My sermon for Rosh Hanshanah Day 5769 was something of a sequel to the one I delivered the night before. I’ve reworked it here, based on a version I gave today at Lake St. Church’s World Community Sabbath. (Those of you who read the previous sermon will notice I carried some passages over into this [...]
Archive for the ‘Health Care’ Category
The End of Empire: A Sermon for Rosh Hashanah
Posted in Elections 2008, Energy Efficiency, Energy Policy, Environmentalism, Health Care, High Holidays, Judaism, Politics, Poverty, Religion, Sermons, War on October 5, 2008 | 3 Comments »
We Are Strong, We Are Healthy, We Are Fine…
Posted in Africa, Children's Rights, HIV/AIDS, Health Care, International Aid, International Health, JRC Africa Trip 2008, Rwanda, Uganda on July 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
The highlight of our Sunday was a visit to the Islamic Center in Nyamyrambo, where we visited with the WE-ACTx children’s program. The young people from our group had already spent the morning with the WE-ACTx young people (above) while the adults went to visit with Mardge Cohen and several interns at their home in [...]
“Amahoro” Means Shalom
Posted in Africa, Children's Rights, HIV/AIDS, Health Care, Human Rights, Hunger, International Aid, International Health, JRC Africa Trip 2008, Poverty, Rwanda on July 13, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
On Shabbat we began our day with a study and discussion of the Torah portion – the central themes of Parshat Pinchas (zealous violence and its complex aftermath) were uncannily appropriate to our experiences of the past few days.
The central experience of our Saturday was a visit to CHABHA (Children Affected By HIV/AIDS) – an [...]
Kaddish at Nyamata
Posted in Africa, Genocide, HIV/AIDS, Health Care, Human Rights, International Health, JRC Africa Trip 2008, Poverty, Rwanda on July 12, 2008 | 1 Comment »
In my previous post I mentioned an emotional visit to Kigali’s public hospital – that actually doesn’t even begin to do justice to the intensity of our experience. Mardge Cohen arranged the visit for us, to give us a better sense of the Rwandan health care system. Until this visit, we had only seen privately [...]
Duty Calls
Posted in Food, Health Care, Judaism, Religion, Spirituality on March 13, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Man should strive to have his intestines relaxed all the days of his life.
–Moses Maimonidies
Be forewarned: this post is about poo.
Why, you ask, is a rabbi writing about…uh… bowel movements? Well, because as the Rambam himself reminds us above, having a successful BM is nothing less than holy work. If you [...]
World AIDS Day 2007
Posted in Africa, Current Events, HIV/AIDS, Health Care, Politics on December 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment »
A few thoughts in the wake of World AIDS Day 2007:
The good news is that the UN and the World Health Organization have reduced the number of people infected with HIV worldwide from 39.5 million to 33.2 millon. The bad news is that the number 33.2 million feels like good news…
As [...]
A Father Kvelling
Posted in Africa, Global Activism, Health Care, International Aid, Judaism, Religion, Tzedakah on April 16, 2007 | 8 Comments »
And now for some serious kvelling from a proud Dad…
For his Bar Mitzvah tzedakah project last September, my son Gabe decided to raise funds for Unite for Sight, an organization that promotes optical surgeries and eye care around the world. To date he has raised over $7,000.00, which enabled an eye clinic in Tamale, Ghana [...]
On Passover, Parents and Children
Posted in Children's Rights, Health Care, Human Rights, Judaism, Pesach, Poverty, Prayer, Religion, Religion/Politics, Spirituality on April 1, 2007 | 4 Comments »
Yesterday at our Shabbat morning minyan, I noticed a particularly large number of parents and children. Over here was an adult woman helping her elderly mother by pointing along to the transliteration in the siddur. Over there was a man with his four year old in his lap, his tallit falling down across her shoulders. [...]
No Sacrifice At All…
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Environmentalism, Health Care, Iraq, Judaism, Religion, Religion/Politics, Torah Commentary, Tzedakah on March 23, 2007 | 2 Comments »
The book of Vayikra/Leviticus, which we begin reading this week, is almost exclusively devoted to details of the sacrificial rituals of ancient Israel. Many commentators have pointed out that there is, in fact, no one Hebrew word for “sacrifice” per se. The Torah presents many different words (e.g. olah, zevach, minchah) for various types of [...]
Read Full Post »