The singer who experienced clinical death: "When I regained consciousness, I knew exactly who was there"
Singer Haim Tzadik, who experienced clinical death following a severe car accident, recalls: "I saw my late grandmother, she smiled at me, and I saw the family outside the room. When I regained consciousness, I knew exactly who was there and what they were wearing."
Haim Tzadik has been involved in music from a young age. At 12, he began to sing, and at 24, he was working on a new album. One night, while he and his music arranger were looking for the final song to complete the album, he could not have imagined that within hours his life would change completely.
After long hours of work, he took the arranger back to his home in Netivot and set out back towards Be'er Sheva with a friend. During the drive, on a dark road, a cat jumped onto the road. Tzadik tried to avoid hitting it, lost control, and the vehicle spun again and again. Despite the severe accident, Tzadik and his friend managed to get out of the car almost unscathed. But then came the moment that changed everything.
"I got into the car to look for the kippah"
After the accident, vehicles stopped at the scene, and an ambulance arrived. At some point, Tzadik noticed that his kippah was not on his head.
"I said to my friend: I'm getting into the car to look for the kippah," he recalls. He sat in the passenger seat and bent down to the floor of the vehicle. At that same time, another vehicle arrived at high speed. People tried to signal the driver to stop, but he did not notice them and collided with the car in which Tzadik was sitting.
"Here I lost consciousness," he says.
The force of the impact was severe. The car was dragged dozens of meters and was severely damaged. Rescue teams had to extract him, and he was evacuated to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva. Tests revealed that his spleen was severely damaged, and he underwent surgery. Tzadik remained unconscious. Two days later, he required another surgery due to leg fractures. Family members were warned that his condition was critical.
"I saw my grandmother. There was a great light around her"
According to Tzadik, during the surgery, he experienced clinical death.
"I remember seeing my grandmother, of blessed memory, who was already not among the living," he says. "There was a great light around her, a light that we don't know here in this world. She smiled at me."
But that was not the only thing he saw:
"I saw the family outside the room. Everyone who was outside. And when I woke up and regained consciousness, I told them exactly who was there and what they were wearing." According to him, family members tried to test him by adding names, but he knew exactly who was there.
Tzadik does not claim to remember everything that happened during the clinical death. On the contrary, he says there are parts that are inaccessible to him today: "I do feel that I was made to forget for some reason."
"Love that cannot be described in words"
What he does remember clearly is the feeling:
"During the clinical death, I remember feeling such a great love for the Holy One, Blessed be He, that we really don't know such love here in this world. Even the greatest love a person knows in their life does not compare to what I felt in those moments."
Alongside that love, he also describes an almost opposite feeling — deep fear:
"I felt a fear of judgment and accounting for everything, not just for an action, but for every smallest thought that ever passed through my head. It was a terrible fear. When it connected together with the love, it is a feeling that is not known."
Even after he woke up, something remained with him: "I woke up with a very strong love for the Holy One, Blessed be He. I always loved Him, but this is a different kind of love."
"Another two weeks of life at home"
In those days, Tzadik's sister was a neighbor of Rabbi Yoram Abergel (of blessed memory) in Netivot. Doctors estimated that if he survived, he would face a long recovery period. However, Rabbi Abergel told his sister: "Tell the doctors that Haim has another two weeks at home."
During the hospitalization, another event occurred where Tzadik had difficulty breathing. His mother asked him to say three times "Elaha de-Meir aneini." "Immediately at that moment, everything worked out," he says. About two weeks later he was discharged, and a month and a half after the incident, he was back on stage.
The song that was missing that night eventually became the song that closed the album — a song of thanksgiving to the Holy One, Blessed be He.
"That we woke up in the morning is not taken for granted"
Years after that event, the message that Tzadik wants to convey is simple: "That we should not take everything that the Holy One, Blessed be He, does for us for granted. That we can get up, walk, move our hands and legs, breathe without all the tubes I was connected to — it is not taken for granted."
