All throughout Jewish history, the time between the Jewish festivals of Purim and Passover have been a time of blessing for the Jewish nation.
On Purim, Jews all over the world were saved from the evil decree of a Persian viceroy. On Passover, the Exodus occurred and the Hebrew slaves were taken out of Egypt by the direct hand of God, who blessed them and birthed the Jewish people.
The intermediate time between the holidays are one of the happiest times of the year.
In modern day Israel, this tradition of salvation and blessing continues every day, sometimes quietly, sometimes overtly in many fields. One such area in which overt miracles occur with daily salvations is with United Hatzalah, Israel’s only country-wide fully volunteer Emergency Medical Services organization.
With their innovative ambulance and ambucycle unit, which was founded in 2006, United Hatzalah has been able to be first responders to thousands of medical emergencies and save countless lives across Israel.
One such story of salvation came from a United Hatzalah volunteer, Avraham Porges from Ashdod, who came to the rescue of a an elderly woman named Bracha.
Porges describes himself as a “busy individual,”. He is the program director for the customer service division at YH Investments, he serves as the Deputy Director of the city’s Kosher certification division and also sits on the city’s religious affairs committee.
In spite of his full schedule, during any emergency, you can find Porges dropping everything to race to help those in need on his ambucycle as part of the United Hatzalah team, on his way to helping out another “happy customer.”
Porges has taken part in tens of incidents in which he has delivered lifesaving CPR and medical assistance, in all settings and situations. A recent story highlights just how effective and important United Hatzalah’s actions are.
“It was early in the morning when I got the alert that a woman (Bracha) had lost consciousness on a street nearby to where I work,” he told reporters. United Hatzalah got the call to their 1221 emergency hotline. Porges immediately jumped on his ambucycle and rushed over to the home.
When he arrived, Porges saw that the family had followed closely the instructions of the United Hatzalah hotline, listening closely to the instructions of the emergency dispatcher. This vital link in the chain of lifesaving helped keep the patient alive enabling Porges’s own medical interventions to be more effective. Porges resuscitated Bracha and then managed to stabilize her, while simultaneously comforting the family who were very worried as to her well-being.
When Bracha began to regain consciousness in the hospital, she asked to bless the person who saved her life. The family all pointed to Porges, who had just come in to check up on the lady whose life he had saved. Bracha (whose name means blessing) reached out her hand and returned the favor, blessing her lifesaver with long life, health and happiness.
United Hatzalah statistics indicate that a volunteer,like Avraham, responds to at least 40 emergency calls a month,which roughly adds up to 480 calls a year. Of these 480 calls, 25 percent (120 calls annually) are considered critical lifesaving situations.
In three years, one emergency ambucycle saves 360 lives. If not for these lifesaving vehicles and the volunteers who operate them and respond over and over again to emergency calls, there would be far fewer Jews looking forward to celebrating this year’s holiday of Godly blessing and redemption during Passover.
