A man ventured off on a quest to seek out the most fabled of all Seers. The journey was a difficult trek and took a good deal of time, but the man did not give up. And one day, he finally came across the “Great One,” the Seer of all Seers … the Sage of all Sages … the Wisest of the Wise.

“Great Seer, how does one become wise?”

The Seer answered, “From making good choices.”

“But Great Seer, how does one learn to make good choices?”

The Seer patiently answered, “Through experience.”

“But Great Seer, how does one gain experience?”

To which the Seer replied, “Through bad choices.”

A colleague of mine shared this story with me just before the beginning of the High Holy Day Season, and I loved the message found within this lovely parable. No matter how perfect you think you are … no matter how much wiser you think you are than someone else, I can assure you of one thing – over the course of this past year, you have made some bad choices. The question on Yom Kippur is – did you learn from those bad choices … or, will you just keep making the same mistakes over and over again in the New Year ahead?

I saw a woman at the Rehab Center the other day. I remembered her from her last stay in the facility. It wasn’t all that long ago and so, I asked her, “What are you doing back here so soon? What happened?”

She let me know that she had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and she had fallen and, from that fall, she wound up with a broken hip. I asked her about the walker that she had gone home with. She told me, “Rabbi, it was only a few steps from my bed to the bathroom and I figured I can make a few steps without any problem.”

And that is when I asked her the question that I find myself asking people so often in my Chaplaincy. I asked her, “What did you learn from this?” Sadly, she did not have an immediate answer, so, after what I considered to be an appropriate amount of time, I decided to help her. I said, “Well, hopefully you learned two things. First, you learned to follow the advice of your therapist to use your walker even if you only have a few steps to take.”

She nodded in agreement and then asked what the second thing was. My answer … “Well, you learned that falling doesn’t hurt at all … LANDING … now that’s a different story. LANDING can hurt a lot. It can even break a hip.”

And with that, I asked her one more time, “So, what did you learn from this ‘grasshopper?’”

And I loved her answer.

She said, “You’ve got to learn how to LAND before you take a FALL; better yet, don’t take a fall at all.” What a wise woman! She had learned from her mistake and, G-d willing, next time she will prove to be much wiser and use her walker … even if it is only a few steps that she wishes to take.

Shalom, my friends, and may we all be wise enough not to repeat the mistakes of the past year.

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County. 

A friend of mine called to ask a question about Tisha B’Av, which fell this year on the 9th of August. It is a very sad day in the history of the Jewish People. It is a day on which many calamities have occurred. It seems my friend went to two Synagogues on Tisha B’Av. In one, the people were fasting and observing many of the customs that made it appear that they were in the midst of mourning. But in the other Temple, there were people who were dancing and singing; two different groups … each observing a very special day of the year in very different ways.

One would hope that they would permit each other to observe in their own way in peace and harmony, but alas, that is not the reality in which we live.

And so it was that a member of one Temple ran into a member from the other, and, sure enough, they got into an argument. One argued that the day should be marked by weeping and sorrow, and the other argued that it should be a day to dance in joy.

Before long, the two men … two brothers of the same faith … began to exchange more than words with one another. I doubt that anyone could have convinced either one of them that there might be more than one way to observe the day. But, what they were doing was exactly why the Sages say the Temple was destroyed in the first place. It was destroyed by senseless hatred between brothers and sisters of faith.

As I recall from my youth, there is a tale of two great Sages who, upon looking at the destruction of the Temple, one began to weep and the other to dance. Each was confused as to how the other could react so differently to the very same thing.

One wept because he felt the immediate pain of the destruction. The other danced because he saw the destruction as a sign of fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy and as assurance that the day would soon come when the Temple would be rebuilt and there would be peace throughout the world.

When I am called on to go to a family who has just experienced the loss of a loved one, it is not unusual to find that each member of the family is experiencing the passing of their loved one differently.

One may be weeping at the pain of loss. Another might be feeling relief and, dare I say it, a form of joy in the fact that their loved one is no longer in pain, that they are at peace.

