Erev Rosh Hashana Evening Service                Friday, September 18^th, 7:30pm

"MI Shebarach" WHO Should Heal?

A Jewish Response to the Health Care Crisis

Each and every Friday night, here in your Congregation, we say a mi she’barach a Prayer for Healing.  Each and every Friday night, here at Temple Emanuel we name in our prayers those family, friends and members of our community who are challenged by serious illness.  If our Judaism is not constrained to a cultural legacy and heritage, if as Reform Jews we deny that our Judaism is restricted to a status of belief alone, then we are faced with the challenge of translating how this heritage and belief informs our deeds.  Our Judaism is not complete if we don’t act on our prayers.

More than any other time of the year, our Congregation, our people, assembles during the Days of Awe in an honest attempt to examine our lives, and make a determination as to how to proceed in the upcoming year.  We ask ourselves, how do we live life fully and how do we create the fabric for being mindful of what is important, critical and ultimately sacred for us as individuals, as a Congregation and as a people.

For each and every one of us, for each and every American, one of the most pressing dilemmas today is that of Health Care.

Somewhere between 45.7 million and 47 million Americans do not have health coverage or have an inadequate amount of Health Coverage that inhibits them from receiving ongoing Health Care, early diagnosis and treatment of illness and proactively assisting us to stay healthy. 

Senator Kennedy was a constant advocate for Health Care Reform articulated this reality: "Nearly 47 million Americans lack even basic coverage, and for tens of millions more, their coverage provides little help if major illness strikes.” They often learn that truth too late, when bankruptcy results from massive bills their insurance doesn’t cover.  Parents struggling to save a critically ill child find themselves mortgaging their homes, maxing out their credit cards, borrowing every dime they can.  Even with health insurance, they still stand to lose everything they’ve worked for.”

Ultimately it is not important if some of those 47 million Americans imagined they didn’t need it and therefore opted not to obtain Health Coverage or if most of those 47 million Americans found themselves unable to secure Health Care, the end result is the same.  As a modern nation we are facing a Health Care Crisis of frightening proportions.

We live in the richest nation of the World.  We claim to be among the most if not the most advanced sophisticated society in the World, we fashion ourselves as being an Ethical nation and yet, Forty seven million Americans, 16 percent of the population do not have health insurance coverage for one reason or another AND the costs continue to rise.  Statistics suggest that every thirty seconds, another American files for bankruptcy after having health problems.

It affects us all.  It is obvious that we need to do something.  We are all talking about it.  The arguments around the tables, the grumbling by the water cooler, the discourse on the blogs and the political debate on the Senate and House floors are all consuming.  What are we talking about?  We debate the extent of government involvement, whether it is 45 million or 47 million, what number of the uninsured opted to not pay for insurance that they could obtain, the veracity of co-op alternatives, the effectiveness of private versus public sectors, and ultimately, what each of us stands to lose IF any of the specific option discussed are to be exercised…. And around and around and around…

But ultimately we are asking the “wrong” questions.  Ultimately it isn’t a question of government intervention, public vs. private, or what I stand to lose, ultimately there is only one overriding question and that is what is our Moral Imperative that ought to be shaping, driving and ultimately determining the Health Care Debate?  If we believe that every American is entitled to accessible quality Health Care and do we choose to live in a nation that assures Health Coverage and Care for all of it’s inhabitants.

What is important to us?  What do we believe in?  What do we value?  We face many parallel dilemmas such as the survival of Israel or even the sustainability of Temple Emanuel.  We must begin by determining we are unequivocally committed to peace in Israel, and from that core place and with an unwavering love of and commitment to Israel’s safety and sovereignty and from within, we can begin to negotiate the journey towards and the terms of peace.  We must begin by articulating that having our Jewish Congregation thrive is an unequivocal priority and commitment.  And from that vantage point, and from within the Community, we must take personal responsibility to shape the necessary response to assure that reality. 

I don’t believe that we have the luxury to be complacent, to stand by, to be negative or passive or ignore the signs.  If it is our value that there be “peace in Israel”, if it is our value that there be a thriving Jewish presence in our Community, then we have no option but to do what is necessary to secure that precious commodity.

