Wherein I said:
To elaborate:
The problem is clouded because we're assuming that every medical problem is not the patient's fault or cause. And in doing so we assume that none of those in the future will be either.
We need to do several things:
1. Stop assuming that things must be just because they are. We have lots of fat smokers. We do not necessarily HAVE TO HAVE lots of fat smokers.
2. Stop assuming that current trends will continue. If they did then by the time I was 37, I'd be 68,719,476,736 (237-1) which is somewhere around the time I pay off my mortgage. As a continuation of number 1, we WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE lots of fat smokers, not for the least of which reasons is that the present ones will die and more subtly, we can prevent more.
3. On the heels of numbers 1 and 2, START assuming WE CAN do something about the root causes of the vast majority of health issues.
Why are we in this morass? Because 1, 2, and 3 were violated. We assumed we'd always have health care that didn't cost a lot, there were lots of doctors, we had many advances happening every day... we assumed we could live any way we wanted and above all those three, we violated number 4.
4. Stop letting people off the hook into the future. We ARE responsible for MUCH of our health issues AND while we CANNOT do anything about the past, we can stop being idiots and learn from our mistakes and deviate onward through the future away from the path to destruction. Forgive, but do not forget. Judge but offer a course of correction and help. Be stern and just, but be loving and embracing.
Here's an excellent Jewish angle: the laws of kashrut are what they are for what reason? Because G-d is an anal-retentive sadistic food critic? No. Why then? Well, at the very least if you don't want to get into the moral minutae, you can assume that a kind loving G-d has a moral reason for it all. Therefore, are we not violating the rules by treating them like a free pass? As long as the shochet did a superb job, eat as much meat as you like? No. We are allowed to eat meat as a divine but dark gift. Life is G-d's crowning achievment. He lets us kill some animals and eat their flesh but it should never be something we take for granted.
It doesn't matter if the shochet is an angel and can turn off the cow's life without a knife like flipping a switch. Something still died for that meat. It was what can be semi-laughingly called a necessary evil.
You should therefore think harder about what you eat. While G-d doesn't command vegetarianism much less veganism, He certainly does seem to be raising one eyebrow and glancing at it like a secretary trying to get her boss' attention like "psst! Hey! Look who's at the front counter!"
Maybe you should see what G-d is angling at and eat a little more healthy.
I was shopping for groceries the other evening and thought back to Braveheart and thought, "many years from now, dying in a hospital bed, would you be willing, to give all the days, from this to that, to come back here and tell your appetite, you can take my attention, but you'll never take... my nutrition!"
So I shop the kosher and health food sections, not fifteen feet apart, not coincidentally having almost identical occurences of the Circle U. I've cut my pipe and cigar smoking. I've lost weight. I've cut the withdrawal time on my antidepressent by two weeks worth of nausea and diarhea. I feel a lot better and have much more energy. I won't need nearly so much medical care in the future. And it was all by my choice to listen to G-d.
So rabbis... Start your sermonizing!
That which need be done or achieved to be meritorious of His direct intervention itself brings about a state no different than had He directly intervened and may be if you are wont to, chalked up to Him.
At least, that's what I was once told.
However, it can also be said you cannot help people who will not accept it. Most health costs are for those things that never should have been taken so far. Cigarette smoking, fatty diets, lack of exercise, nasty unhealthy foods, etc.Does today's America look like it is full of people who want to be told what to do, what is moral, what's good for them?* No. You can't tell me what to do! Just suggesting is an attempt to control me! I will stick bananas in my ears! (Until they cause enough irritation to require an emergency banana-ectomy.)
So go back to what I started with. When people start doing and living better their remaining medical issues will be so inexpensive by comparison with right now that we can easily afford universal health care without any political games, without property expropriation, without taxation without alleged representation, etc.
*Yes, in a weird way. They just want to think THEY invented the idea.
To elaborate:
The problem is clouded because we're assuming that every medical problem is not the patient's fault or cause. And in doing so we assume that none of those in the future will be either.
We need to do several things:
1. Stop assuming that things must be just because they are. We have lots of fat smokers. We do not necessarily HAVE TO HAVE lots of fat smokers.
2. Stop assuming that current trends will continue. If they did then by the time I was 37, I'd be 68,719,476,736 (237-1) which is somewhere around the time I pay off my mortgage. As a continuation of number 1, we WILL NOT ALWAYS HAVE lots of fat smokers, not for the least of which reasons is that the present ones will die and more subtly, we can prevent more.
3. On the heels of numbers 1 and 2, START assuming WE CAN do something about the root causes of the vast majority of health issues.
Why are we in this morass? Because 1, 2, and 3 were violated. We assumed we'd always have health care that didn't cost a lot, there were lots of doctors, we had many advances happening every day... we assumed we could live any way we wanted and above all those three, we violated number 4.
4. Stop letting people off the hook into the future. We ARE responsible for MUCH of our health issues AND while we CANNOT do anything about the past, we can stop being idiots and learn from our mistakes and deviate onward through the future away from the path to destruction. Forgive, but do not forget. Judge but offer a course of correction and help. Be stern and just, but be loving and embracing.
Here's an excellent Jewish angle: the laws of kashrut are what they are for what reason? Because G-d is an anal-retentive sadistic food critic? No. Why then? Well, at the very least if you don't want to get into the moral minutae, you can assume that a kind loving G-d has a moral reason for it all. Therefore, are we not violating the rules by treating them like a free pass? As long as the shochet did a superb job, eat as much meat as you like? No. We are allowed to eat meat as a divine but dark gift. Life is G-d's crowning achievment. He lets us kill some animals and eat their flesh but it should never be something we take for granted.
It doesn't matter if the shochet is an angel and can turn off the cow's life without a knife like flipping a switch. Something still died for that meat. It was what can be semi-laughingly called a necessary evil.
You should therefore think harder about what you eat. While G-d doesn't command vegetarianism much less veganism, He certainly does seem to be raising one eyebrow and glancing at it like a secretary trying to get her boss' attention like "psst! Hey! Look who's at the front counter!"
Maybe you should see what G-d is angling at and eat a little more healthy.
I was shopping for groceries the other evening and thought back to Braveheart and thought, "many years from now, dying in a hospital bed, would you be willing, to give all the days, from this to that, to come back here and tell your appetite, you can take my attention, but you'll never take... my nutrition!"
So I shop the kosher and health food sections, not fifteen feet apart, not coincidentally having almost identical occurences of the Circle U. I've cut my pipe and cigar smoking. I've lost weight. I've cut the withdrawal time on my antidepressent by two weeks worth of nausea and diarhea. I feel a lot better and have much more energy. I won't need nearly so much medical care in the future. And it was all by my choice to listen to G-d.
So rabbis... Start your sermonizing!
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