In 1980, when I was 15 years old, my father was appointed security manager for El Al cargo at JFK airport. Our family moved from Israel to Long Island for my father’s new job and that’s how I came to spend my teenage years in America.

We were an Orthodox family but had no meaningful connection with Chabad at the time. Rabbi Kuti Rapp, the Chabad emissary at JFK airport, was actively engaged with all the El Al employees. He invited my father to come to the Rebbe’s farbrengen and naturally I tagged along. We were seated together with other dignitaries and had the opportunity to see the Rebbe, say l’chaim to him, and hear the simultaneous Hebrew translations of the talk through the devices available at the weekday farbrengens.

After that first farbrengen we participated in many more, which gave us many opportunities to see the Rebbe. By the end of my father’s three-year appointment, we had grown very close to Chabad and my father even started growing a beard. We returned to Israel in 1983.

Five years later, after concluding my military service, I returned to New York and Rabbi Rapp arranged lodgings for me until I found something more permanent. It was around Chanukah time of 1988, and every morning Rabbi Rapp took me with him to the Rebbe’s home for Shacharit (morning services). For several weeks, I merited to see and hear the Rebbe lead the prayers, and those memories are forever seared into my soul.

Since then, Chabad has been an important part of my life and I have maintained strong connections and relationships with many shluchim over the years. When the Ohel app was developed, I downloaded it and started writing letters to the Rebbe that way on behalf of myself and others.

In 2022, I was driving in Wasilla, Alaska, where I now live, when another driver ran a red light and smashed into my car. I was taken to the hospital with six broken ribs and a lacerated spleen. After four painful days, I was discharged home.

A few days later I started experiencing unbearable pain in my lower back and immediately returned to the hospital. While I was still in the emergency room, one of the surgeons approached me with some grim news. “Unfortunately, it appears from the CT scan that your spleen is still bleeding.”

“Are you sure?” I asked him. “When they discharged me last week I was told it was not bleeding anymore.” He explained that the spleen is very sensitive and any sudden movement could have caused it to reopen. This would explain the nature of my back pain, which he assured me had nothing to do with my broken ribs. As a result, it was imperative for me to undergo an emergency cauterizing procedure to stop the bleeding. If the bleeding was not stopped properly, they would need to remove my spleen and some serious complications could follow. The other surgeon and the night shift radiologist both agreed with the first surgeon’s diagnosis and I was scheduled to have the operation the next morning.

Although my situation was not life-threatening, I was not too happy with the news I had just received. Suddenly, I received a call from a good friend of mine, Rabbi Avrohom Moshe Dyce, the Chabad emissary in Gresham, Oregon. He had heard about my injuries and called to see how I was doing. I shared with him the latest unfortunate developments and he suggested I write a letter to the Rebbe right away. In all the chaos surrounding my accident and my injuries, I had completely forgotten about the app on my phone and decided to do so immediately.

In the meantime, however, issues arose throughout the night and it was very early in the morning when I finally composed a letter to the Rebbe from my hospital bed describing the accident, my injuries, and the fact that I was scheduled to undergo an urgent procedure to save my spleen. I concluded with a request for a blessing that G‑d grant me a complete and speedy recovery.

A few hours later, the morning shift surgeon who had handled my care two weeks earlier right after the accident came into my room and said he was puzzled with the diagnosis the night shift doctors had given me.

“Your spleen is not bleeding,” he told me. “The scan only showed some signs of bleeding due to the laceration you experienced during the car accident two weeks ago, but there is nothing wrong with it now.”

“Are you sure?!” I asked in disbelief. “Two surgeons and a radiologist said I needed this procedure immediately. All three of them were wrong?!”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” he responded. “I just reviewed this scan together with the other surgeon and the radiologist on the morning shift and all three of us see no reason to operate. Your spleen is fine.”

Nonetheless, he scheduled me to have a procedure done in Anchorage a week later just to be absolutely sure, but he was emphatic that there was nothing wrong with it. As for my back pain, he explained at great length that it was due to the broken ribs for which he prescribed some painkillers and promptly discharged me from the hospital.

While it seems so mysterious that two teams of doctors reviewing the same CT scan would arrive at completely opposite conclusions, I know what caused the changed diagnosis.