B'Sheva's Hagit Rotenberg reports that Noa Schwartz has been resolutely fighting cancer for 14 years - without giving up.
Noa Schwartz (26) has been fighting cancer since she was Bat-Mitzvah. With supreme heroism and blazing faith, she underwent hurtful chemotherapy and 16 severe operations, which saved her life again and again. Despite her suffering, at no point in life did she indulge herself, and with her titanium leg and screws in her neck, she completed the "Ulpana" (girls' high school) with honors, volunteered for National Service, studied medicine, got married and even gave birth. She has become a walking lesson in faith and a symbol of giving.
These days, as she is about to begin her internship, a new life-threatening tumor has been discovered. The costs are tremendous.
"I want to be a doctor, to help the world I came from and to help, just as I was helped. I, who have been and am still there, in the year-after-year maelstrom of pain, hope to be another kind of doctor. I always remembered the doctor who at the beginning of chemotherapy told me: 'Your hair will fall out - it will grow back, but you will be OK. With me, I'm bald, and whatever falls out will not grow back '. I was thinking then that I would speak in this way to the children as well."
Noa Schwartz will, G-d willing, celebrate her 27th birthday this coming summer. A birthday is a day for self-examination, and Noa already did so several years ago when she told her father: "If I had to start life again, I would have chosen exactly the way I took, without changing any detail."
She didn't say these words after winning the "Israel Prize" and not during a family vacation at the Kinneret shore. Noa said so during the hardest nights she underwent at Brompton Hospital in London, England. When her father heard those words said by his daughter, a thin girl who has already undergone 16 severe surgeries, who walks on a leg made essentially of titanium and who functions with screws that hold up her neck, he thought: "She's either completely crazy or she is a holy soul with whose level of faith in Hashem I cannot compete."
TERRIBLE NEWS
Noa was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in Petach Tikva. The family later moved to Netanya. A happy childhood in a normal family, living a quiet routine life without disturbance. Noa, like all her friends in the sixth grade, was excitedly getting ready to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah. Two days before the celebration, Noa felt strong pains in her right leg, but her parents thought those pains were the typical growing pains of that age.
That day Noa worked hard: she dragged benches and carried tables, taking part in organizing the Bat Mitzvah celebration. The next day Noa's pain recurred and her parents took her to the emergency room. The doctors x-rayed her leg and told her to come back for a check-up. That same week, either by chance or not, she saw an article in the paper about a girl named Inbal, who suffered from cancer in her leg – and this was Noa's first introduction to the disease.
When she returned with her parents from the emergency room, she was worried and her father tried to calm her with the rhetorical question: "Are you afraid that you have the same thing as the girl in the paper?" On Shabbat, the family took an afternoon walk in the streets of Netanya. Suddenly Noa fell. Her right leg folded involuntarily, and Noa lost her balance. Her parents began to be suspicious.
From then on everything moved at incredible speed: In a second x-ray made at the hospital in Netanya, the doctors discovered a tumor in the leg. They were nervous because of their discovery and sent her to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva. When the doctor told them that she would need a biopsy, the parents understood. Noa was sent to the Oncology Department, and seeing the faces of the sick children was a shock for them. Nevertheless, Noa was still not thinking anything serious was happening to her, and even after a week of tests at the hospital she didn't imagine what was in store for her. During the first week in hospital she rather enjoyed the attention lavished on her, the new walkman she got for her Bat Mitzvah and the time to listen to the many tapes she received as gifts.
After a week Noa and her parents had an appointment with the head of the department. The parents went in, while Noa stayed outside on a wheelchair. After the lengthy conversation, Noa was called into the room and the doctor explained: "Noa, you have a tumor in your leg. You will have to undergo treatments that will make you nauseous."
The treatment started on Sunday, and at the same time Noa and her parents decided to move back to Petach Tikva. They understood that they would have to be close to the hospital for long periods of time. It was the children in the department who asked her, "Do you know what you have?" that made her finally understand that "she had become a member of the club."
Noa was not afraid of chemotherapy, since she did not yet understand what it meant and how it would affect her. Soon she knew; when treatment began, she vomited all the time, and the nausea was unbearable. Her mouth was full of painful and bleeding sores, and in the intervals between treatments she was exposed to all the bacteria around her.
A GIRL WITH A WIG
Noa heroically struggled with chemotherapy for a year and a half. The beginning was hard, especially because it was the period of High Holidays. On the Eve of Yom Kippur - her first one after reaching the age of Mitzvot - she suffered a terrible attack of nausea, and the doctor told her, "I don't recommend that you fast, but the nausea won't allow you to eat anyway." She spent the Sukkot holiday in the hospital; she suffered one of the saddest moments in her life when she entered the hospital Sukkah, because she so much wished to be able to sit in the familiar Sukkah at home.
The stage of hair loss frightened her very much. The great physical discomfort was a distraction to some extent, but being a 12-year-old girl, it was hard for her to wear a wig. People who saw her did not know how to react, and questions like, "Oh, did you get a haircut?" did not really help improve her feelings. Here her parents helped again, telling her again and again: "With hair or without hair, you are our daughter and we love you. Don't worry, nicer hair will grow back."
At a certain stage of the treatments, the doctors decided to amputate the diseased leg. Her parents struggled to avoid the amputation and took her to a specialized clinic in England, which over time became almost her second home. She was operated upon there, thus saving the leg from amputation, but the bone was removed up to her knee, and replaced by a 28-cm (11-inch) implant. Noa came back to Israel and started rehabilitation, which took until the end of her high school studies. Every afternoon she had physiotherapy where she was taught to stand and walk again.
During that period Noa's friends completed the seventh grade and approached completion of the eighth grade. Noa almost didn't go to school. She studied by herself with the help of a teacher who came once a week. She rather liked studying, which put some life into her routine of pain. Therapy finished at the end of the eighth grade and Noa had a new decision: where to continue school.
She left the "Yeshurun" high school in Petach Tikva and very much wanted to study at the "Ulpanit" in Tel Aviv. She had a good reason: she remembered that the "Ulpanit" girls used to come to the Oncology department to bring the children happiness. When she reached the "Ulpanit" for the first time, still sitting in a wheel chair, the school principals – Rabbi Yehoshua Magnes and Rebezzen Yaffa Magnes - wondered how she would make her way daily in a wheel-chair and how she would go up to the upper floor. When it was however suggested that the class would be moved to the first floor, Noa absolutely refused: "I'll go up to the upper floor with crutches."
One year later, when Noa and her struggle were well known, Rabbi Magnes asked her father to forgive him for having had any doubt as to Noa's serious intention of coping with the difficulties and of fulfilling the objective of studying at the "Ulpana", and thanked him for allowing them to participate in teaching a girl like her. During her four years of studies she never asked for anything to make it easy for her. Even when the English teacher, a first cousin of Noa's father Moshe, suggested making things easier for her, Noa answered with an assertiveness that is not typical for her sensitive behavior: "Please don't talk to me about things like that. This is the last time we speak about this."
NO SELF-PITY
The teenage years, when Noa's friends spent their time studying, leading groups in Bnei Akiva and in other typical activities, were mainly spent by Noa in airplanes, hospitals and medical tests. In the 9th grade she had to fly to England every three months for a checkup. At the end of the 10th grade the disease reappeared in her left lung and Noa was again flown to England for surgery. After another year of routine tests, the disease reappeared in the same place.
