A Jew Never Retires from His Mission

For 33 years, Professor Eliyahu (Patrick) Sorkin served as a senior doctor in the Intensive Care Unit at Ichilov Hospital. Though he recently stepped away from that role, don’t expect to hear him say the word “retirement.”

“A Jew never truly retires from his designated mission,” he says gently. “He simply moves on to a different one, in a different place. And if he succeeds in that mission, he won’t take the credit. A true messenger doesn’t say ‘I.’”

So how can someone know whether they’ve fulfilled their mission? According to Professor Sorkin, the answer is surprisingly simple: “It takes sincere inner work, a sense of self-nullification, and daily prayer. If you recognize the unique piece you represent in the puzzle of the world, and you stay true to your mission, you’re likely doing it right.”

Throughout his long career, Professor Sorkin fought for life, saving victims of terror, war, and illness. To each of his patients, he shared a message of hope: “You have to believe. Life is a gift. Even when things are dark, never stop believing in goodness or in the possibility of healing.”

These are powerful words from someone who didn’t even know he was Jewish until the age of eleven.

Born and raised in France to Holocaust survivors, Professor Sorkin grew up in a home where religion played almost no role. He discovered his Jewish identity almost by accident through the New Testament.

A Christian boy in his neighborhood became his close friend. When the boy turned eleven, he began studying the New Testament in preparation for what he called a "Christian bar mitzvah."

“When I saw that,” Sorkin recalls, “I begged my parents to let me do the same. But they told me, ‘You can’t you’re not Christian. You’re Jewish.’ I didn’t understand what that meant. I said, ‘So what if I’m Jewish?’ But they just said, ‘You’ll understand when you grow up.’”

As was common in the French Jewish community, Sorkin began medical school at 17. Not long after, the Six-Day War broke out in Israel, and many young Jews from around the world came to volunteer. Sorkin was among them.

“That time marked a return to my roots,” he recalls. “The moment I walked ten meters into Ben Gurion Airport, I felt something pierce my heart. It was like something inside me whispered, ‘You’ve been here before.’ That’s when I knew this was home. This was what I’d been searching for.”

He volunteered on a kibbutz for eight months and hoped to stay in Israel. But bureaucracy got in the way.

“They told me to first finish three years of medical school in France, then come back to do another four years in Israel to get licensed.” He agreed. But delays kept piling up, and in the end, he wasn’t able to make aliyah (immigrate to Israel) until age 30 after getting married and starting a family.

So what sparked his connection to Judaism?

“After we married, my wife and I came to Israel to explore settling here. I got accepted as a physician at Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital. We tried for months to sell our house in France so we could move but nothing worked. That deep frustration led us to an intense spiritual search.”

Since they were stuck in France, the couple began reaching out to Jewish communities. That’s when their eyes and hearts opened.

“We started to understand that there’s a Creator, and that as Jews, our lives must have meaning. You can’t just float through life. If we want to merit both this world and the next, we have to prepare. We have to return to observance.”

Their journey deepened quickly. Externally and internally, they became more and more committed to Torah and mitzvot.

How did those around you react to your transformation?

He smiles. “When I first showed up wearing a kippah, everyone was shocked. One relative even turned it into a family joke. But eventually, they accepted us as we are.”

In the early stages, he explored different religious communities, from the knitted-kippah (national religious) world to the Litvish (yeshivish) approach. But something still felt incomplete.

“I was missing the inner dimension,” he says. That’s when he found Chabad Chassidut. “I always loved learning Gemara, but I needed the spice, Hasidic teachings gave me that.”

Moving to Israel with three young children wasn’t easy.

“In France, it was clear what a Jewish kindergarten looked like. Every one of them taught about Shabbat and keeping kosher. We assumed the same would be true in Israel. But here, we quickly saw it wasn’t so simple. There were so many different styles of kippot, so many ideological divisions, it was confusing.”

They put their children in what they thought was a traditional kindergarten, hoping they’d learn about their Jewish identity. “But we saw that things were becoming more secular, not more Jewish, and it really hurt us.”

Why did that bother you so much?

“Because the basics of being Jewish should include knowing what Judaism is. No matter your level, religious, secular, traditional, we should all feel connected to our roots. But how can we expect people to feel part of the Jewish people if they’ve never learned about their own heritage?

“I’ve met young people who can tell me all about Indian history but know nothing about their own. That’s heartbreaking.”

As a Chabad Hasid, Professor Sorkin believes strongly in Jewish education. “I would expect the government to make sure every child in Israel learns about the 613 mitzvot. That’s the minimum. That’s who we are.”

Recently, after more than three decades at Ichilov Hospital, Professor Sorkin stepped down from his role as ICU director. But he didn’t slow down.

“Judaism doesn’t believe in retirement,” he says. “We just move to our next mission.”

What’s his next mission?

He’s now working at Mayanei HaYeshua Hospital, where he helped create a special ICU for the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) public.

Any challenges there?

“None at all,” he says. “This hospital feels like family. It’s smaller and has fewer doctors, which means more responsibility and attention to detail. But I walk through the hallways and hear Torah being learned, discussions of faith and I draw incredible strength from it.”

He shares a story that left a deep impression on him.

“A Jew in New York was gravely ill and had been hospitalized for months with no improvement. One day, broken and hopeless, he begged his surgeon to help him end his life. The surgeon agreed. Later, that same Jew came to the doctor in a dream and said, ‘You should know I was just one second away from completing my spiritual mission.’”

Professor Sorkin pauses. “That story became my life motto. As long as the soul is in the body, anything is possible. The body is the tool Hashem gives us to complete our purpose.”