Miracle

...This prevented me from feeling anything personal in his attacks...

...An incident after his recovery suggests what he may have been like before his illness...

...Was God demonstrating to us that there is no certainty in this life...

...25 00 Reviewed by Hershel Shanks On June 24, 1985, the distinguished Israeli Bible scholar, Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, then 59, entered Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem for a coronary bypass operation...

...For reasons not entirely clear even to his doctors, Goshen-Gottstein went into a coma following the operation...

...He too ponders the miracle: Though I am a practicing Jew, I look with incredulous eyes at the idea that reciting psalms or changing my name was meaningful for my recovery....But I still am at a loss to comprehend the ways of God....I cannot see myself in the role of Abraham or Job, both of whom underwent divine trials....Sometimes I wish I could afford the luxury of nonbelief...

...It was gradual, however—first, the opening of an eye, next moving an arm, then a leg...

...Mrs...

...How come you made your husband suffer...

...The same with the sons...

...As he gradually regained his mental as well as physical capacity, Goshen-Gottstein became aggressive and abusive—often directing his aggression and abuse at his wife...

...Her devotion to her husband is boundless...

...Today he drives a car, writes scholarly books and articles and delivers papers at academic conclaves...

...We were faced with the irony that a man who was all mind had been transformed into a man who was seemingly mindless...

...Nobody could tell how much of my brain had been affected and whether normal functioning would ever be resumed...

...Perhaps this even represents an improvement...

...If anyone shares credit with God for the miracle, it is Goshen-Gottstein's extraordinarily devoted family—his two sons, Alan and Jonathan, and his ayshet chaiyel (woman of valor), wife Esther, a psychotherapist who has chronicled their family ordeal in this moving, anecdotal, yet restrained account...

...That is why Goshen-Gottstein's recovery is so often referred to as a miracle...

...She refuses to give up hope...

...But he will never be as he was before the trauma: "It cannot be denied: Moshe is not the same person he used to be...

...I don't want you to do anything for me...

...In a postscript of his own, Goshen-Gottstein tells us that he has no recollection of the weeks preceding his operation or of his coma: "I cannot tell any horticulturist what it feels like to be a 'vegetable.'" He expresses understandable gratitude that his life support system was not turned off while he was in coma: I am happy that the doctors came to the conclusion that my brain was not dead but only injured...

...It is also a lesson in humility to me as a physician...

...One gets the impression that before his ordeal, he was not entirely lovable...

...Even his name was changed so that he, as legend has it, would become a new person not subject to the impending sentence of death...

...Why he recovered remains a mystery...

...Gradually, this phase, too, passed...

...She says, If God was to be implicated at all it looked to me as if He were laughing at all of us by reversing everything...

...Besides, his aggression was a sign that he was regaining consciousness, and I considered that whatever price I would have to pay for that would not be too high...

...he asks...

...Thirty of the scholars' relatives, friends and colleagues met at the Western Wall to recite psalms and announce that his name had been changed—to Hezekiah, a king of Judah who had recovered from a serious illness...

...The last word belongs to Rodney Falk, a physician and family friend who also wrote a postscript: Whatever the reasons for Moshe's miraculous recovery, his story is a lesson in hope and in the marvelous devotion of a remarkable family...

...When patients have survived long comas, they have permanent, overwhelming neurologic limitations as well as incapacitating mental impairments...

...There is a touching, gentie quality to him now because he is so vulnerable...

...As his wife tells us, he became "especially fond of anal imagery...

...The master replied, "You have me...

...He remained unconscious, in a coma, for nearly four months—essentially in a vegetative state...

...As she walks away, he tells his son, "Ima [Mommy] waves her tochis [buttocks...

...His prognosis was virtually hopeless...

...Although I have never seen anything similar before or since (and I have experience of many such cases), it has altered my view of the word "hopeless...

...The big excitement came when he shooed away a fly from his chin...

...After all, we had nothing to lose and everything to gain...

...Once, when he took the last piece of chocolate from a box, his wife complained, "I also want something good...

...At one point, he accused her of wanting to murder him and threatened to murder her...

...He even hit his wife—repeatedly...

...Once you pick up this book, you won't put it down—and it will linger in your memory...

...According to one study, no one at age 60 who remained in a coma for more than six days recovered—much less four months...

...In 1988, on Israel's 40th anniversary, Goshen-Gottstein was awarded the Israel Prize for Jewish Studies...

...It is offensive to me," he tells her...

...She rationally figures out all possibilities for helping, remote though they may be...

...I hate you," he screamed...

...She explains, "Even if it was more than doubtful that our presence would help Moshe return to the land of the living, we could not afford to leave anything untried...

...I am especially grateful that nobody decided that my life support system should be turned off, or else this story would never have been written...

...Goshen-Gottstein is the least observant in the family, the one who does not go to synagogue, the skeptic...

...Hundreds of psalms and mi sheberach prayers (for the critically ill) were recited on his behalf...

...The author tells us, Throughout this time I saw Moshe as a patient rather than as a husband...