Even during the periods when Noa attended school regularly, she was limited in walking, did not participate in annual school trips and did not even go out to the yard during breaks. Till this day she is not able to walk great distances, and on bad days the pain in her leg makes her think twice before walking from the drawing room to the kitchen. Between two operations, Noa made her matriculation exams, exactly like her school friends, she completed the twelfth grade and was about to start her National Service.
"It was evident to me that I would perform National Service. I always wanted to be like everybody else and it was important for me to contribute to the State. I never asked for concessions," says Noa. When asked if she was not afraid of physical and functional difficulties during her Service, she answers simply: "I have no difficulties," and smiles. She was a youth leader in the tenth grade of Ulpana "Tzvia" in Afula.
The state of the leg became more balanced, but she still stayed in the bus during school trips with the girls who did not walk all the way. Noa never avoided any possible mission: she went to visit the homes of the girls in her group, including trips to Beit She'an. She was also the assistant of Rabanit Tzioni, who was responsible for National Service in Afula. She was successful. Noa's mother speaks of the strong relationship she had with the "Ulpanit" girls in Afula: "She was like their Wailing Wall, they told her everything; even girls from other classes wanted the contact with her. Even now they still call and invite Noa to their weddings."
But even at the height of success, Noa had to follow the well-known routine: another operation of the leg abroad, following which she would be able to walk only with crutches for a long time. She regretfully said goodbye to the students, knowing that she would not be able to come back to this job in Afula on crutches. Again her parents had her well-being in mind: "We saw that she very much wanted to go back there. This meant the whole world to her, so they helped her fulfill her job on crutches, and she was really happy during the National Service. For Noa, giving to others is the best medicine, beyond any supporting therapy and physiotherapy."
And she really went back, though part of her time was now spent in physiotherapy in Afula, but during the remaining time she walked every day on her crutches from the Service apartment to the Ulpana and back. On the sideboard in the Schwartz family home still stands the gilded certificate of the Afula Municipality, thanking Noa for her contribution to the city.
FROM PATIENT TO DOCTOR
The next crossroads was already awaiting her: the choice of a profession. Here again she did not choose the easy way out, but rather the way that was important to her: "I knew I wanted to study medicine. My father encouraged me in that direction since I was 12, since the disease started. I told myself: I'll register at Tel Aviv University Medical School, and G-d willing I'll be accepted; in Bar Ilan University they accepted me with a scholarship from the beginning. I was called to an admission commission at the medical school in Tel Aviv University. They asked me for a health statement form and we submitted a 'censored' form," she says, laughing with her father.
"We wrote only about the leg. If they had known everything, they would not have let me study. I had no problem getting admitted from the point of view of my grades. The commission came to check my health state. I was sitting opposite a doctor who tried for an hour and a half to persuade me that I had no chance. He said: "Your right leg is mostly made of metal, and you will not be able to stand the physical stress the medical profession entails." He asked: "How will you walk in the hospital with this leg?" I told him: "The crutches were with me in the corridors when I had chemotherapy, they will come with me in the corridors when I make the doctor's round. I put my faith in G-d."
"I did not react until he stopped speaking, then I left the room and cried on my parents' shoulders. My father wrote a letter to the Head of the Commission - one of the senior hospital practitioners and head of the orthopedic department - in which he explained to him that doctors like him who are supposed to help the sick and make them well again cannot afterwards tell them that they are second rate. The doctor called him at seven o'clock the next morning and said: "I didn't sleep all night because of you. I'm now writing to the dean to accept her. Your daughter will be the best doctor."
Noa started studying medicine, struggling with the spiritual difficulties there in the secular environment. A deeply religious girl, she regularly attended Torah courses at night and saw to the Kashrut of the medical school cafeteria on the one hand, and on the other hand had contacts with secular medical students who appreciated very much the fact that their co-student's achievements were as good as theirs despite the difficulties she encountered. Even today they regularly meet during holidays in the Zahala and Afeka quarters in Tel Aviv where many of the medical students are living - meetings Noa tries to keep.
Noa was not spared sufferings during the years she studied at the university either: at the end of the first year, the disease reappeared and this time severely in the ribs. Again she flew to England for surgery, and several days after the operation she went to pray on the tomb of the holy Rabbi Elimelech of Lijansk (Poland) - with the help of the non-Jewish surgeon who did not really understand why this trip was so urgent, but was not able to withstand Noa's and her parents' supplications.
At that time she was in a state that did not allow her to leave the hospital, but the blessings of the Admor of Nadvarna - who is in constant contact with the family - were stronger. The Admor instructed her to recite the entire Book of Psalms on the tomb of Rabbi Elimelech of Lijansk. That night, with the help of the English surgeon, Noa and her parents flew to Amsterdam, from there to Warsaw, and from there to Lijansk in Poland.
Noa went inside and started to recite the Psalms, with the list of 52 names for whom she wanted to pray, as well as a little bit for herself. The Gentile woman caretaker of the tomb wanted to close the place, but here again her parents found the means to send her away from the place for some time - four and a half hours - while Noa was praying from the depth of her heart. Immediately after completing her prayers, they were on their way to the Brompton Hospital in England, to go on with therapy.
LESSON IN FAITH
During the three first years of her studies during which she was not required to attend classed, but only to pass the examinations, Noa did not waste her time: she appeared mostly during exams. At other times she learned Torah and Chesed (kindness), she went to hear teachings at Midrashot, took care of two women who suffered from cancer until their last day, and passed a course as a bride instructor, a function she now fills as a volunteer.
"When studying with my bride instructor before getting married, I felt this was important. When something is important in my opinion, I immediately decide that I have to do it as well," she explains her decision. The brides who come to see her are lucky to hear a teacher with experience in the field of faith. "I assume that Hashem is beside us in every difficulty, and this is as true in marriage problems as in health problems."
Noa gives supportive and awakening talks at Ulpanot and Midrashot. It began when she was approached following the publication of one of the advertisements that regularly appear in the papers asking for help to save her life. Rabbis and educators heard about it and asked her to come and tell her story to school girls who these days need to be reminded of what is really important in their plentiful life. "I don't look for publicity, but I have the will to pass on a message of faith and discipline in life," Noa says.
Once, when Noa was giving an awakening talk during Elul at the Ulpana in Tel Aviv, the girls did not stop crying for days. She showed them pictures from the period when she was in treatment. The girls asked her: "Why did you take pictures of yourself during times of suffering?" She answered: "I once heard a lesson by Rabbi Yair Ben-Shitrit about the Pessah Hagadda. The Rabbi asked why on the Night of the Seder - a Night of Thanks to Hashem for freeing us from slavery and bringing us to freedom, and a night of exaltation - the story of the Hagada begins with the description of the sufferings and slavery the people of Israel had to bear in Egypt? The same day the rabbi got an invitation to my wedding. He asked me: "At your wedding, will you mention your period of pain when addressing your guests?" "Of course", I answered, "it will be the main part of the wedding." It is impossible to appreciate happiness and freedom without remembering the slavery and pain that came first."
