Koach Eitan A Family’s Story of Strength, Perseverance, and Determination

Koach Eitan

A Family’s Story of Strength, Perseverance, and Determination

BY LEOrA AnD EITAn AshMAn, As TOLD TO rABBI ArOn WhITE

Eitan is originally from Baltimore, and I am from Toronto. We both made aliyah individually and met in Israel. Eitan learned in Ner Yisrael in America, and then Yeshivat Ner Yakov and Yeshivat Hakotel in Israel; after learning at Hakotel, he also joined the IDF, and it was then that we met.

When we got married, we lived in the Old City of Yerushalayim for almost five years, but once our oldest was going to start school, we were looking for a community and moved to a new area of Efrat called the Zayit. Now it is a thriving area (Rabbi Shlomo Katz just opened his shul there recently), but when we moved, many of the roads were still unpaved! We were among the first families to build a shul called Zayit Raanan, and Eitan would give a weekly tzurba halacha shiur there.

Eitan ran a property management business in Jerusalem, and I ran and coordinated the different youth groups in Efrat. Eitan was part of a regular Daf Yomi shiur in the area completing a few cycles, and thank G-d, we were living happily with our four children in a beautiful community.

The stroke came almost out of nowhere. Eitan was forty-two years old, he had become a volunteer for Magen David Adom, he had recently become a CrossFit instructor, and there were no medical warning signs.

On the day before his stroke, he had a headache in shul so he came home early, but the rest of Shabbat he felt OK and even went to teach a class at the gym after Shabbat, so we thought nothing of it. We went to bed, and then early in the morning, I woke up and heard what sounded like a chair scraping downstairs. Eitan often got up early to go to his Daf Yomi shiur, but I came downstairs to check out what the noise was.

I found Eitan lying on the floor in the kitchen, his eyes open, but he was not responding. He had had the presence of mind to shake around a chair to attract attention, but he wouldn’t respond to anything I said. If I knew then what I knew now, I would have continued to talk to him to explain that I was calling an ambulance, to keep communicating with him, as even though he couldn’t respond, I believe he could actually understand what was going on.

We called the ambulance, and he was rushed to hospital. The doctors discovered that he had had a massive stroke, which had been caused by two blood clots in the brain, and a torn carotid artery. The surgery to treat this was very complicated because of the torn artery, and although there was significant damage to his brain, baruch Hashem, the doctors were able to prevent so much more damage.

Eitan was in intensive care for two weeks and after three months was discharged from the hospital to come home.

After the immediate scare and surgery to stabilize his condition, it became clear that the stroke had caused major damage to Eitan’s functioning. On a physical level, Eitan

On August 5, 2017, Eitan Ashman said he had a slight headache. An active 42-year-old father of four, Daf Yomi learner, businessowner, MDA volunteer, and CrossFit instructor, neither he nor his wife Leora thought much of it. The next morning, Leora found Eitan lying unresponsive on the floor, and he was rushed to hospital.

Doctors confirmed that Eitan had suffered a left-sided stroke, and while Eitan survived the stroke, he was left with a condition called aphasia, which can cause difficulty in speaking and communicating, reading, writing and comprehension.

The Ashmans have been on a rollercoaster journey ever since that day, facing medical, psychological, emotional, and religious challenges together. I sat down with Eitan and Leora in Yerushalayim last month, to hear their story of perseverance and faith, how they are working through these challenges, and why they are now sharing their story and inspiration with the world.

As Eitan has aphasia, a condition that makes speaking very difficult for him, Leora did the majority of the talking, with Eitan interjecting at various points.

lost his function in his right arm, and his right side is very weak – subsequently he also still needs painkillers and hydrotherapy to deal with chronic pain. We also began to realize the extent of the damage to his brain that the stroke had caused, as in the hospital he was unable to speak. Due to the damage to his brain, Eitan also lost all memory prestroke. He can recognize people he has been in touch with but not remember the experiences he has had with them.

