This past Shabbat, we celebrated the Bar Mitzvah of Rebecca Matathias, who gave a lovely speech on her haftarah, in which she emphasized the value of family and forgiveness based on the love within the family.
Rabbi Gorin followed up with a thought-provoking discussion of the mitzvah of returning lost property, even to the extent that in Jerusalem, one can read ads posting rewards offered by the finder to anyone claiming a lost object! (for more on this topic, please go to Rabbi Shraga Simmons essay on Ki Tetzei (Deuteronomy 21:10-25:19): Returning Lost Objects on the www.aish.com site).
In another story, the efforts made by an observant Jew in NYC leads to the repair of a broken relationship, in addition to the restoration of the lost property to it’s rightful – a double mitzvah!
Rabbi Gorin then broadened the idea of property from material belongings to the sense of owning good health. Just as one should restore lost property, it is a mitzvah to restore good health to another. Obviously, for those of us who work in health care professions, we attempt to do this in our day-to-day work, but Rabbi Gorin emphasized that everyone has the capacity to help restore health – by donating organs! He passionately argued that organ donation is not only allowed, but expressly encouraged by all of Judaism, and that anyone who claims that Judaism forbids organ donation is lying, or misconstruing Halachah. He cited the CJLS teshuva, written by Rabbi Joshua H. Prouser, titled “Hesed or Hiyuv? The Obligation to Preserve Life and the Question of Post-Mortem Organ Donation”, approved in 1995.
And after encouraging us all to make sure that we designate our organ donor status on our driver’s licenses, the rabbi extended the idea of returning health to others in our community from the particular to the societal, by challenging us all to consider that if it is a mitzvah to restore health to another person, than we have an obligation to ensure that all members of society have access to health care. And that the current politicking on both the right and the left is sinful in preventing our society to move forward to achieving a reform of health care that provides for all US citizens. To show that the support for moving health care reform forward comes from the right, as well as the left, he cited the op-ed columnist, Charles Krauthammar, who wrote on august 21st:
“Let’s see if we can have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling. We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I’ve got nothing against her. She’s a remarkable political talent. But there are no “death panels” in the Democratic health-care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate.”
I’ll be adding references to the other sources that Rabbi Gorin alluded to as soon as I get them from him. In the meantime, what do you think?
Loading ...