Noa has already submitted her M.D. thesis in oncology, and she intends to specialize in gynecology. She is already a real doctor, about to start her internship as a M.D. at a renowned hospital in Jerusalem. She will have exhausting nights at the hospital as her turn of duty, like the other interns, and she does not wish the least concession in this respect.
She has already received job offers from hospitals abroad that know her well: Prof. Bob Sochmi from the Oncology department in U.C.L London asked her to work with him as his assistant. Dr. Wexler from Sloan Kettering Hospital, the very important cancer hospital in New York where she stayed for the last one and a half years, asked her to come work with him at the children oncology department when she completes her internship.
Noa explains the objective she set herself when choosing the hard way of medicine: "I want to be a doctor, to go back to the world I came from and to help like I was helped. I, who have been and am still there, in the year-after-year maelstrom of pain, hope to be another kind of doctor. I always remembered the doctor who at the beginning of therapy told me: 'Your hair will fall out - it will grow back, but you will be OK. With me, I'm bald, and whatever falls out will not grow back '. I was thinking then that I would speak in this way to the children as well, with G-d's help."
MARRIAGE DESPITE THE DANGER
The sun will soon be setting and Noa retires to pray Mincha. She stands opposite the forest covered mountains seen from the terrace and prays with all her heart. She ends the prayer and goes back to telling about the happiest time in her life: "It was clear to me that I wanted to get married. I heard from friends that my name often came up in Shiduchim, but was rejected because of the medical problem. This disturbed me, but I believed everything would be OK, that I would get married."
Soon the salvation arrived. Noa was married at age 20 to a young man who came from the U.S.A to learn Torah in Israel. She explains how is it that this young man was prepared to assume such a complicated life: "My husband's faith is strong. He said: 'One cannot know what will happen. One may be healthy and one day, G-d forbid, something goes wrong and one is sick; sickness is something that can happen to anyone.'" Before deciding to get married, his parents – both medical doctors – got from Noa's father Moshe, detailed information about Noa's medical history, which did not prevent them from agreeing to the marriage.
Noa's wedding was an unforgettable event for all those who attended it. For Noa and her family it meant the closing of a big circle and for the participants – a lesson in faith, which might never be equaled.
The ceremony was conducted by the Admor of Nadvorna, who has been by the family's side throughout the difficult times. He explained why he came especially for this wedding: "Because of Noa's parents' sacrifices and Mesirut Nefesh [total dedication] for their daughter during many hard years, as well as in honor of Noa's strong faith in Hashem, her heroism and martyrdom in fighting for her life." "Every word he said during the ceremony was so heartfelt, that it moved the gates of Heaven. People were crying the whole time," says the father.
Musical entertainment was provided by none other than Avraham Fried, who came to the wedding directly from the United States. Noa's father tells how it happened: "When we were in London for treatment, I asked Bob, the Jewish driver who drove us every day to the hospital, to put on the song 'Refaeni' [Heal Me] by Avraham Fried. The song was a kind of personal prayer to Hashem. I promised myself that if Noa would live and get married - a crazy dream at the time - I would ask Avraham Fried to come and sing her this song at her wedding. With G-d's Help, Noa survived and got married. I called Fried, told him of the background and asked him if he could sing at the wedding. He said: 'I have to think about it for one night'. After an hour he called and said crying: 'I don't have the right to be called a Jew, how could I tell you that I must think about it? Tell me where the wedding is going to be, and I'll be there'. During the Chupah [wedding ceremony], he suddenly appeared behind the wall and at Noa's request sang first the song 'Eli Ata Veodecha.' Everyone cried, including the waiters and the photographer.
"There are no words to describe the event. Afterwards, Fried took the microphone in his hand and did not put it down for five hours straight. The public was dancing with supreme happiness – men and women were of course totally separate from each other. After the wedding, Reb Avraham told us: 'I have had performances in the whole world, but so much happiness and such a lesson in faith I have never experienced'. He asked to sing also at the Brit which would follow with G-d's help. Fried keeps up contact with the family and continues to pray for her at the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe."
The speakers at the wedding spoke of Noa's spiritual greatness: Dr. Peter Goldstraw from England, her personal surgeon who operated on her many times, said: "It is no secret for you that I am the head surgeon at the Brompton Hospital in London. I always thought that I give life every day to [an average of] three people. This girl, with her faith, taught me to recognize that the one to give life sits high above us."
Jacky Shimmel, who hosted the Schwartz family during their stay in London, said: "I saw Noa when she was 12 and lived in our library. Normal people get up in the morning with problems, depressions. She does not allow herself a moment of self pity and her faith in G-d made us wonder every morning anew. We were ashamed how we could dare to despair. Noa has every morning a thousand reasons to despair of life, every day for her is full of trials, even for daily tasks: walking, standing. She is the one who has the right to address G-d, as did Isaac, our forefather who stood trials."
However when Noa came up to the podium to speak, the public was in total awe: "Today on my wedding I am standing on both legs. Such simple words: standing, legs, wedding. But it was not so simple and self-evident that I would stand on both legs at my own wedding." She spoke about what she has suffered for years and wanted her message to reach the ears of other sick children. She knew how much strength this could give them.
"The meaning of happiness is not complete without speaking of pain," she explained to the public. "Thanks to Hashem, to my parents, to my husband. We knew G-d would go with us all the way. This is our mission, and with G-d's help we hope that from this day on we will go on to praise the name of Heaven."
The wedding was for her a holy thanksgiving event. Despite the fact that she always believed she would get there, she says that she saw the wedding on a video cassette a short time ago and told herself: "Wow, what obligations I took upon myself…."
"You fulfill them quite well," her mother emphasizes.
THE BIRTH GAVE STRENGTH
Giving life to a child was the next dream, and here again Noa fought with the assurance and faith that are typical for her: The doctor in England was against her giving birth and said it would endanger her life. "I waited two years since the last recurrence of the disease and the doctor said again: 'If you ask me, don't get pregnant.' I said: 'OK, I won't ask you,' and with G-d's blessing, became pregnant."
The pregnancy and the birth went without problems. Noa very much wanted a Pidion Haben [Redemption of the First-Born for normal-birth first-born sons] and tried as hard as she could to avoid a C-section birth. At a certain moment the baby was in danger. "Those were the longest 20 minutes in my life, from the moment the monitor was disconnected until they told me: 'Mazal tov, you have a son!' I was filled by indescribable joy and my parents' cries of happiness could be heard all around the clinic. I had the feeling that Hashem gives hits with one hand and gives the strength to struggle with the other, with this child." The baby Shlomo Hillel is now two and a half years old, a full-of-life blondie, with an American accent after spending most of his time with his parents during his mother's treatment in the United States. The doctor who told Noa that giving birth to a baby was not recommended, saw Shlomo Hillel some time ago and on his face could be seen the expression, 'How could I have told her not to give birth?'
Shlomo Hillel grew up in a situation that made him older beyond his years and understanding. When his mother is able to pick him up, he tells her: "You are feeling better." When Noa was sitting down after her very serious neck surgery, little Shlomo Hillel picked up the cushion that fell behind her. Now, thanks to Hashem, he is being compensated for the long while he was unable to see his mother, and she always takes him with her to England and the U.S.A. She says that he gives her the strength to withstand the pain.
