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?
One person’s inspiration can be another person’s undoing. My regular readers and listeners know I draw deep insight, and comfort, from the Exodus story. But what about people who know they are never getting out of their narrow places? Do they find that narrative uplifting, mocking, or just crushing?
On Dr. Tyler Johnson’s podcast, The Doctor’s Art, he asks me that very question. Judge for yourself whether I did a good job of answering it. I certainly found the attempt humbling and gratifying at the same time. We covered a lot of ground: why I don’t see the “science vs. religion” divide quite as starkly as some others; why I think religion is actually the source of a lot of the good we do in modern medicine; what one lesson I might teach other physicians from the Exodus story; and why the main reason I ended up in Med-Peds and in primary care is just plain indecision. Have a listen.
A man doesn’t have time in his life to have time for everything. He doesn’t have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose. – Yehuda Amichai
I would like to “not have time” for the series of all-consuming crises of the last several years. To decline calendar invitations to the next war, the next pogrom, the next pandemic, or the next life-threatening illness. To choose not to attend the sleepless nights, the bouts of decision paralysis, or the existential angst of being hated, unfairly criticized, or embattled in the street or in the media. Sadly, I have not been given an option, and it is really cramping my schedule.
Read More
Why do we care if we’re healthy? Why, as health professionals, does it matter to us that the people we care for stay healthy, or get well? Why do my Russian in-laws begin every birthday greeting by wishing me health?
Read More