San Diego (special) -- An open letter to Liram Hodida, age five weeks, now a patient of the Shiley Eye Clinic at the University of California at San Diego: 

The Jewish year 5759 is barely underway as I write these words to you, and I hope your ema and aba will show this letter to you once you are old enough to read it. I've chosen to write it especially now that I, and the rest of the people in the City of San Diego, are fairly certain that you will, indeed, be able to read it!

You gave us something of a scare, Liram. But you also were the source of great hope and rejoicing. You helped to bring together many Jews in a common effort at a time when we had too great a tendency to quarrel among ourselves. As by now you have no doubt heard, you were born in Israel on Aug. 24, 1998, with an eye condition known as sclera cornea. A cloudy white film covered both your eyes. You could only feel, but could not see, the great joy with which your mother Ilana and your father Shlomo greeted your arrival into this world. That filmy cornea over each of your eyes: if only somehow, some way, it could be removed, you might be able to see. However, there was only a narrow window of time for such a surgical operation to be performed. After six to eight weeks, a baby who has not learned to see will have a difficult time teaching his brain how to interpret messages from the eyes. After six to eight weeks, even if an

Dr. Stuart Brown with model  of eye at the Shiley Eye Clinic

operation could be done successfully, sight might not be restored.

As the time after your birth hurried by, your parents anxiously consulted doctors, friends and rabbis about what to do. One man to whom they turned was Rabbi Benjamin Fisher, director of Magen Lacholeh, a group in Jerusalem which does everything it can to provide medical aid and support for the sick and their families.

Rabbi Fisher, in turn, consulted with a Rabbi Fihrer of B'nai B'rak, who had a wonderful reputation for being knowledgeable about all the advances of medicine. Using the internet, Rabbi Fihrer was able not only to learn about new medical procedures, but also was able to compile a list of doctors who were capable of performing those procedures.

His research turned up the fact that Dr. Stuart Brown, who was head of the ophthamalogy department at the University of California at San Diego, not only knew how to do the operation you needed; he was the man who had perfected the surgical technique. Dr. Brown told Ha Rav Fisher he would gladly take you as a patient. 

That was good news, Liram. But there were so many other questions that beset your parents at that time. As a policeman, your father didn't earn nearly as much money as he deserved. No policeman does. How could he and your mother ever afford the surgery? The medications? A place to stay in San Diego? The flight from Israel to America?

Your parents were told not to worry about those kinds of details. Ha Rav Fisher helped make the financial arrangements for your father and mother to fly with you to San Diego. He predicted that charitable contributions would be found to cover the rest.

But there was another problem which was discovered during a sequence of international telephone calls between San Diego and Jerusalem. Dr. Brown's surgical calendar was quite crowded, and the six week time limit for your surgery was running out. Other patients, perhaps as much as you, also needed surgeries, Liram. Then it was realized--the idea was almost whispered--that there was a day that Dr. Brown did not have a conflicting surgery scheduled.

Yom Kippur! The holiest day of the year. A day when Jews fast all day, and pray to God to forgive their sins. On such a day, when normally Jews like your parents and Dr. Brown all might be in synagogue, could your surgery be performed? Dr. Brown, who is not as religiously observant as Ha Rav Fisher, was willing to perform surgery on Yom Kippur. But what would the rabbi think? Would the very idea offend him?

There is a doctrine in Judaism called pikuach nefesh. It teaches us that we must take care of our health first. In reminding everyone of this doctrine, Ha Rav Fisher said something many of us shall always remember. He said he hoped that "all the Yom Kippur prayers of all the Jews in the world should go into the hands of this skilled surgeon." And so it was agreed, Liram, your surgery would occur on this most auspicious of days.

Rabbi Fisher contacted a San Diego group called "Chicken Soup for Shabbat" whose members understand the requirement of bikkur cholim -- aid for the sick. Raquel Schraub, Nancy Calderon, Marcy Diamond and members of their families arrived early to meet you and your family at the airport. 

As it turned out, you and your parents were the last ones off the American Airlines flight to which you had transferred at LaGuardia Airport in New York after arriving on another flight from Israel.

The Schraub and Diamond children held up a big sign that not only had your names written in English but which also bore a drawing of a big blue Magen David, so your parents might recognize it in the event they didn't speak English. Such a precaution really hadn't been necessary. It turned out your parents did know some English, and they immediately were embraced by the enthusiastic group waiting for them.

Originally, your family was to have stayed with the Schraub family, but fate has a funny way of playing tricks. As you were flying from Israel, Raquel learned that her father had taken ill in New York. After making sure you were settled, she decided to go back there to be with him. After visiting with her father and seeing that he was feeling better, she returned to San Diego.