The last year, unfortunately, has been the worst of the 14 years of sickness she has undergone. It involved long months in America with terrible suffering, including three operations of the cervical spine with a real threat to her life. During one of the operations, she was on the verge of death on the operating table. Her neck is now attached to her head by screws, after removal of the tumor that was discovered there. Noa came back to Israel from the States half a year ago.
Before and after the neck surgery, she spent nine months of massive chemotherapy, which her body was able to withstand only by miracle. She spent the holidays lying down and unable to take little Shlomo in her arms. When she came back to Israel, she prepared a meal to give thanks, at which time she said: "The doctors among us will say that there is as yet no reason to give a thanksgiving dinner. But we must thank G-d also for partial good."
CRITICAL CONDITION
At the checkup this past January, a new large cancer metastasis was discovered in her left lung. When a tumor comes back aggressively after such a short time and after such strong chemotherapy as that she underwent, it means a big question mark as to what the future holds. Noa appears preoccupied; when asked what she is thinking, she answers: "With G-d's help, what must happen will happen. We hope for good news and put our faith in Hashem. He knows what He's doing."
Another girl in her condition - and especially given the fact that as a medical doctor, she is quite aware of the situation - would certainly have been sitting around home paralyzed by anxiety. But Noa gets up every morning, sends her husband to the Kollel [Torah studies] and her son to kindergarten, arranges the house, goes to lessons, and does some chessed [kindness] along the way, and afterwards brings Shlomo back from the kindergarten. She raises him with great love. "If Hashem lets me live, in contrast to all the statistics, I can't allow myself to waste the time on stupid things," she says.
Looking back, Noa sees the years that passed as having been net profit: "My life has an absolutely different meaning. I appreciate it otherwise. I would not have reached such depth if it were not so. I see life as a mission: to help people as much as possible, and feel in permanent contact with Hashem. I can consider my situation as punishment or as trial. If I consider it as punishment, I won't gain anything. Considering it as a trial, however, makes me grow. Hashem gives people only trials they can withstand. If something happens to me, this means that I can confront it. Just as parents punish a child for his own good, Hashem gives us trials to bring us to a point we would otherwise not reach.
"I never thought of the danger to life. I believe I will live and I have experienced miracles. The challenges only give me strength and the fact that I live despite all the dangers I passed through gives a special taste to my life. I don't think like a sick person who must heal. I was sick for a purpose and must become different now when I heal. A Jew may not remain today what he was yesterday. He must learn from the past and aspire at becoming a better human being."
Following the latest discovery, the doctors spoke to Noa with painful openness. They explained to her that they actually don't know what to do now. They suggested several expensive experimental treatments, in particular to go on with check-ups in the United States and England every three months. At this point, keeping up with these regular check-ups is of utmost importance to protect Noa's life.
The worried parents take their strength from Noa and her ever-stronger faith. She maintains her joy of life, and laughs and encourages everyone. "This goes far beyond normal, this is the strength of faith", says her father. Noa speaks about her condition with great calm, and defines it simply as "complicated."
The financial debt in which the family has sunk following the frequent operations and very expensive treatments, including the great expenses necessary to have reached this point, have been a heavy load for several years. Now, at the most critical point in the long holy journey to save Noa's life, money is translated into saving life: "Financing regular trips abroad for the very important check-ups every three months is the only way still open to save Noa's life," says Noa's father.
When ads appeared in the press calling for donations to save her, Noa started crying. Her modest and quiet way of life is the exact opposite of what is now required of her: to disclose her situation. For this very article that you are now reading, she was forced to talk in an open manner that is foreign to her. And yet, this may be what will save her life.
As I prepare to leave, Noa and her parents are discussing family matters: Who will be whose guest for the upcoming Pessah holiday. Noa suggested that the family come to stay with her. Contrarily to all other housewives, she does not think of the work hosting entails, but only of one simple requirement: to stay healthy until Pessah - and, with G-d's help, for years afterwards as well.
How to help
In Israel, checks [crossed] can be sent to
"The Fund to Save Noa Esther Schwartz"
Bank Mizrachi (Bank Symbol: 20), Branch 452, Account #531570, Netanya
Or to her parents:
Moshe and Chaya Schwartz, P.O.Box 1090, Hod HaSharon, 45110, Israel
For questions and details: Fax 03-9317460 in Israel
For donations in the USA:
American Friends of the Jaffa Institute
c/o Dr. E. Hartman
171-06 76th Ave.
Flushing, N.Y. 11366
Fax: 718-591-3489 Tel: 718-591-3595
Please indicate: to save Noa Esther Schwartz
AVRAHAM FRIED:
"FAITH LIKE HERS CAN BARELY BE FOUND
EVEN AMONG GREAT TSADIKKIM"
The Hassidic singer Abraham Fried in a phone call from Europe, told B'Sheva's Hagit Rotenberg about meeting Noa Schwartz and the deep impression her special personality left with him:
"I made the right decision when I came to sing at Noa's wedding. I have performed in many places and in many happy events, I met many people, but I shall never forget this wedding. The impression that remained with me was simply extraordinary."
"Words are not enough to describe Noa's personality. A girl who has suffered for so many years. I was told that during her long years of suffering she loved listening to my song 'Refaeni' and it gave her strength. Her dream was that I would sing it also at her wedding. I had the privilege of coming to the wedding and sang under the Chupah [marriage canopy] 'Eli ata veodecha… hodu lael ki tov', the melody of the old Admor of Lubavitch. It was so fitting for the occasion – a song of thanks to G-d.
I particularly remember how while I was singing there was no eye left without tears. Everyone was crying, except one person – Noa. She was standing there, strong and quiet. After the dancing she went up to speak. She told about what she suffered, about the operations in London and in America. Everyone was crying about what she said, and that slip of a girl was standing there and speaking in a clear voice, without one tear. I shall never forget how she ended her speech. She said, "I can summarize my story in two sentences: 'This emanated from Hashem, it is wondrous in our eyes' and on the other hand, 'This is the day Hashem has made us, let us rejoice and be glad on it.'"
"The wonderful thing about her is that whenever I speak with her she is always with a smile on her face, full of faith and belief in G-d. It is incredible, a faith as can hardly be found with the most righteous people. She is simply a hero and a righteous woman. Where can we find other people who never complain and cry about their condition?
"I don't know if people know how much that girl suffered when she was young. She is suffering on behalf of Clal Yisroel and accepts everything with faith, love and belief'.
When I tell him about her difficult condition at present, he expresses pain to hear that. With all his heart, he cries out, "Enough, Dear G-d. Heaven have pity on her. We want to see a big miracle, she deserves it, she suffered enough."
Fried says he prays for Noa every day, and that her story accompanies his daily thoughts.
When I ask him what he learned from Noa, he answers: "It is easy to learn from Noa, she has so much assurance, faith in Hashem, joy, will. She has such enormous willpower. She is now a medical doctor. Despite difficulties – wheelchair, hardly walking - she chose to study a profession that would help other people. Her belief in G-d is unconditional: Wherever she is, Noa stops all activity at noontime and prays Mincha.
"I am certain that Hashem will help her," he almost pleads, "and that she will be OK with the help of Hashem."
