The Dead Sea

It's just about time for Passover and I can hardly believe it. It's been a crazy week in Israel it all started with me dislocating my shoulder at the Dead Sea. A few friends and I packed up our stuff last Wednesday thinking that we would camp out for a few days at the Dead Sea we got everything together and off we went. After setting up camp, and chilling out we decided to go on a hike. We explored the mud flats, they are crazy composed of mud and salt they form an ever changing surface with crevices opening up out of no where and semi-fresh water pools further inland. You can read about my first experience with this in the post Yom Tov and the Dead Sea. When we got to a pool where there is a jump off it’s about 20 feet or so into to a pool we had to do it. Both my friends went and then it was my turn. I'm a little afraid of heights so I was a little nervous about this even though I'd done it before. When I jumped I knew something was immediately wrong I could just feel my shoulder slip out of its socket when I hit the water I knew for certain this was going to be trouble. I called out to my friends who were enjoying the beautiful scenery and water and said quite simply "I'm not okay, I need help." my shoulder was hanging on its side and the pain was building.

Then came the hard part, I was in the water I needed to get out and the banks are made for slippery mud. After some very careful maneuvers I got out and was laying in the mud, at this point I tried to get my shoulder back in unsuccessfully for the first time, effectively covering myself in mud, after some time it became apparent I was going to have to get help, something I didn't want to do but knew was necessary. So I had to get up, every move was a struggle. Now I don't mean to over dramatize this but if you've ever had your shoulder dislocated its awful your whole upper body becomes useless and if the shoulder shifts one way or the other even slightly the pain gets intense really fast, so this is what I was dealing with. I thought that if I could get to solid ground I'll be able to slide the shoulder back into place, hell I'd done it many times before why not this time? And so after walking a little ways I got back on the ground and tried but with no success. All I did manage to do was cover myself in sand and dirt, I now looked like a Celtic warrior covered in war paint but no better off then I was before. Now I realized I wasn't going to be able to fix myself and we were going to have to go to the hospital, which I adamantly did not want to do but we had to. After getting some help and getting back on my feet we started the slow walk back to camp, I knew the sun was starting to set and if we didn't make it back to the road soon it was going to get a whole lot worse. And so we walked every step was a challenge the ground beneath my feet was slippery and I had a useless upper body, I was hurt and hurt badly. Luckily for me I have amazing friends, they were calm with me and did everything they could so make sure I took the easiest way but it wasn’t easy there was crevices to bypass, the walk there took us 25 minutes, the walk back took over and hour, finally we made it to camp I sat down exhausted and then the mosquitoes descended. I felt like the Pascal Lamb waiting for slaughter I was in my bathing suit. My shoulder had been dislocated for almost three hours already and then I was a helpless victim to the mosquitoes.

They swarmed, I couldn’t stop them from biting me finally the army came and gave me a lift to the road, the medic checked me out tied my arm to my side to stop it from moving and I got to take a ride in the Hummer it was in retrospect really cool. But at the time it was hard that thing jumped around like a tin can and I just wanted it to be over. And so we got to the road luckily for us we found a cab on its way to Jerusalem, after some savvy negotiations, we hopped in and headed for the hospital. Now finally I could rest before this point of the experience my mind had been focused on an objective, get my shoulder back in, okay I can’t do that get up, walk to camp, get over this obstacle, etc. I was focused on the task at hand with all that out of the way for the first time in three hours I had time to think a little. Its an amazing thing being that present for so long, most of the time we’re not at all present with ourselves. As your reading this it’s very likely your brain has taken you off somewhere else. Something I’ve written has triggered a memory or idea, whatever. But when you’re in that much pain, when you know you need to do something to relieve it your mind stays focused the past, the future don’t exist only now matters. It’s actually quite amazing. And so I had sometime to think and this is what came into my head, for the last month and a half or so I’ve been on a crazy adventure with my friend Mattisyahu, we’ve been traveling together on and off exploring the country, checking out different yeshiva’s and figuring out what our faith truly means to us and how that translates how we see the world and how we interact in it. It’s been amazing, everything we’ve needed we’d gotten it was all perfect, miracles happened everyday. It was easy to have faith to trust in Hashem to know that everything we were doing was right and it was all what needed to happen. At that moment my arm was hanging on my side and things we’re bad. At that moment it would have been easy to say why? Why did this need to happen and ignore the fact that everything happens just as it should. The bottom line is you can’t just trust in Hashem when everything is going great you have to trust in Hashem always. And knowing that, really knowing it and internalizing, was tremendously helpful when nothing seemed to make sense in the world. The month or so we’d been traveling before wasn’t the test that was just the show, this moment was the test to see if we’d really gotten the point. Because even then everything we needed was right there in front of us. We’d been traveling just the two of us for a while this time our friend Ari came along. If not for that the situation would have been infinitely worse having that 3^rd person made everything easier, I didn’t have to be left alone at any point something that would have been very hard for me, the cabdriver on his way back to Jerusalem who did us a favor, amazing every moment of it.

And so we made it to the emergency room, it was something being there, covered in mud and sand over four hours into the ordeal it was already 9:15pm. I check it and waited and waited it wasn’t until 11pm that I finally got to see a doctor when I did the pain lessened quickly after one failed attempt they slid my should back into place it was an amazing feeling, I felt like I’d been reborn suddenly I could focus on what was going on, how dirty I was, how bad I smelled, etc. I got an x-ray which was negative I didn’t facture anything, I could go home. I got home at 12:15am the whole ordeal started at 5pm, my shoulder was dislocated for six hours, I took a shower and went to bed, I spent the next three days exhausted sleeping. Just another crazy experience from the holy land, it’s been a week now my shoulder is still sore but it’s getting better, I start rehab on it in a few days, fortunately I know what to do to back it better, as always everything I need is right in front of me, if only I’m patient enough to see it for myself.