In the meantime, you stayed with the family of Bernardo and Rosa Romanovsky, who like you were immigrants to the United States. They had established residence in San Diego after living in Mexico. And they filled their home with baby things, so that your parents would lack for nothing as they took care of you.

In San Diego, as in other cities, we have an institution known as an "eye bank." When people die, their eyes can be preserved for just such emergencies as yours. Thanks to the practice of preserving eyes, your cloudy corneas could be replaced with perfectly clear ones. What Dr. Brown did was to give you an anaesthetic so you would feel no pain, and then with a device that is something like a cookie cutter, took the cloudy cornea from your right eye. Then, he replaced that cornea with one from the eye bank which had been shaped to the exact same size. He
then stitched the cornea into place.

While this was happening, your mother and father waited outside the operating theatre, very worried indeed.What would Dr. Brown find when he removed the cloudy cornea from your eye? Would all the other parts of the eye be there that you needed for seeing? Was there, for example, a pupil? 

You were away from your parents' arms for nearly two hours, and each second while you were in surgery or recovery seemed to them an eternity. They sat so close together, their thoughts as one, only on your welfare.

At last, Dr. Brown emerged from the operating room and said that the surgery had gone well. But your parents weren't able to tell from what he was saying how optimistic he was. Sometimes a new cornea can be "rejected" by an eye, and Dr. Brown said the next step would be to see whether your eye accepted the transplant or not.

Remember, Liram, the day of your surgery was Yom Kippur. Jews who spoke both Hebrew and English well were not available--they were in synagogue praying; some of them, in fact, praying for you. So your parents, with less than perfect knowledge of English, did not know exactly what Dr. Brown was saying to them.

After Dr. Brown left them, your father asked Marcy Diamond and Nancy Calderon--the two "Chicken Soup for Shabbat" volunteers who stayed with your family instead of going to Yom Kippur services--a simple question.

Did they find a pupil behind the cloudy cornea?

Yes, Marcy and Nancy replied. It's there. Still not certain that they made themselves understood to your parents, they drew a picture of an eye, with a black dot representing a pupil.

Your parents looked at the picture and they looked at each other. Then they cried the happiest tears they knew since the day you were born.

Marcy Diamond said she never will forget being with you the day of your first operation. "I really felt honored and grateful to be with Mr. And Mrs. Hodida and their baby on Yom Kippur," she recalled a day or so later. "I prayed and I fasted and I cried in a hospital that now became a holy place on a holy day where a gifted surgeon was about to perform a miracle and attempt to restore the sight of a little baby who came from so far from the holy city of Jerusalem."

Nancy Calderon, who also was there, remembers how your parents telephoned your grandparents after they learned that the operation had gone well. And she said she never will forget how your many aunts and uncles all were gathered so they could be together when they received the news by telephone. 

There were a lot of people pulling for you, Liram.

After you were sufficiently recovered from the operation, your parents finally got to see you. After a while your father started to laugh. "He looks like Moshe Dayan," he said, pointing to the patch that had been placed over your eye.

Moshe Dayan was one of your country's greatest generals and defense ministers. He lost an eye in one of the wars and the patch he wore over his eye socket was a trademark.

The next day, Dr. Brown took your patch off and examined your eye. He said it looked good, which was good news indeed. That's when your mother started to feel a little less tense, a little more relaxed about everything that had happened and would be happening to you.

The rest of us also relaxed somewhat, but even as I write this letter, on Sunday, Oct. 4, there are reasons why we worry. Everyone wants to be absolutely certain that your eye doesn't reject the transplant. We also are quite aware at this writing that you still have to go through a similar operation on your left eye.

Dr. Brown has told us that in some cases, when transplants don't take, surgeries may need to be repeated. We are hoping that won't be necessary in your case. 

In the meantime, Jews of San Diego want to make this time as easy as possible for you and your parents. Your family has moved to quarters provided by University Hospital for the families of long-term patients. Your new home is called the Bannister House, and depending on the courses of the surgeries, you and your family may be living there three to six months.

But there are other needs. Your family really needs to rent or borrow a car so they can get around independently,without needing to be driven by someone else back and forth between Bannister House and the Shiley Eye Clinic.

They also need some of the basic necessities of life, as well as funds for little things that will make your stay and theirs in San Diego more comfortable. 

People who want to donate may do so by earmarking a check for the bikkur cholim fund and sending it to the Community Foundation of the United Jewish Federation at 4797 Mercury Street, San Diego, CA 92111-2102.

Somehow, Liram, I am confident that people will contribute to this fund. You have come to mean a lot to all of us.

We have seen how religious Jews and secular Jews--who have argued about all kinds of political matters both here and in Israel--can come together for a humanitarian cause.

You know, Liram, you helped bring out the best in us. No wonder we all think you're such a great little guy.