Noa Schwartz (26) has been fighting cancer since she was Bat-Mitzvah. With supreme heroism and blazing faith, she underwent hurtful chemotherapy and 16 severe operations, which saved her life again and again. Despite her suffering, at no point in life did she indulge herself, and with her titanium leg and screws in her neck, she completed the "Ulpana" (girls' high school) with honors, volunteered for National Service, studied medicine, got married and even gave birth. She has become a walking lesson in faith and a symbol of giving.
These days, as she is about to begin her internship, a new life-threatening tumor has been discovered. The costs are tremendous.
"I want to be a doctor, to help the world I came from and to help, just as I was helped. I, who have been and am still there, in the year-after-year maelstrom of pain, hope to be another kind of doctor. I always remembered the doctor who at the beginning of chemotherapy told me: 'Your hair will fall out - it will grow back, but you will be OK. With me, I'm bald, and whatever falls out will not grow back '. I was thinking then that I would speak in this way to the children as well."
Noa Schwartz will, G-d willing, celebrate her 27th birthday this coming summer. A birthday is a day for self-examination, and Noa already did so several years ago when she told her father: "If I had to start life again, I would have chosen exactly the way I took, without changing any detail."
She didn't say these words after winning the "Israel Prize" and not during a family vacation at the Kinneret shore. Noa said so during the hardest nights she underwent at Brompton Hospital in London, England. When her father heard those words said by his daughter, a thin girl who has already undergone 16 severe surgeries, who walks on a leg made essentially of titanium and who functions with screws that hold up her neck, he thought: "She's either completely crazy or she is a holy soul with whose level of faith in Hashem I cannot compete."
TERRIBLE NEWS
Noa was born in Tel Aviv and grew up in Petach Tikva. The family later moved to Netanya. A happy childhood in a normal family, living a quiet routine life without disturbance. Noa, like all her friends in the sixth grade, was excitedly getting ready to celebrate her Bat Mitzvah. Two days before the celebration, Noa felt strong pains in her right leg, but her parents thought those pains were the typical growing pains of that age.
That day Noa worked hard: she dragged benches and carried tables, taking part in organizing the Bat Mitzvah celebration. The next day Noa's pain recurred and her parents took her to the emergency room. The doctors x-rayed her leg and told her to come back for a check-up. That same week, either by chance or not, she saw an article in the paper about a girl named Inbal, who suffered from cancer in her leg – and this was Noa's first introduction to the disease.
When she returned with her parents from the emergency room, she was worried and her father tried to calm her with the rhetorical question: "Are you afraid that you have the same thing as the girl in the paper?" On Shabbat, the family took an afternoon walk in the streets of Netanya. Suddenly Noa fell. Her right leg folded involuntarily, and Noa lost her balance. Her parents began to be suspicious.
From then on everything moved at incredible speed: In a second x-ray made at the hospital in Netanya, the doctors discovered a tumor in the leg. They were nervous because of their discovery and sent her to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva. When the doctor told them that she would need a biopsy, the parents understood. Noa was sent to the Oncology Department, and seeing the faces of the sick children was a shock for them. Nevertheless, Noa was still not thinking anything serious was happening to her, and even after a week of tests at the hospital she didn't imagine what was in store for her. During the first week in hospital she rather enjoyed the attention lavished on her, the new walkman she got for her Bat Mitzvah and the time to listen to the many tapes she received as gifts.
After a week Noa and her parents had an appointment with the head of the department. The parents went in, while Noa stayed outside on a wheelchair. After the lengthy conversation, Noa was called into the room and the doctor explained: "Noa, you have a tumor in your leg. You will have to undergo treatments that will make you nauseous."
The treatment started on Sunday, and at the same time Noa and her parents decided to move back to Petach Tikva. They understood that they would have to be close to the hospital for long periods of time. It was the children in the department who asked her, "Do you know what you have?" that made her finally understand that "she had become a member of the club."
Noa was not afraid of chemotherapy, since she did not yet understand what it meant and how it would affect her. Soon she knew; when treatment began, she vomited all the time, and the nausea was unbearable. Her mouth was full of painful and bleeding sores, and in the intervals between treatments she was exposed to all the bacteria around her.
A GIRL WITH A WIG
Noa heroically struggled with chemotherapy for a year and a half. The beginning was hard, especially because it was the period of High Holidays. On the Eve of Yom Kippur - her first one after reaching the age of Mitzvot - she suffered a terrible attack of nausea, and the doctor told her, "I don't recommend that you fast, but the nausea won't allow you to eat anyway." She spent the Sukkot holiday in the hospital; she suffered one of the saddest moments in her life when she entered the hospital Sukkah, because she so much wished to be able to sit in the familiar Sukkah at home.
The stage of hair loss frightened her very much. The great physical discomfort was a distraction to some extent, but being a 12-year-old girl, it was hard for her to wear a wig. People who saw her did not know how to react, and questions like, "Oh, did you get a haircut?" did not really help improve her feelings. Here her parents helped again, telling her again and again: "With hair or without hair, you are our daughter and we love you. Don't worry, nicer hair will grow back."
At a certain stage of the treatments, the doctors decided to amputate the diseased leg. Her parents struggled to avoid the amputation and took her to a specialized clinic in England, which over time became almost her second home. She was operated upon there, thus saving the leg from amputation, but the bone was removed up to her knee, and replaced by a 28-cm (11-inch) implant. Noa came back to Israel and started rehabilitation, which took until the end of her high school studies. Every afternoon she had physiotherapy where she was taught to stand and walk again.
During that period Noa's friends completed the seventh grade and approached completion of the eighth grade. Noa almost didn't go to school. She studied by herself with the help of a teacher who came once a week. She rather liked studying, which put some life into her routine of pain. Therapy finished at the end of the eighth grade and Noa had a new decision: where to continue school.
She left the "Yeshurun" high school in Petach Tikva and very much wanted to study at the "Ulpanit" in Tel Aviv. She had a good reason: she remembered that the "Ulpanit" girls used to come to the Oncology department to bring the children happiness. When she reached the "Ulpanit" for the first time, still sitting in a wheel chair, the school principals – Rabbi Yehoshua Magnes and Rebezzen Yaffa Magnes - wondered how she would make her way daily in a wheel-chair and how she would go up to the upper floor. When it was however suggested that the class would be moved to the first floor, Noa absolutely refused: "I'll go up to the upper floor with crutches."
One year later, when Noa and her struggle were well known, Rabbi Magnes asked her father to forgive him for having had any doubt as to Noa's serious intention of coping with the difficulties and of fulfilling the objective of studying at the "Ulpana", and thanked him for allowing them to participate in teaching a girl like her. During her four years of studies she never asked for anything to make it easy for her. Even when the English teacher, a first cousin of Noa's father Moshe, suggested making things easier for her, Noa answered with an assertiveness that is not typical for her sensitive behavior: "Please don't talk to me about things like that. This is the last time we speak about this."
NO SELF-PITY
The teenage years, when Noa's friends spent their time studying, leading groups in Bnei Akiva and in other typical activities, were mainly spent by Noa in airplanes, hospitals and medical tests. In the 9th grade she had to fly to England every three months for a checkup. At the end of the 10th grade the disease reappeared in her left lung and Noa was again flown to England for surgery. After another year of routine tests, the disease reappeared in the same place.
