By: Sandy Eller
Date: Wednesday, September 21 2011
Like the arboreal creation whose name he shares, Ilan Tocker is strongly grounded by his roots, yet continually reaches for greater heights. Following a miraculous but lengthy recovery from a brain injury that nearly took his life, the 34-year-old Cedarhurst resident displays astonishing emunah and says his illness has only brought him closer to Hashem.
“God saved me for a reason,” said Tocker. “I never think about what the reason was or why this happened to me. I just know that everything that happens in life, whether it seems good or bad, happens for a reason.”
Ilan Tocker’s inspiring story began on July 21, 2010, one day after Tisha B’Av, when he and his friend Oscar Seidel went for an overnight trip to Atlantic City. Following an afternoon swim, the pair went out to dinner. But upon leaving the restaurant, Tocker fainted, slamming his head against the marble floor. Uncharacteristically aggressive after the fall, a sure sign of a significant brain injury, Tocker was rushed to the hospital.
Ilan Tocker, wife Rachel, and sons Benjamin, Yoni, Josh and Jake
Emergency surgery to remove one side of Tocker’s skull and relieve the pressure on his brain revealed that a second surgery to remove the other side of his skull was required. Tocker’s wife, Rachel, who had rushed to the hospital, was given the terrible choice: consent to the second surgery, giving Tocker only a 10 percent chance of survival and likely leaving him in a persistent vegetative state, or do nothing and face almost certain death within two hours.
Word of Tocker’s injury spread within minutes via phone, e-mail, Facebook and Twitter to friends and strangers alike, and Klal Yisrael did what it knows how to do best: come together for a brother in need. Instantly, people were saying tehillim, going to the Kotel, forming shemiras halashon groups and taking challah as a zechus for a refuah sheleimah. Tocker’s parents, who had just made aliyah, were contacted, as was the Philadelphia Chevra Kadisha.
As doctors waited for Rachel’s decision, Seidel, Tocker’s friend, called Rabbi Avraham Moyal, a prominent Jerusalem rabbi that Tocker was close with. The rabbi told Seidel not to allow the second surgery, reassuring him that all would be fine. Following Rabbi Moyal’s instructions, Seidel made a berachah on a glass of water, repeated a pasuk in Tocker’s ear 17 times and placed droplets of water on Tocker’s lips and body. Tocker’s dangerously high brain pressure dropped immediately, and while doctors were sure he had suffered a soon-to-be-fatal brain hemorrhage, a CAT scan revealed that all was well, something doctors proclaimed a miracle. Several hours later, Rabbi Moyal instructed Rachel to consent to the second surgery – and Tocker’s long journey home began in earnest.
Ilan Tocker speaking at the seudas hoda’ah
last month at Kulanu in Cedarhurst
The weeks that followed were filled not only with medical milestones, as Tocker slowly began to recover from the injury that nearly took his life, but also with heartwarming stories of family, friends and total strangers doing mitzvos as a merit for Tocker’s recovery. The Tehillim groups, challah baking, shemiras halashon groups and shiurim organized as a zechus for Tocker all continued. People brought meals and helped with the Tocker children, and as medical expenses continued to mount, fund-raisers – including cookie, cookbook and arba minim sales, a Chanukah comedy night, and basketball and Ping-Pong tournaments – were held. Many local businesses donated a portion of their earnings to the newly established Ilan Tocker Foundation to defray the staggering medical costs.
We are all too painfully aware that Klal Yisrael can come together with achdus, daven with all their might and perform countless mitvos – and still not arouse Divine mercy. But in Tocker’s case, the outcome was positive. Just one year later, Tocker is back at work full-time and is living proof that every prayer and every action can make a difference. For Tocker, his family and his friends, this past year has been a firsthand lesson in emunah.
“Emunah has to be based on something,” said music producer Avi Newmark, a close friend of Tocker’s who produced an all-star single available on iTunes to raise money for the Tockers last winter. “If seeing how Klal Yisrael came together during this intense time and witnessed what is nothing less than a miracle is not considered a unified emunah and bitachon in the One Above, then I don’t know what is.”
Ilan Tocker with neurosurgeon Dr. Ciro Randazzo
Approximately 200 people attended a seudas hoda’ah that Tocker made a few weeks ago on the day after Tisha B’av, the one-year anniversary of his injury. It was an emotional moment when Tocker thanked those who helped bring about his recovery through their tefillos and other actions. He said, “You were the ones who helped Hashem heal me.”
While there are those who would question why they had to endure something of this magnitude, Tocker is thankful to have had the privilege of going through this experience, which he views as an opportunity for growth – both for himself and everyone else involved.
“I know Hashem had a plan for me and I am actually grateful for what I had to go through. Now, I always try to become closer to Hashem and serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu better with my actions. Although I am grateful to Hashem for changing my perspective on life and making me closer to Him, what’s even more amazing is that my accident brought others closer to Hashem.
“I received hundreds of e-mails from people – people I know, people I don’t know. People who started putting on tefillin and davening as a zechus for me. People who started covering their hair, keeping kosher, keeping Shabbos for the rest of their lives, as a way to help me. Hashem caused my injury so that all this could happen. My recovery is nothing short of a miracle, and it made me and so many others better Jews. I can only hope we can join together as Klal Yisrael and become increasingly closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.”
Sandy Eller is a freelance writer who has written for various newspapers, magazines and websites, in addition to having written song lyrics and scripts for several full-scale productions. She can be contacted at sandyeller1@gmail.com.
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