We learned that Eitan had a condition called aphasia, whereby the brain’s language functioning can be damaged; one of the major causes of aphasia is stroke. It felt like Eitan was the same kli as he was before, but that the tochen, a lot of the contents of the kli, were no longer there; he had survived the stroke, but now we couldn’t communicate with him as before and he could barely remember his life from before. He was going to have to start learning to speak and communicate from scratch.

Eitan started to work with a speech therapist, but it was a painstaking process – when he came home from the hospital on Erev Sukkos, he could only say one word: “Savta.” Everything he wanted to say came out “Savta.” As Eitan began to regain some of his capacity for language, one of the things he began to experience was a lot of frustration – aphasic people often have the words at the tip of their tongue, but just can’t get them out. [At this point, Eitan interjects and says, “I feel…frustrated.” -Ed.]

The speech therapy was tremendously important in helping his progress.

We also had to work with Eitan to help him remember or relearn things from the first 42 years of his life. We would sit with him with photo albums and tell him about our life before the stroke. Eitan would often see someone or something, and it was clear he knew it was familiar, but he was not able to place it or remember the details. It was a slow and gradual process to re-acquaint Eitan with himself and his life.

Along with Eitan having to learn to speak, Eitan’s friends and family had to learn how to interact with him in a new way. It takes time for people to learn how to communicate with an aphasic person – you have to communicate more slowly, but also without insulting their intelligence – just because they have language processing challenges it doesn’t mean they are less intelligent! There were some people who were even scared off from interacting at all anymore as they didn’t know how to deal with the new reality, but I think that is never a good idea – we still want our friends and family to be connected, but it just looks different now.

As Eitan progressed, and as we have learned to understand Eitan’s reality, we can help him more. Often, if Eitan gets stuck and the words aren’t coming out, I or one of my kids can help finish his sentences, but with permission first. Eitan also carries a notebook that he has studied that has basic information about himself and different pictures that he can point to to help express himself.

While Eitan had to learn so much from scratch, our family also had to work just as hard. Sudden trauma, and one that took away a lot of what was, is hard for anyone to go through, and our family had to learn how to live with a new reality. With so much support from our extended family, friends, and community our family has overcome a lot. Every day, our superhero children, our parents, our family, close friends, and, of course, Eitan go above and beyond to make sure we all keep each other thriving in our new reality.

We had never heard of aphasia before Eitan’s stroke, and when he developed it, we began to connect with all sorts of support groups and sources of information around the world. However, we began to realize that as a frum Jew, there are so many new questions we had to face that we didn’t know how to deal with and that general aphasia support groups were not going to help with. Aphasia sufferers can find noisy situations with lots of people overwhelming, as it is hard for them to zone out background noise. How was Eitan going to be able to go to shul? Would he be able to say kiddush, or daven, or learn all things that require significant language functioning?

There were also challenges on a physical level – he had lost the functioning in one arm, so how was he going to put on tefillin? There was a tremendous amount to work through.

There were a number of great blessings. Firstly, there were certain things that Eitan was still able to do. Music is processed in a different part of the brain than language, so because kiddush is sung, Eitan was able to regain the ability to say kiddush faster. But the greatest bracha was that Eitan found a rabbi called Rabbi Johnny Solomon who has been a rock of support for him. He needed someone to work through all these issues with, who could understand Eitan’s condition and be able to communicate with him, as well as supporting him religiously and emotionally, so Rav Johnny, who was not afraid of a little word called aphasia, has been a huge help. [Eitan interjects here: “Wow…chaval al ha’zman!”-Ed.]

A great example of this was before Pesach of last year. Rav Johnny asked Eitan what he was planning to do on Seder night, and Eitan said that he didn’t want to go. He wouldn’t be able to say any divrei torah, and the general noise and discussions at the table would be overwhelming for him. Often, religious settings like this can also be a source of great pain for Eitan – it confronts him with the reality of his situation, as he knows that he used to be able to function in these settings but now can’t, so it is very painful. He was dreading Seder night and not planning on going.

