So much to learn

Today was a great day. I spent my morning having coffee with Rabbi Alissa Wise who currently works at Mayan doing some amazing work with young, Jewish women. We met for coffee upstairs at one of the local Starbucks. What I loved about this morning with Alissa was all that I learned from her. I like to think of my self as being relatively enlightened. Well, don't we all, really. I like to imagine that I pay attention to issues of class, culture and privilege. And I am constantly surprised at how much more there is to learn...all the ways our systems favor the privileged.

Today, I was bowled away by an underlying reality of charitable giving and tax shelters. When someone makes a large donation to a charity, that money is sheltered from taxes. Those unpaid tax dollars never make it in to the general fund, never come to support government programs addressing our social well-fare. Instead, those who can give enough to shelter their money get to decide through their giving what issues are important, what issues get funded. If I have a million dollars and I decide the most important issue of the day is the national foundation for belly-button lint (or whatever thae cause may be-something serious or something frivolous) then I divert funds from the tax pool which might fund health, education, food assistance, literacy programs, hunger and homeless programs etc etc and put all that money into cause X.

Another example how privilege functions in our society today.

Thank you Alissa to opening my eyes to another unintended side effect to an originally compelling incentive to get people to donate more funds to charity.

So much to learn, so much to learn...

A reflection on Christmas

I thought today would be different. I thought today would feel urgent or festive. Instead, Mt Sinai feels empty. And I am surprised. Only one patient brought up Christmas. It was with a sigh of longing that she would miss being with the family this year. I guess I expected more of that or more families crammed in to rooms making holiday merriment. I guess I hoped Christmas would be bigger than illness and death.

And I guess it may not be. Today was, in effect, a day like any other. More red and green perhaps, more flowers perhaps...but little else.

Although, the bright side may be that the hospital is empty because many people, staff and patients alike, are home celebrating with their families and not working or recovering. I have heard that statistics say more people are released at the holidays because they are motivated to be with the people they love. I have also heard that more people who are alone take their lives because the expectation to be with loved-ones this time of year is intense.

I feel it too-the pressure to be with others. It is this force which brought me in to work today. I thought people would really want people...I really wanted people. Maybe this is how we developed the Jewish Christmas tradition of Chinese restaurant Christmas. We, as Americans, are surrounded by messages of be with family, be with others. But this is not our holiday. And so we have developed our own ritual as we have internalized the messages of Christmas.

Another scene in the hospital...an Orthodox Jewish woman is here and I know because every time I am on her floor, it is teaming with Orthodox Jewish men while their female relations crowd around the bed of their ill in a cramped hospital room. This is what I expected to find today-but everywhere. I walked by this scene like a do often as I make my way around the hospital. But today, it reminded affected me differently than usual. Today, this crowd of people showed me a story of what religion offers us-each other. It is through Christmas, visiting the sick or the Pu-pu platter which bring us together. These rituals and holidays further strengthen our relationships with those we know and love as well as to those who are part of our tribe, whatever tribe that may be.

I love Christmas because for me, it means warmth, joy, celebration and caring. Today was a great day at work because the spirit of Christmas was here even though it looked like a room full of Orthodox Jews.