The Night a Cardiologist Watched Over the Rebbe at 770
When Dr. Ralph Silverman got an urgent call after the Rebbe’s heart attack on Shemini Atzeres 5738, he spent a night at 770, and merited a remarkable yechidus-like conversation with the Rebbe the next morning • Full Story
Dr. Ralph Silverman, a cardiologist who served on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, recently shared the story of the night he helped care for the Rebbe following his heart attack on Shemini Atzeres 5738 (1977).
Dr. Silverman was a cardiology fellow at Jacobi Medical Center when Dr. Ira Weiss urgently reached him. The Rebbe had refused hospitalization, and Dr. Weiss had flown in from Chicago to set up a mini coronary care unit at 770. He needed a cardiologist on site around the clock, and Dr. Silverman agreed to take a night shift.
He describes the setup as more intensive than any hospital: a cardiac monitor right outside the Rebbe’s room, watched without pause, and every piece of equipment imaginable. Though he was not brought in to see the Rebbe that night, the Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, invited him to a Melaveh Malka to which the Rebbe had sent a challah and a bottle of wine.
The next morning he accompanied Dr. Louis Teichholz, then head of cardiology at Mount Sinai, into the Rebbe’s room. The Rebbe, days after a major heart attack, was already asking penetrating questions: why he had been able to finish all the hakafos, and whether walking would aid his recovery. He also spoke about the then-new field of gene research, urging that the United States lead it so that bad actors would not.
A decade later, at a Machne Israel Development Fund gathering, the Rebbe recognized him and joked, “And how do you find your patient now?” before blessing him: “Go from strength to strength, and be of substantial help to all your patients.”
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