Even during the periods when Noa attended school regularly, she was limited in walking, did not participate in annual school trips and did not even go out to the yard during breaks. Till this day she is not able to walk great distances, and on bad days the pain in her leg makes her think twice before walking from the drawing room to the kitchen. Between two operations, Noa made her matriculation exams, exactly like her school friends, she completed the twelfth grade and was about to start her National Service.
"It was evident to me that I would perform National Service. I always wanted to be like everybody else and it was important for me to contribute to the State. I never asked for concessions," says Noa. When asked if she was not afraid of physical and functional difficulties during her Service, she answers simply: "I have no difficulties," and smiles. She was a youth leader in the tenth grade of Ulpana "Tzvia" in Afula.
The state of the leg became more balanced, but she still stayed in the bus during school trips with the girls who did not walk all the way. Noa never avoided any possible mission: she went to visit the homes of the girls in her group, including trips to Beit She'an. She was also the assistant of Rabanit Tzioni, who was responsible for National Service in Afula. She was successful. Noa's mother speaks of the strong relationship she had with the "Ulpanit" girls in Afula: "She was like their Wailing Wall, they told her everything; even girls from other classes wanted the contact with her. Even now they still call and invite Noa to their weddings."
But even at the height of success, Noa had to follow the well-known routine: another operation of the leg abroad, following which she would be able to walk only with crutches for a long time. She regretfully said goodbye to the students, knowing that she would not be able to come back to this job in Afula on crutches. Again her parents had her well-being in mind: "We saw that she very much wanted to go back there. This meant the whole world to her, so they helped her fulfill her job on crutches, and she was really happy during the National Service. For Noa, giving to others is the best medicine, beyond any supporting therapy and physiotherapy."
And she really went back, though part of her time was now spent in physiotherapy in Afula, but during the remaining time she walked every day on her crutches from the Service apartment to the Ulpana and back. On the sideboard in the Schwartz family home still stands the gilded certificate of the Afula Municipality, thanking Noa for her contribution to the city.
FROM PATIENT TO DOCTOR
The next crossroads was already awaiting her: the choice of a profession. Here again she did not choose the easy way out, but rather the way that was important to her: "I knew I wanted to study medicine. My father encouraged me in that direction since I was 12, since the disease started. I told myself: I'll register at Tel Aviv University Medical School, and G-d willing I'll be accepted; in Bar Ilan University they accepted me with a scholarship from the beginning. I was called to an admission commission at the medical school in Tel Aviv University. They asked me for a health statement form and we submitted a 'censored' form," she says, laughing with her father.
"We wrote only about the leg. If they had known everything, they would not have let me study. I had no problem getting admitted from the point of view of my grades. The commission came to check my health state. I was sitting opposite a doctor who tried for an hour and a half to persuade me that I had no chance. He said: "Your right leg is mostly made of metal, and you will not be able to stand the physical stress the medical profession entails." He asked: "How will you walk in the hospital with this leg?" I told him: "The crutches were with me in the corridors when I had chemotherapy, they will come with me in the corridors when I make the doctor's round. I put my faith in G-d."
"I did not react until he stopped speaking, then I left the room and cried on my parents' shoulders. My father wrote a letter to the Head of the Commission - one of the senior hospital practitioners and head of the orthopedic department - in which he explained to him that doctors like him who are supposed to help the sick and make them well again cannot afterwards tell them that they are second rate. The doctor called him at seven o'clock the next morning and said: "I didn't sleep all night because of you. I'm now writing to the dean to accept her. Your daughter will be the best doctor."
Noa started studying medicine, struggling with the spiritual difficulties there in the secular environment. A deeply religious girl, she regularly attended Torah courses at night and saw to the Kashrut of the medical school cafeteria on the one hand, and on the other hand had contacts with secular medical students who appreciated very much the fact that their co-student's achievements were as good as theirs despite the difficulties she encountered. Even today they regularly meet during holidays in the Zahala and Afeka quarters in Tel Aviv where many of the medical students are living - meetings Noa tries to keep.
Noa was not spared sufferings during the years she studied at the university either: at the end of the first year, the disease reappeared and this time severely in the ribs. Again she flew to England for surgery, and several days after the operation she went to pray on the tomb of the holy Rabbi Elimelech of Lijansk (Poland) - with the help of the non-Jewish surgeon who did not really understand why this trip was so urgent, but was not able to withstand Noa's and her parents' supplications.
At that time she was in a state that did not allow her to leave the hospital, but the blessings of the Admor of Nadvarna - who is in constant contact with the family - were stronger. The Admor instructed her to recite the entire Book of Psalms on the tomb of Rabbi Elimelech of Lijansk. That night, with the help of the English surgeon, Noa and her parents flew to Amsterdam, from there to Warsaw, and from there to Lijansk in Poland.
Noa went inside and started to recite the Psalms, with the list of 52 names for whom she wanted to pray, as well as a little bit for herself. The Gentile woman caretaker of the tomb wanted to close the place, but here again her parents found the means to send her away from the place for some time - four and a half hours - while Noa was praying from the depth of her heart. Immediately after completing her prayers, they were on their way to the Brompton Hospital in England, to go on with therapy.
LESSON IN FAITH
During the three first years of her studies during which she was not required to attend classed, but only to pass the examinations, Noa did not waste her time: she appeared mostly during exams. At other times she learned Torah and Chesed (kindness), she went to hear teachings at Midrashot, took care of two women who suffered from cancer until their last day, and passed a course as a bride instructor, a function she now fills as a volunteer.
"When studying with my bride instructor before getting married, I felt this was important. When something is important in my opinion, I immediately decide that I have to do it as well," she explains her decision. The brides who come to see her are lucky to hear a teacher with experience in the field of faith. "I assume that Hashem is beside us in every difficulty, and this is as true in marriage problems as in health problems."
Noa gives supportive and awakening talks at Ulpanot and Midrashot. It began when she was approached following the publication of one of the advertisements that regularly appear in the papers asking for help to save her life. Rabbis and educators heard about it and asked her to come and tell her story to school girls who these days need to be reminded of what is really important in their plentiful life. "I don't look for publicity, but I have the will to pass on a message of faith and discipline in life," Noa says.
Once, when Noa was giving an awakening talk during Elul at the Ulpana in Tel Aviv, the girls did not stop crying for days. She showed them pictures from the period when she was in treatment. The girls asked her: "Why did you take pictures of yourself during times of suffering?" She answered: "I once heard a lesson by Rabbi Yair Ben-Shitrit about the Pessah Hagadda. The Rabbi asked why on the Night of the Seder - a Night of Thanks to Hashem for freeing us from slavery and bringing us to freedom, and a night of exaltation - the story of the Hagada begins with the description of the sufferings and slavery the people of Israel had to bear in Egypt? The same day the rabbi got an invitation to my wedding. He asked me: "At your wedding, will you mention your period of pain when addressing your guests?" "Of course", I answered, "it will be the main part of the wedding." It is impossible to appreciate happiness and freedom without remembering the slavery and pain that came first."
