test results wouldn’t be ready until the following morning. I was about to go into Shabbos with a lot of nerve-racking unknowns hanging over me. There was no way I was going to tell my family this newest development until I knew for sure. Why should they worry the entire Shabbos? But it was so hard to bear all this on my own.

I thought about my family at home. I thought about my future, their future. I had never felt so scared, so alone. What would it mean for me, for them, to have to undergo this nisayon? I thought about my life insurance plan. I thought about Chedva Silberfarb. I felt so, so scared.

Just then, Dr. Leslie Bennett, a hematologist/ oncologist who had been managing my care in the hospital thus far, called me. He told me two things: “I want you to say ‘Ein Od Milvado.’ Say it every day when you wake up. Say it throughout the day.”