Rav Johnny asked Eitan and me if Eitan had a Haggadah he had marked up from previous years, which, as many good baale batim, he had. I brought the Haggadah to Rav Johnny, and he started to look through the notes that Eitan had made and shortening each idea into one or two lines. They wrote this up as Eitan’s new Haggadah and spent weeks learning through it together so Eitan was prepared. Aphasia can affect reading as well, so for Eitan, the less words on a page the better.

That Seder night, Eitan was able to join, to follow along better as other family members read, and also to contribute his divrei Torah – it was different and wasn’t the same Eitan as before the stroke, but it was him able to contribute in his way, with the same divrei Torah as before just adapted for the new reality.

Shul is still a struggle – Eitan continues to try and go for as much as he can, but often the noise of davening (and shmoozing) can be overwhelming, and he has to take a break. Along with the questions of religious practice, there are also questions of emunah that we naturally have to face. Why did this happen to us, and what does it mean? Rav Johnny has been a support for both of us in this way. I also take a lot of inspiration from Miriam Perez, the remarkable woman who lost two sons in the IDF but is a tower of faith. She says that our relationship with Hashem is like a tango, sometimes we are close together and other times we feel like we get pushed away. There are days that we can feel further from Hashem and then other days where we feel embraced – but Hashem is with us every step of the way.

It is amazing, though, to see how deep an impact Eitan’s previous Torah learning made on him, and that some of that comes through even if learning is now difficult. Eitan’s Torah learning made a deep impression on him, and we try in every way to enable him to live as full a religious life as possible, and he is making progress all the time.

“When he came home from the hospital on Erev Sukkos, he could only say one word: ‘Savta.’”

Eitan and Leora Ashman speaking at the launch event for Koach Eitan - Photo Credit Josh Hasten

The day after Eitan’s stroke, we started a Facebook page called Koach Eitan as a way of keeping friends and family informed about his condition. That year, a large group of us ran in the Jerusalem Marathon to raise money and awareness for aphasia sufferers. After a few years, someone said to me, “You are now doing so much to raise awareness and teach others, you should be running for your own organization!” We decided that we would use

A notebook Eitan carries with him to help him communicate The first page of Eitan's new hagaddah, bearing a profound and personal thought

“I also had to work with Eitan to help him remember or relearn things from the first 42 years of his life.”

Koach Eitan as a platform for spreading awareness and educating about stroke and aphasia and how to support people with aphasia and their families as well as people with similar conditions. Together with an organization called Giving Ltd. we launched The Koach Eitan Initiative. The KEI runs different projects and events throughout the year to raise awareness about stroke and aphasia, thereby enabling and creating inclusion and connection for so many.

One of our campaigns is called the “LETS TALK” campaign. LETS TALK is an acronym for different ways you can communicate in a way that helps people with language impairments, such as lowering background noise, maintaining eye contact, and more.

It is a lot of work to run an initiative like this, as well as taking care of a family and having a job. It is amazing how Hashem often sends me the chizuk just when I need it. I will be having a difficult day, where I feel that it is all just too much, and a man from LA will reach out to say how much one of our videos has taught and meant to him. I had a rabbi call me from Atlanta last week to see how we can work together. There are so many people in our community who face some kind of speech or language impairment and learning how to best support them is such an important cause.

For so many years of our life, we felt we were usually on the giving side of the equation. After Eitan’s stroke, we experienced love and support from around us, and received so much from our community. It gives us a tremendous sense of purpose to try and be back on the giving side together, to give support and encouragement to others going through this, and to help educate the community about aphasia and similar conditions.

To find out more about Koach Eitan and ways to support the initiative, visit www.koacheitan.com

Rabbi Aron White grew up in London and now lives in Arnona, Yerushalayim. He has semicha from Yeshiva University and serves as the associate editor of HaMizrachi Magazine.