Noa has already submitted her M.D. thesis in oncology, and she intends to specialize in gynecology. She is already a real doctor, about to start her internship as a M.D. at a renowned hospital in Jerusalem. She will have exhausting nights at the hospital as her turn of duty, like the other interns, and she does not wish the least concession in this respect.
She has already received job offers from hospitals abroad that know her well: Prof. Bob Sochmi from the Oncology department in U.C.L London asked her to work with him as his assistant. Dr. Wexler from Sloan Kettering Hospital, the very important cancer hospital in New York where she stayed for the last one and a half years, asked her to come work with him at the children oncology department when she completes her internship.
Noa explains the objective she set herself when choosing the hard way of medicine: "I want to be a doctor, to go back to the world I came from and to help like I was helped. I, who have been and am still there, in the year-after-year maelstrom of pain, hope to be another kind of doctor. I always remembered the doctor who at the beginning of therapy told me: 'Your hair will fall out - it will grow back, but you will be OK. With me, I'm bald, and whatever falls out will not grow back '. I was thinking then that I would speak in this way to the children as well, with G-d's help."
MARRIAGE DESPITE THE DANGER
The sun will soon be setting and Noa retires to pray Mincha. She stands opposite the forest covered mountains seen from the terrace and prays with all her heart. She ends the prayer and goes back to telling about the happiest time in her life: "It was clear to me that I wanted to get married. I heard from friends that my name often came up in Shiduchim, but was rejected because of the medical problem. This disturbed me, but I believed everything would be OK, that I would get married."
Soon the salvation arrived. Noa was married at age 20 to a young man who came from the U.S.A to learn Torah in Israel. She explains how is it that this young man was prepared to assume such a complicated life: "My husband's faith is strong. He said: 'One cannot know what will happen. One may be healthy and one day, G-d forbid, something goes wrong and one is sick; sickness is something that can happen to anyone.'" Before deciding to get married, his parents – both medical doctors – got from Noa's father Moshe, detailed information about Noa's medical history, which did not prevent them from agreeing to the marriage.
Noa's wedding was an unforgettable event for all those who attended it. For Noa and her family it meant the closing of a big circle and for the participants – a lesson in faith, which might never be equaled.
The ceremony was conducted by the Admor of Nadvorna, who has been by the family's side throughout the difficult times. He explained why he came especially for this wedding: "Because of Noa's parents' sacrifices and Mesirut Nefesh [total dedication] for their daughter during many hard years, as well as in honor of Noa's strong faith in Hashem, her heroism and martyrdom in fighting for her life." "Every word he said during the ceremony was so heartfelt, that it moved the gates of Heaven. People were crying the whole time," says the father.
Musical entertainment was provided by none other than Avraham Fried, who came to the wedding directly from the United States. Noa's father tells how it happened: "When we were in London for treatment, I asked Bob, the Jewish driver who drove us every day to the hospital, to put on the song 'Refaeni' [Heal Me] by Avraham Fried. The song was a kind of personal prayer to Hashem. I promised myself that if Noa would live and get married - a crazy dream at the time - I would ask Avraham Fried to come and sing her this song at her wedding. With G-d's Help, Noa survived and got married. I called Fried, told him of the background and asked him if he could sing at the wedding. He said: 'I have to think about it for one night'. After an hour he called and said crying: 'I don't have the right to be called a Jew, how could I tell you that I must think about it? Tell me where the wedding is going to be, and I'll be there'. During the Chupah [wedding ceremony], he suddenly appeared behind the wall and at Noa's request sang first the song 'Eli Ata Veodecha.' Everyone cried, including the waiters and the photographer.
"There are no words to describe the event. Afterwards, Fried took the microphone in his hand and did not put it down for five hours straight. The public was dancing with supreme happiness – men and women were of course totally separate from each other. After the wedding, Reb Avraham told us: 'I have had performances in the whole world, but so much happiness and such a lesson in faith I have never experienced'. He asked to sing also at the Brit which would follow with G-d's help. Fried keeps up contact with the family and continues to pray for her at the gravesite of the Lubavitcher Rebbe."
The speakers at the wedding spoke of Noa's spiritual greatness: Dr. Peter Goldstraw from England, her personal surgeon who operated on her many times, said: "It is no secret for you that I am the head surgeon at the Brompton Hospital in London. I always thought that I give life every day to [an average of] three people. This girl, with her faith, taught me to recognize that the one to give life sits high above us."
Jacky Shimmel, who hosted the Schwartz family during their stay in London, said: "I saw Noa when she was 12 and lived in our library. Normal people get up in the morning with problems, depressions. She does not allow herself a moment of self pity and her faith in G-d made us wonder every morning anew. We were ashamed how we could dare to despair. Noa has every morning a thousand reasons to despair of life, every day for her is full of trials, even for daily tasks: walking, standing. She is the one who has the right to address G-d, as did Isaac, our forefather who stood trials."
However when Noa came up to the podium to speak, the public was in total awe: "Today on my wedding I am standing on both legs. Such simple words: standing, legs, wedding. But it was not so simple and self-evident that I would stand on both legs at my own wedding." She spoke about what she has suffered for years and wanted her message to reach the ears of other sick children. She knew how much strength this could give them.
"The meaning of happiness is not complete without speaking of pain," she explained to the public. "Thanks to Hashem, to my parents, to my husband. We knew G-d would go with us all the way. This is our mission, and with G-d's help we hope that from this day on we will go on to praise the name of Heaven."
The wedding was for her a holy thanksgiving event. Despite the fact that she always believed she would get there, she says that she saw the wedding on a video cassette a short time ago and told herself: "Wow, what obligations I took upon myself…."
"You fulfill them quite well," her mother emphasizes.
THE BIRTH GAVE STRENGTH
Giving life to a child was the next dream, and here again Noa fought with the assurance and faith that are typical for her: The doctor in England was against her giving birth and said it would endanger her life. "I waited two years since the last recurrence of the disease and the doctor said again: 'If you ask me, don't get pregnant.' I said: 'OK, I won't ask you,' and with G-d's blessing, became pregnant."
The pregnancy and the birth went without problems. Noa very much wanted a Pidion Haben [Redemption of the First-Born for normal-birth first-born sons] and tried as hard as she could to avoid a C-section birth. At a certain moment the baby was in danger. "Those were the longest 20 minutes in my life, from the moment the monitor was disconnected until they told me: 'Mazal tov, you have a son!' I was filled by indescribable joy and my parents' cries of happiness could be heard all around the clinic. I had the feeling that Hashem gives hits with one hand and gives the strength to struggle with the other, with this child." The baby Shlomo Hillel is now two and a half years old, a full-of-life blondie, with an American accent after spending most of his time with his parents during his mother's treatment in the United States. The doctor who told Noa that giving birth to a baby was not recommended, saw Shlomo Hillel some time ago and on his face could be seen the expression, 'How could I have told her not to give birth?'
Shlomo Hillel grew up in a situation that made him older beyond his years and understanding. When his mother is able to pick him up, he tells her: "You are feeling better." When Noa was sitting down after her very serious neck surgery, little Shlomo Hillel picked up the cushion that fell behind her. Now, thanks to Hashem, he is being compensated for the long while he was unable to see his mother, and she always takes him with her to England and the U.S.A. She says that he gives her the strength to withstand the pain.
