Lessons from a Doctor's Visit

I had to go to the doctor today for something that should have been a really quick checkup. In and out. When I got there, I was told that the doctor went out to daven mincha and would be back in about 10 minutes. I figured that if I’m waiting there anyway, I might as well take advantage of the time and daven mincha there. I usually don’t get to daven (more than just the brachos) on a regular day so for me, this was exciting!

Now, this doctor has no clue that he gave me an opportunity to daven! He just did what he does every day at that time, he leaves his office to daven mincha with a minyan and doesn’t schedule any appointments at that time. Since I just had to walk in and be there for about 3 minutes, I did not need to schedule an official appointment (they told me to come anytime, which is why I came and he wasn’t there). I think it is an amazing thing that you can do something – and it can be a “regular” thing for you and you have no idea that you are inspiring someone else or giving them a chance to do a mitzvah!

Just to tell you a little bit about this doctor, so you can hear how special he is, I’ll share a few things with you. He has these signs hanging in his office like, “mitzvah gedolah le’hiyos b’simcha tamid” and you can’t help but smile… :-D He has other inspiring signs around his office too.

I’ve been at this doctor many times. I don’t wanna go into the gory details of why I had to come back to this foot doctor every 6 to 8 months, but I’ll tell you that every time he had to give me a shot to make my toe numb, and he saw that I was in pain, he asked me, “Are you mochel?” or “I’m sorry for hurting you. I hope you are mochel me.” And I was totally floored! I mean, this is your job!! You are doing this so that I could feel better! And you are asking me for mechilah for giving me a needle and causing me pain??!!!

There are some really special people in this world. It makes me think, “mi k’amcha yisroel!” Here you have a doctor, who has a job that involves having the patient go through a small amount of pain so they could feel better in the end, and he asks for forgiveness for hurting me!! That is amazing!

This is also a great mashal for pain in this world. We do not understand why we have to go through certain painful situations but we do know that pain is a kapparah and it erases our aveiros. It’s like my toe – it had an infection and needed to go through a certain amount of pain (needle plus other stuff which I wont go into…) in order to heal. When Hashem puts you through pain, it is in order to get rid of the infection on your neshama. Once you go through the pain, there is a certain healing process that your neshama goes through. It may take a few days, it may take a few months, but once you experience it, your neshama is cleaner than before, it is healed!!!