World Builders

World Builders Saying a Blessing Over a Child

By Raphael Poch

Avraham Porges is a United Hatzalah volunteer EMT from Ashdod who works as a Kashrut Supervisor for the city of Ashdod. On Tuesday, he was in his office a block away when he received the alert to the emergency. Without hesitation, he put on his helmet and jacket and rushed out the door to his ambucycle, flicked on his lights and sirens, and sped off to the incident.

“I had just gotten back to my office after responding to a serious motorcycle accident that took place on Moshe Sneh Boulevard. I barely had time to sit down in my office before I got the alert to the second emergency,” he said. “It was one of those mornings where I went from emergency to emergency. The adrenaline stayed with me from one emergency to another and even after.”

When Avraham arrived, he met another United Hatzalah volunteer EMT and fellow ambucyclist, David Bakovza, and the pair of EMTs ran up to the man’s apartment. They found family members performing CPR on the man who was unconscious and pulseless. They quickly attached a defibrillator, took over compressions, and began assisted ventilation on the man in an attempt to restart his heart and get his pulse back.

After a few minutes, they were joined by other first responders including Avraham Bahar and a mobile intensive care ambulance crew. The combined team administered help give this man another chance at life today,” he concluded.

But Avraham’s day wasn’t finished. The experienced EMT is also one of the organization’s trainers who offer basic CPR and family safety courses. On Tuesday evening, he

“That is how I found myself in a non-religious family’s living room in Ramat Gan, reciting a blessing over a new baby, celebrating a new life with an entire family, after having just saved another life earlier that morning.”

adrenaline and medications, and after 15 minutes of integrated CPR, they were successful in bringing back the man’s pulse.

“It was exhilarating to see the man’s pulse restored and his blood pressure return to regular levels,” said Avraham. “I am proud to have been a part of a successful CPR and taught one such course to a family that had recently had a baby.

“I arrived at the home of the family full of energy following the successful CPR that morning and taught the 4-hour course to the gathered family members,” Avraham explained. “The new parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents of the new baby had decided to take the course, with extra emphasis on how to treat a baby, to enable them to know what to do in case of an emergency in the home. I asked how the baby was and it turns out that the following day was the brit milah.”

The family inquired from Avraham, a religious Jew, what customs were appropriate during the brit milah ceremony as they weren’t religious and were at a loss of what procedures should be done. Avraham told them about the custom to say Kriat Shema next to the baby the night before the brit, and the family promptly asked him to do so, as they were unfamiliar with the text.

“I gladly accepted the honor to say the prayer over the new child. That is how I found myself in a non-religious family’s living room in Ramat Gan, reciting a blessing over a new baby, celebrating a new life with an entire family, after having just saved another life earlier that morning.

“It was a day that I will never forget. Sometimes we merit the ability to see just why Hashem put us in a specific place at a specific time. This past Tuesday, that happened to me twice.”