Using the traditional Passover seder and its text, the Haggadah, as a template, From Illness to Exodus explores illness and healing—the narrow space, and the way out.
From Illness to Exodus invites the ill person and healer alike to address hard questions with compassion, curiosity, and a mature faith
a>
Is it enough to say the right thing without feeling it – or to say the wrong thing with the right emotion? Do I have a God complex or impostor syndrome? How do I avoid the extremes and practice with both humility and confidence?
Make today different from all other days – what will you do to achieve this? What stories do we tell about our bad habits to justify them to ourselves? How might we reframe them to make them holier?
When you think about modern plagues, do you think of them as outside forces that are affecting you, punishment for societal ills, or things that you’re doing that harm others?
3,000 years of Jewish wisdom, 3,000 people seeking healing, and one nice Jewish doctor with messy, curly hair trying to use one to make sense of the other. Take two stone tablets and call me in the morning?
Part of the experience of illness is often a sudden flood of people lining up to say, “How can I help?” These words imply a promise – a promise to provide support, to be there when things really start to suck, to know what we need before we know we need it.
Read MoreEven if you’re not Jewish, you may know one common phrase from the Passover seder: “Why is this night different from all other nights?”
Or at least, that’s how it’s often translated. Some people think this is actually an expression of wonder, like, “How different this night is from all other nights?” For others, it is a much more cynical expression that nothing has changed at all, as in, “What else is new?”
In the course of an illness, variations of this question come up all the time. Do any of these resonate with you, either about your illness or about the person you’re caring for:
Why did I choose today to come to the doctor?
Is today any different than the other times I’ve been asked “how are you?” For the better or the worse?
How am I going to make today different for this person who needs my help? Why didn’t I do that before?
Will there ever be a “different” day?
To order a copy of From Illness to Exodus, click here and enter code CONF40 at checkout. You can also visit your favorite behemoth online retailer – but I really love my publisher so go there. Remember to share your responses – and share these posts in your own feed, or at your seder table IRL. Also, if you’re available Tuesday, April 8 at 8:00 EDT, join online for my “book talk” in the Religion and Healthcare lecture series sponsored by Pitt’s Center for Bioethics and Health Law.
Like a lot of Jewish holidays, Passover is about living through a shared trauma, and coming out the other side. But right at the beginning of seder, we break a piece of matzah in half. This ritual act often serves as a jolting reminder, amidst all the talk of survival and persistence, that we do have our breaking points. And they aren’t always in the places we expect them to be, like along those little perforated lines in the matzah (for my favorite seder joke about this, you’ll have to read Chapter 7, “Breaking Points”).
In coping with illness, trauma, loss, or the care of those suffering through these experiences, where are your breaking points? Once you break – or crumble – can you be put back together again?
To order a copy of From Illness to Exodus, click here and enter code CONF40 at checkout. You can also visit your favorite behemoth online retailer – but I really love my publisher so go there. Remember to share your responses – and share these posts in your own feed, or at your seder table IRL.