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
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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?
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.
1 Nisan 5785/March 30, 2025
It’s the beginning of the month of Nisan on the Jewish calendar. Two weeks from today, Jews around the world commemorate the Exodus from Egypt. This year, with the release of my new book, From Illness to Exodus, I’m thinking about Jews and non-Jews alike might use this time to contemplate a different type of Exodus – from the sicknesses of body, mind, and spirit that confine them and those they love to a narrow place that will not let them live and flourish.
I wrote this book looking for ways to frame my practice of medicine and create rituals that would direct me toward being the type of physician I strive to be – one who cares for the whole person, who sees the Divine in the patient and attempts to emulate Divine behavior in my own actions.
Every good Jewish ritual begins with a Kiddush – a sanctification over wine, usually, but that seems like a bad course of action for a doctor beginning their day. So I offer this kiddush for healing, to be said over whatever you usually drink in the morning to get you going, and evoking both Hashem’s example of healing us, and the commandment for us to heal each other. Kiddush is meant to “separate in order to elevate,” in the words of my teacher and friend, Rabbi Danny Schiff. We separate an ordinary beverage and make it special – and in so doing also point out the other things that we want to bring to a higher plane, like our ability to effect healing in those who are hurting.
(ירים כוס קפה, תה, מיץ או חלב ומברך)
ברוך אתה ה’ א-להנו מלך העולם, שהכל נהיה בדברו.
ברוך אתה ה’ א-להנו מלך העולם, אשר קדשנו במצוותיו וציוונו רפוא לרפא.
ברוך אתה ה’ א-להנו מלך העולם, הדואג לאדם הראשון שלא טוב היותו לבדו, המבקר לאברהם בהחלמתו, והמנחם לרבקה בהתרוצץ בניה בקירבה. הבטחת על-שפת הים כי אתה ה’ רופאנו, שענה לתפילת משה למען מרים: “א-ל נא, רפא נא לה.”
ברוך אתה ה’, הרופא לשבורי לב וחבש לעצבותם.
(One raises a cup of coffee, tea, juice, or milk and blesses:)
Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, Sovereign of the Universe, Whose word brought everything into existence
Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who sanctified us with God’s Mitzvot and commanded us to heal true healing.
Blessed are You, Hashem, our God, Sovereign of the Universe, who worried for the first human that it was not good for him to be alone, who visited Avraham in his convalescence, and who comforted Rivka when her children chased each other about within her. You promised on the shore of the sea that you were Hashem our healer, that answered the prayer of Moshe on Miryam’s behalf: “Please God, heal her, please.”
Blessed are You, Hashem, the Healer of broken hearts and Binder of their wounds.
Now it’s your turn. Write your “healing kiddush.” Think about what perspective you’re writing from – a health professional? A family caregiver for someone who is chronically ill? A person newly diagnosed with a serious disease? What will you have in the glass you raise, and what examples will you highlight in your prayer that spell out your hopes – or lay out the road map for you to push toward your goals?
Pesach is coming. For those who celebrate, the approach of a Passover seder means a frenzy of cleaning, schlepping, and cooking – and can be the least spiritual thing we do all year. Don’t let that happen to you this year. As I begin to get out and speak about my new book, From Illness to Exodus, I’m trying to refocus on the lessons of the holiday, and the things I learned about doing my job as a doctor, and about my inevitable role as a patient, while writing it.
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