"I Meet Women at Their Most Painful Moments, and Together We Pray"

Nava Pasha was a young woman, about a year and a half after her marriage, when she realized she had difficulty conceiving. "We were living in Kiryat Arba at the time," she recounts, "My husband returned to his faith a few years before we met, and to this day he is a committed yeshiva scholar. I originally come from a religious family, but over the years, we strengthened our faith together. Both of us really wanted to become parents, but after a long period where it didn't happen, we started to understand that there might be a problem."

Living close to the Cave of the Patriarchs, Nava notes that the first thing that came to her mind to merit having children was to pray there regularly, and so she did, every day. "I heard of women who prayed there for forty days and were blessed, and so I did this as well and, thank Hashem, exactly on the 40th day I conceived. We named the baby born to us four years after the wedding 'Jonathan Moses'. The joy was immense, but as Jonathan grew, we faced difficulty conceiving again. We wanted so much for Jonathan to have siblings, we prayed and asked, and also started treatments to help the body conceive. During those days, we went on a trip to the north, and throughout the journey, I felt strange stomach pains and bloating, familiar from before Jonathan's birth. At a certain point, I could no longer bear it, the pain was overwhelming, and we decided to return home. On the way, due to the pain, we changed our mind and went to the hospital, where a very dangerous condition was diagnosed due to the medications I had taken. They hospitalized me and stabilized the situation at the last moment. Only afterward did doctors explain that my life was at risk."

Nava left the hospital at that time also with good news, as they discovered she was pregnant not with one, but two babies. "The twin pregnancy was very challenging, with a lot of stress and anxiety, but eventually, we were blessed by the grace of Hashem with sweet and wonderful twins, and after that, other children were also born to us."

When Grandma Prays

Today, Nava's children have grown, and she is even a grandmother to grandchildren, but she cannot forget those days of waiting, nor her sense of gratitude, which makes her feel a strong desire to thank the Almighty. "I thought about what could benefit and bring joy to the Creator of the World, and decided to open a charity for fertility medications for women, strictly by doctor’s prescription only.

"My charity is intended for women who need fertility medications but cannot afford the high price, or when the pharmacy is closed, or there is a shortage of that medication, or when the state does not assist in its purchase for some reason. My charity has been active for almost thirty years, and I continually encounter touching stories, miraculous events, and women who were helped beyond the natural way.

(Photo: Shutterstock)

"As part of the service I provide, I inject the medications into women and also teach them how to self-administer," she explains. "The engagement with this topic has led to amazing friendships between me and these wonderful women. Personally, I am not formally affiliated with any sector, and I am proud that the charity serves all sectors of the Jewish people, which is not surprising at all because we all share a common denominator. We all feel together the great longing to bring children into the world, and fulfill the purpose for which we came here. The external differences are less important, and that is the feeling among all of us."

Anyone familiar with fertility treatments knows that some medications need to be injected at specific times, sometimes at night. "It happens that I unexpectedly wake up at night from a call or a knock on the door asking me to administer an injection, and afterward, we join in prayer for the success of the treatment and recite Psalms together. When I later receive good news, my joy knows no bounds. It has happened more than once or twice that I was stopped on the street by someone with a baby carriage carrying a child I didn’t remember, and they would say, 'See this baby? He is from your charity.' Recently I even met triplets born after their mother received medications from the charity. It’s very touching and often makes me think that while the medications have their medical and technical side that certainly helps, one cannot ignore the many prayers and the fact that the women simply unite and pray together. I'm sure that the Almighty loves it so much."

"By the way, all the activities of the charity are in memory of my grandmother, after whom I am named. Grandma was a midwife, and she regularly assisted women who couldn't afford to go to the hospital to give birth and supported them as a doula during deliveries. After she immigrated from Iraq, she lived in a transit camp and repeatedly encountered stories of women dealing with poverty, considering terminating their pregnancies. Grandma was the one who pleaded with them and persuaded them not to give up on their babies. Today, with the charity running under her name, I feel she is praying for us from above and because of her, we receive great divine intervention and incredible miracles. This is also an opportunity to mention that the charity urgently needs donations of fertility medications, and whoever can help with this, may they be blessed."

Being a Good Messenger

In parallel to her charity work, Nava has specialized in various traditional methods to encourage fertility, building on her expertise in different types of massage – Swedish, holistic, deep tissue, and medical rehabilitative. "I learned various methods for massage and treatment, some using traditional oils, and I even specialized in reflexology and cupping, while applying guided imagery techniques," she explains. "When women come to me, I offer them these treatments, which are proven to open the womb and encourage fertility, yet I always emphasize that everything comes solely from Hashem and I am merely trying to be a good messenger."

In what way can massage be beneficial?

"I always clarify to everyone that massage does not contradict conventional medicine, but offers a traditional treatment, an ancient method passed from mother to daughter, capable of removing physical and emotional blockages. Sometimes it even enhances and helps the conventional treatment, as it encourages blood flow throughout the body and stimulates processes. Of course, it's impossible to know in advance that the treatment will succeed, and sometimes more than one treatment is needed; Hashem alone decides if there will be success in the treatment."

The swing bench at Nava's home

Most of the women coming to Nava, she says, are relatively young, a few years after their marriage, but there are also those who arrive after many years of waiting. "I have had women who have been waiting for ten years or more," she shares, "I try to treat them all with the same patience, to understand what they are going through, not to judge, and after the treatment, we often sit together in the yard with coffee, and they tell me about their pain, which I deeply empathize with since I have been through something similar. I try to find the right words, recommend what I think is advisable, and also learn to deal with the disappointments that are not easy for anyone. We learn together to connect within ourselves, not to be angry, and mainly to connect with the process, love it, and love ourselves. The most moving thing is when women later tell me they've conceived even without medications and hormones because something simply opened, the body was ready, and Hashem decided to bring another soul into the world."

To contact Nava: navush777@gmail.com