Here’s My Story: The Overnight Shift at 770
Dr. Ralph Silverman
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The day after the back-to-back holidays of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah of 1977, I was in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) of the Jacobi Medical Center in the middle of doing a cardiac procedure when my beeper went off. As I could not interrupt, I asked a nurse to respond on my behalf. She did and reported back that a Dr. Ira Weiss was urgently calling concerning the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
When I spoke with Dr. Weiss myself, he told me that the Rebbe had suffered a heart attack on Shemini Atzeret, but refused to go to a hospital. The doctors present at the time insisted that the Rebbe could only receive the proper care in a hospital, and this set off a crisis. However, as Dr. Weiss explained to me, he had experience setting up home care for private patients and had flown in from Chicago to establish a mini CCU at 770, the Chabad Headquarters in Brooklyn. As part of this effort, he needed a cardiologist on site around the clock. Since I was then doing a cardiology fellowship, he thought I might be willing to pitch in for a night, which I agreed to do.
Two days later, on the night of Motzaei Shabbat, I arrived at 770 and was shown the setup, which was impressive. The Rebbe was resting in his office, and right outside that room was a cardiac monitor which was being watched by a young man who never took his eyes off the screen. I could see the Rebbe was being monitored much more closely than he would have been in a hospital, and at that point it was easy to understand why he had chosen to remain in 770. There was also a great deal of medical equipment — literally, anything one could possibly want. And off to the side was a small room with a cot, where I could take a nap during my shift.
I was not taken to see the Rebbe that night. My function was to be there solely in case something untoward happened. But the Rebbe’s secretary Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky invited me to join him and a half-dozen others in a Malaveh Malka meal to which the Rebbe had sent a challah and a bottle of wine. They treated me with great respect and even sat me in an armchair at the head of the table. There’s even a photo of that moment.
The night passed without incident. In the morning, Dr. Louis Teichholz, who was then head of cardiology at Mount Sinai Hospital, arrived to examine the Rebbe, and he invited me to accompany him into the Rebbe’s room.
It seems the Rebbe had just woken up, but he looked good, his eyes were twinkling, and he expressed the desire to return to work the next day or, if not, then very soon.
Now, this was just a few days after the Rebbe had suffered a major heart attack. His chart contained a very striking cardiogram in terms of the abnormality. This was not a minor episode — it involved the front wall of the heart, which has a lot of muscle — but he was stable, thank G-d.
And he had a lot of questions about what had happened, most of which he directed to Dr. Teichholz and some to me.
For example, he asked me why, if he had this heart attack during the dancing of Shemini Atzeret, he was able to continue with the hakafot. (Indeed, as I later learned, in the middle of it, he finished all the hakafot and all the prayers and then went out to the sukkah to make kiddush.) I explained that a heart attack doesn’t happen in an instant, because it is not a single, isolated event. It starts, progresses, and gets worse, but the person may not be affected right away.
It was clear that the Rebbe was eager to get back to normal, and he said that he thought walking would be good for him, though he acknowledged that it would not be good for him to climb stairs. He said that, while walking, one does not have to overcome the gravitational pull, unlike climbing stairs, which adds to the stress on the body.
This was an interesting observation, but Dr. Teichholz reminded him that at this stage rest was very important, and he needed to give himself several weeks to recuperate. He was not going to be able to return to his regular routine for a while, including holding public farbrengens, which he very much wanted to do.
Another topic that came up was somewhat unusual and surprising — gene manipulation. Back then, this branch of science was very new, and there was a lot of talk about cloning and the like. The Rebbe expressed the opinion that we in the medical profession should let our representatives in Congress know how important it was that the US be at the forefront of this type of research. Because if the US does not take the lead, other bad actors will. I believe he was referring to the Soviet Union.
His concern and insight impressed me. One might think that the Rebbe would be against gene manipulation, but he saw it from a broader perspective. He correctly surmised that gene research would go on, and it was a matter of making sure good people were in control so it would not be misused.
When this visit ended, so did my involvement, and I did not see the Rebbe for several years after that. Then, in 1987, I was invited to a gathering of the Machne Israel Development Fund, an annual meeting of donors to Chabad.
The Rebbe’s secretary, Rabbi Groner, remembered me from the night that I spent there and reminded the Rebbe who I was.
“And how do you find your patient now?” the Rebbe joked.
“Thank G-d, the Rebbe looks wonderful,” I said, because he did. He looked fully recovered and quite energetic.
And then he added, still joking, “I am not paying for your visit here now.”
At the end of this brief conversation, the Rebbe gave me his blessing: “May G-d Almighty bless you to have good news. Go from strength to strength, and be of substantial help to all your patients. May you do so with good livelihood, with the aid of the Almighty.”
Dr. Ralph Silverman, a cardiologist, has served on the faculty of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and was a partner in Park Medical Associates of New York. He was interviewed in December 2025.
