Ready.....Set......

a shofar...kinda like Dr. R's

Well, Rosh HaShana is a scant week away, and I'm already entering chicken-without-a-head mode. Not like this is anything new, that I haven't done this for the last 40+ years, but every year brings its own challenges. That Dr. R blows the shofar every frickin' morning at minyan...a traditional wake-up call to remind us we have a whole lotta thinking to do...is a given and today was enough to make a 2 year-old scream in terror. It's not like she hasn't heard the shofar almost every day since the beginning of the month of Elul that began weeks ago, but Dr. R was on a roll this morning and boy, was it loud! 

No matter how many times I hear a shofar, the initial sound always pierces me. I know this is a visceral reaction; I've been having the same reaction since I was a kid. Is it the sound of 5000 years of Jewish history in a series of 3 distinct blasts? Is it the battle cry we hear before confronting our enemy? Is it the sharpness of the blast that grabs my attention and turns my innards toward the ten days of repentance? Whatever it is, it happens at daily morning minyan during Elul, every year on Rosh Ha'Shana (when it doesn't fall on Shabbat) and at the last moments of Yom Kippur when the gates of the prayer are closing. 

Some years are easier than others. I tend to turn inward to examine the pluses and minuses of the last year. To be sure, there were some high points and some pretty low ones. I'm beginning to believe I will never see Barcelona. Going to Israel is off the table again this fall. I really need to pop down to Delray to see my aunts, but even that is looking less likely. I can't believe my big brother is coming next Sunday for the holiday. At least, at this moment I have his flight information and every expectation this country will not have shut down again by next weekend. 

With the arrival of Hurricane Ida, hospitals along the Gulf Coast are in real danger. All of New Orleans is blacked out. Other parishes are flooded. The situation is dire; people will be in need of medical attention for a variety of maladies, not just COVID-19 and the Delta variety. ICU beds are already scarce. In states with the lowest vaccination rates in the country, can you make decisions that take vaccination status into account? (For the record, Louisiana has a fully vaccinated rate of 41.4%, Mississippi is at 37.7% and Alabama is at 37.9%. All three have been hit hard by the storm and are experiencing medical shortages.) 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about hospitals and the unvaccinated. Dr. Tom, who I cited in the last round, sent me an article that appeared in the Washington Post: When medical care must be rationed, should vaccination status count? The author, Dr. Daniel Wikler, is a professor of Ethics and Population Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The article takes you through his thought process and it's quite compelling. So, I will stipulate this guy knows what he's saying when he writes:

When patients like these are evaluated for health care, their priority depends on how serious their condition is, how urgently they need help and how well they are likely to do if they’re treated. What does not matter is culpability, blame, sin, cluelessness, ignorance or other personal failing. Doctors and hospitals are not in the blame and punishment business. Nor should they be. That doctors treat sinners and responsible citizens alike is a noble tradition, an ethical feature and not a bug. And we shouldn’t abandon it now.

As much as I would like to say vaccination matters, I cannot. Treating all comers is the ethical and correct action. In other words, it's the right thing to do.

And speaking of ethics, I cannot help but be relieved our troops are officially out of Afghanistan. The ISIS bombing was just one more reason not to be there. I thought President Biden's "We'll hunt you down," remarks were a bit over the top, but I suppose he had to say something. Look, the guy inherited a lose/lose situation and nothing he did was ever going to make it completely right, so let's take a breath here...and try to ignore the xenophobic/schizophrenic GOP as they carry on about Afghan refugees. Yes, we must rescue them; no, we cannot bring them here; yes, we've failed as world leaders; no, we need to put them in immigration camps. Please. Make up your minds the rest of us can get on with helping those who risked life and family to help our troops. 

POTUS has enough on his plate between increasing COVID rates and now Hurricane Ida to keep him busy. Oh, and let's not forget that North Korean appears to be firing up their nuclear arsenal again.  

The older I get, the more I think being POTUS is about morals and ethics. I don't mean the Christian right kinda morals where IOIYAR is the line in the sand, the kind that thinks it's okay to grab a little pussy on the side, or have serial wives and mistresses, some concurrently; I mean the classic kind, the ones about doing right by one's neighbors, community, nation, and the world. Maybe a little bit of repairing the world, leaving our campsite cleaner than we found it, caring for the health of the planet? Turning health care into a for profit industry manipulated by insurance companies is morally reprehensible. Taxation that favors 2% of the population while shifting the major burden to the middle and lower classes is highly unethical. Allowing large corporations to pay virtually nothing in taxes is both morally and ethically bankrupt. If POTUS can begin to address the ongoing inequality experienced by the bulk of America, he will have taken a step in the right direction. I do not think President Biden can fix it all with a wave of his magic pen, but what I do believe is that he can open the conversation. 

As I head into the 10 days of repentance, I will once again evaluate where I have fallen short, and where I can do better. Even if you're not Jewish, take a moment to think about the same thing. Take an inventory; it's a good thing. Maybe you'll find something you want to change. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Always start a diet the day after Yom Kippur.