Nearly forty years ago at summer camp, I learned a song about a bridge.
This year, I learned the significance of the bridge.
Read MoreDon’t Fall Off
Password to a Whole World
I said a strange goodbye last week. After three years, thanks to a computer system “migration,” I had to part ways with… a password.
Most of my passwords these days are ones that Google randomly generates for me, ones I couldn’t remember if I tried. But this was one I created myself, one that, thanks to multi-factor authentication protocols, I wasn’t required to change every 90 days. And it was one that, if I’m being honest, was too tangentially related to the actual words in the phrase for anyone but me to land on.
With several letters, numbers, and symbols altered, the password was ‘Al Shelosha Devarim, the beginning of Mishnah Avot 1:2, which in its entirety reads, ‘Al shelosha devarim ha’olam ‘omed – ‘al haTorah, v’al ha’avodah, v’al gemilut hasadim. “The world (‘olam) stands on three things: on Torah, on service, and on deeds of lovingkindness.”
Read MoreThe Doggies in the Window
One of my favorite things to teach to my pre-meds, PA students, or med students is the difference between disease and illness.
The distinction comes from Arthur Kleinman’s book The Illness Narratives. Kleinman explains that a disease affects one human body and does so in a predictable way – so predictable, in fact, that if we can put together the pattern of symptoms, physical exam findings, and test results, along with a clear biological explanation of how all those things got there, then we can say with confidence that everyone who fits this pattern beyond a certain cut-off has the same disease.
Read MoreAnd Now…
“I never refilled the medicine. Was I supposed to?”
“I didn’t start that diet. I don’t know why, I just didn’t.”
“Yes, I did start smoking again.”
“I know I was supposed to see that specialist/get that test/go to physical therapy, but it got away from me and I didn’t make the appointment.”
If you are a healing professional, someone has said one (or all) of these things to you.
Read MoreGardening by the Numbers
In 2020, I started playing around with “birthday gematria,” using the Hebrew numerology system that assigns numerical values to each letter. Add up the values for the letters in a word, and every word can have a value, too. Sometimes that gives us timeless Jewish truths (18 is the numerical value of chai, life, leading us to give tzedakah in increments of 18), and sometimes it’s just fun (I once did a whole series of Pittsburgh Steelers’ gematria based on uniform numbers when the team was playing in the Super Bowl).
Unfortunately, my age in 2020, 47, left me with the letters mem and zayin, and the only reasonable word I could make with those was . . . Zoom. Not the encouragement I needed in the summer of 2020, let me tell you.
Today, I turned 53, so let’s try again.
Read MoreWaiting for the Smoke to Clear
This week feels a little like 2020. Everyone staying indoors. The few people outside wearing masks and hurrying for cover. The only difference is that other people aren’t the hazard this time – the outdoors is the danger.
The world is literally on fire, and the air is literally suffocating us. It can feel like too much effort to even cry for help.
Read MoreNo Pray-er There
Your chatbot will gladly compose a prayer for you.
Provide enough detail, and that prayer can be personalized to include your name, your spouse and children’s names, the specific needs you have for that day, and even some relevant scriptural references that you will find meaningful and coherent with your tradition.
You have, in short, a GenAI chaplain. Or, if you’ll forgive me, “chat lain.”
Read MoreThis Doctor’s Art
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.
Time to Heal
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 MoreHealthy Enough to Be Whole People
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?
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