We don’t have the luxury to be without a viable Jewish presence in our Community.  And by not knowing how critical the fiscal challenges of our Temple’s reality is, or God forbid not caring, or simply by not caring enough to make Temple your priority, through exhaustion, complacency, negativity or ambivalence we run the risk of taking for granted something that by all rights is each and every one of your responsibility. You might ask, “I have so many other places in my life, places that respond to my multiplicity of needs, places that are deserving of my time and energy, and charitable giving… why do I have to be responsible for  Temple?

So you might be thinking, I have Health Care, why does it become my responsibility to change a system when my present needs are met?  Because for our Health Care to ultimately be sustainable and viable I must assure the Health Care of those who live in my Country.

Accessible, affordable, sustainable health care is not only for me at the times of my need, but for those around me, in their time of need, because this is what I believe in.  

What do you believe in?  What is ultimately non-negotiable?  Is it non-negotiable that Israel exist and thrive in peace?  Is it non-negotiable that there be a vibrant Jewish Congregation in your Community.  Is it non-negotiable that all American Citizens have accessibility to affordable quality Health Care?  We don’t have the luxury to be a nation that doesn’t prioritize Health Care for all of its citizens.

On this Rosh Hashannah, in the house of God, let’s look to our Jewish texts and see how we extrapolate the Moral Imperative which informs our values that we ought to live according to as it pertains to Health Care.

Exodus 22:20 and 21 teaches: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” and “You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan.”

The prophetic texts from Zechariah 7:8 resonates with this teaching: “Execute true justice; deal loyally and compassionately with one another.  Do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor; In your hearts do not think evil of each other”.

We are our brother’s keepers.  And as it pertains to the idea of universally accessible health care, it is written in Talmud Baba Kamma 46b: “Whoever is in pain, lead him to a physician”.  Even if we happen to be among the fortunate who up until now have been able to navigate the present Health Care Alternatives, we cannot be complacent, or tolerant of the present American Health Care System that has summarily written out “the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor.”  

FACT: Here in America, our present Health Care System is one in which seniors cannot afford their medications,

FACT: American working people are rendered penniless and hopelessly indebted by trying to pay for a loved one’s treatment,

FACT: millions of American children are uninsured,

FACT: In the United States of America millions of working people cannot afford health care…

and the reality projected is that insurance premiums will continue to rise and insures continue to be bankrupted.  We have fallen prey to a corrupt and unconscionable system.

We need a change.  We know we need a change.  But as the Health Care Reform Debate heats up, we continue to go astray in a mire of manipulations furthering individual political and financial agenda.  The media, political parties, private insurers and even religious institutions have made use of fear tactics, negativity, and the promulgation of misinformation in an attempt to derail and prevent substantive change.   

One of many u-tube sites documents an elderly man misinformed by his pastor, aggressively confronting his Congressman shouting “I don’t want government getting involved in my Medicare” and the Congressman’s staff tries to impress upon him that Medicare is the government.  Neither the gentleman nor his pastor want to be bothered with the facts.

Insurance companies providing the consumer with misinformation would have you believe that they have your best Health Interest at stake when in fact, their interests are entirely motivated by business and high returns.  They are not in the business of providing Health Care but rather a business whose express goal is profit that happens to be furnishing the commodity of Health Care.  How else could they feel justified in excluding people with “preexisting” conditions.

The fallacy of today’s Health Care Debate is that we are fighting about the technical means for a solution without having all agreed upon the endgame.  We are duking out the terms of a treatment plan without having concurred on a diagnosis.  Negativity is always easiest.  In order to solve the problem, we must identify, the Problem that we are committed to solving.  We have to agree that we have an absolute ethical responsibility to provide Universal Health Care that is accessible and affordable, for all Americans.

Agree on this, then the discussion will be what will work and how do we get there.

What must we have!:

Everyone must have absolute unequivocal access to insurance.

We must tailor a system where the young and the old, the healthy and the sick come together to create and sustain affordable and solid coverage for quality Health Care.

We must have a system where no one can be denied Health Coverage because of a pre-existing condition.

For Health Care to be affective we must fashion a system where an individual can move from job to job, state to state… without jeopardizing their Health Care status.

What do you believe in?  What is ultimately important to you at your core?  When we bring our core Jewish values to this, our deeds will follow accordingly.

Rabbi Yael Romer, Erev Rosh Hashana 5770

 

 

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