The last year, unfortunately, has been the worst of the 14 years of sickness she has undergone. It involved long months in America with terrible suffering, including three operations of the cervical spine with a real threat to her life. During one of the operations, she was on the verge of death on the operating table. Her neck is now attached to her head by screws, after removal of the tumor that was discovered there. Noa came back to Israel from the States half a year ago.
Before and after the neck surgery, she spent nine months of massive chemotherapy, which her body was able to withstand only by miracle. She spent the holidays lying down and unable to take little Shlomo in her arms. When she came back to Israel, she prepared a meal to give thanks, at which time she said: "The doctors among us will say that there is as yet no reason to give a thanksgiving dinner. But we must thank G-d also for partial good."
CRITICAL CONDITION
At the checkup this past January, a new large cancer metastasis was discovered in her left lung. When a tumor comes back aggressively after such a short time and after such strong chemotherapy as that she underwent, it means a big question mark as to what the future holds. Noa appears preoccupied; when asked what she is thinking, she answers: "With G-d's help, what must happen will happen. We hope for good news and put our faith in Hashem. He knows what He's doing."
Another girl in her condition - and especially given the fact that as a medical doctor, she is quite aware of the situation - would certainly have been sitting around home paralyzed by anxiety. But Noa gets up every morning, sends her husband to the Kollel [Torah studies] and her son to kindergarten, arranges the house, goes to lessons, and does some chessed [kindness] along the way, and afterwards brings Shlomo back from the kindergarten. She raises him with great love. "If Hashem lets me live, in contrast to all the statistics, I can't allow myself to waste the time on stupid things," she says.
Looking back, Noa sees the years that passed as having been net profit: "My life has an absolutely different meaning. I appreciate it otherwise. I would not have reached such depth if it were not so. I see life as a mission: to help people as much as possible, and feel in permanent contact with Hashem. I can consider my situation as punishment or as trial. If I consider it as punishment, I won't gain anything. Considering it as a trial, however, makes me grow. Hashem gives people only trials they can withstand. If something happens to me, this means that I can confront it. Just as parents punish a child for his own good, Hashem gives us trials to bring us to a point we would otherwise not reach.
"I never thought of the danger to life. I believe I will live and I have experienced miracles. The challenges only give me strength and the fact that I live despite all the dangers I passed through gives a special taste to my life. I don't think like a sick person who must heal. I was sick for a purpose and must become different now when I heal. A Jew may not remain today what he was yesterday. He must learn from the past and aspire at becoming a better human being."
Following the latest discovery, the doctors spoke to Noa with painful openness. They explained to her that they actually don't know what to do now. They suggested several expensive experimental treatments, in particular to go on with check-ups in the United States and England every three months. At this point, keeping up with these regular check-ups is of utmost importance to protect Noa's life.
The worried parents take their strength from Noa and her ever-stronger faith. She maintains her joy of life, and laughs and encourages everyone. "This goes far beyond normal, this is the strength of faith", says her father. Noa speaks about her condition with great calm, and defines it simply as "complicated."
The financial debt in which the family has sunk following the frequent operations and very expensive treatments, including the great expenses necessary to have reached this point, have been a heavy load for several years. Now, at the most critical point in the long holy journey to save Noa's life, money is translated into saving life: "Financing regular trips abroad for the very important check-ups every three months is the only way still open to save Noa's life," says Noa's father.
When ads appeared in the press calling for donations to save her, Noa started crying. Her modest and quiet way of life is the exact opposite of what is now required of her: to disclose her situation. For this very article that you are now reading, she was forced to talk in an open manner that is foreign to her. And yet, this may be what will save her life.
As I prepare to leave, Noa and her parents are discussing family matters: Who will be whose guest for the upcoming Pessah holiday. Noa suggested that the family come to stay with her. Contrarily to all other housewives, she does not think of the work hosting entails, but only of one simple requirement: to stay healthy until Pessah - and, with G-d's help, for years afterwards as well.
How to help
In Israel, checks [crossed] can be sent to
"The Fund to Save Noa Esther Schwartz"
Bank Mizrachi (Bank Symbol: 20), Branch 452, Account #531570, Netanya
Or to her parents:
Moshe and Chaya Schwartz, P.O.Box 1090, Hod HaSharon, 45110, Israel
For questions and details: Fax 03-9317460 in Israel
For donations in the USA:
American Friends of the Jaffa Institute
c/o Dr. E. Hartman
171-06 76th Ave.
Flushing, N.Y. 11366
Fax: 718-591-3489 Tel: 718-591-3595
Please indicate: to save Noa Esther Schwartz
AVRAHAM FRIED:
"FAITH LIKE HERS CAN BARELY BE FOUND
EVEN AMONG GREAT TSADIKKIM"
The Hassidic singer Abraham Fried in a phone call from Europe, told B'Sheva's Hagit Rotenberg about meeting Noa Schwartz and the deep impression her special personality left with him:
"I made the right decision when I came to sing at Noa's wedding. I have performed in many places and in many happy events, I met many people, but I shall never forget this wedding. The impression that remained with me was simply extraordinary."
"Words are not enough to describe Noa's personality. A girl who has suffered for so many years. I was told that during her long years of suffering she loved listening to my song 'Refaeni' and it gave her strength. Her dream was that I would sing it also at her wedding. I had the privilege of coming to the wedding and sang under the Chupah [marriage canopy] 'Eli ata veodecha… hodu lael ki tov', the melody of the old Admor of Lubavitch. It was so fitting for the occasion – a song of thanks to G-d.
I particularly remember how while I was singing there was no eye left without tears. Everyone was crying, except one person – Noa. She was standing there, strong and quiet. After the dancing she went up to speak. She told about what she suffered, about the operations in London and in America. Everyone was crying about what she said, and that slip of a girl was standing there and speaking in a clear voice, without one tear. I shall never forget how she ended her speech. She said, "I can summarize my story in two sentences: 'This emanated from Hashem, it is wondrous in our eyes' and on the other hand, 'This is the day Hashem has made us, let us rejoice and be glad on it.'"
"The wonderful thing about her is that whenever I speak with her she is always with a smile on her face, full of faith and belief in G-d. It is incredible, a faith as can hardly be found with the most righteous people. She is simply a hero and a righteous woman. Where can we find other people who never complain and cry about their condition?
"I don't know if people know how much that girl suffered when she was young. She is suffering on behalf of Clal Yisroel and accepts everything with faith, love and belief'.
When I tell him about her difficult condition at present, he expresses pain to hear that. With all his heart, he cries out, "Enough, Dear G-d. Heaven have pity on her. We want to see a big miracle, she deserves it, she suffered enough."
Fried says he prays for Noa every day, and that her story accompanies his daily thoughts.
When I ask him what he learned from Noa, he answers: "It is easy to learn from Noa, she has so much assurance, faith in Hashem, joy, will. She has such enormous willpower. She is now a medical doctor. Despite difficulties – wheelchair, hardly walking - she chose to study a profession that would help other people. Her belief in G-d is unconditional: Wherever she is, Noa stops all activity at noontime and prays Mincha.
"I am certain that Hashem will help her," he almost pleads, "and that she will be OK with the help of Hashem."