I don’t know that either way of dealing with the loss is superior to the other. I only know that both are ways that we deal with loss and, as friends … as neighbors … as brethren … our job is to be there to comfort the mourner however their psychological makeup brings them to deal with their loss.

May we come to honor each other’s way of dealing with the loss of a loved one. Just as we would want others to respect the way we choose to grieve, may we be wise enough to honor another’s way.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County. 

Not too long ago, I did a tongue in cheek column about health insurance. While the piece was supposed to focus on the outrageous prices and the difficulties of getting coverage, especially if you have a pre-existing condition, many people focused, instead, on my jokingly stated verbage about seeking a young bride to lower the cost of my insurance premiums.

Well, for many, my tongue in cheek style was more like a foot in the mouth piece. While I know that a large portion of readers out there understood what I was trying to do, there were many who simply did not get it. I was accused of being immoral, of being willing to break the law, of being a dirty old man and of hating America. To those naysayers, all I can say is: What happened to your sense of humor?

Once this story appeared in The Observer, it took off and went rather viral. First, it was picked up by one of my favorite columnist, Frank Cerabino of the Palm Beach Post. Next, it went to Kaiser Health and, from there, National Public Radio picked it up. Then, the local Fox and NBC affiliate TV Stations … and, I have been told that it even made an Israeli Paper.

There were a lot of nasty comments. Some were so bad that they were removed from various websites because they crossed the line of protocol … anti-Semitic comments, anti-Clergy comments.

Some accused me of being to the left and some accused me of being to the right. The truth of the matter is I have usually tried to stay clear of politics and politicians. But, I have often said that if you put the Congress and the Senate and their families onto an HMO plan for just six months, then we would see just how quickly major changes will be made in our healthcare.

Thank G-d there were those who focused on the issue at hand. There were those who shared touching stories … stories of single mothers who are not sure if the money they earn should go to pay the mortgage or their health insurance.

Many suggested to me that I look into the pre-existing condition plans, but you must be without insurance for six months before you can even apply and who knows how long it takes for the application to go through. If, G-d forbid, something happens during that time, you could be cleaned out and in debt for life.

My cardiologist, Dr. Lawrence Weinstein, read the story and called to tell me that, if the time comes that I have to drop my insurance, not to worry, he will continue to care for me and he will do so at no charge. That’s right, a heart doctor with a heart!

Of all the comments that I read, one from a woman named Trena, who I do not know, summed it up so well. She said, “He’s joking people. This is humor, not a serious quest for a wife. He’s making a statement about the health insurance insanity.”

Trena gets it, and I hope you are smart enough to get it, too.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County. 

There was a heavy downpour the other day as we were in the midst of a service at one of the local health centers. At one point, the electricity went out for a minute and, while many people made a joke out of it, others were immediately worried and voiced concerns:
“What if the elevator doesn’t work?”
“What if we don’t get the air-conditioning back on? After all, the temperature is in the 90s outside.”
While the electricity was off, I posed the question if anyone had taken the time recently to thank G-d for the fact that we have an elevator to get up and down to the various floors and if anyone had taken the time (before the power went out) to thank G-d for the air-conditioning system, which keeps the place nice and comfortable in the midst of the brutal heat wave of recent weeks.
Fortunately, the power came back on rather quickly, but, I asked them to think about what they would have done if the power had not come back on. Many said they would stay in their rooms until the power was restored. Well, that might be fine if the power comes back on at some point in the day, but what if the power doesn’t get restored for several days? What then?
And without realizing it, we began an important dialogue on hurricane preparedness. Some of the people at the service have portable oxygen tanks. Others have to be hooked up to a machine three times a week for dialysis, so I had to ask if they knew what they would do and where they would go should a major storm like a hurricane kill all the electric power for a while.
We talked about what to do and we made a list of the many things we are blessed with that we often take for granted, and we thought about how we would survive if we did not have them in our lives.
Many people remembered things that they had read about … what you need to have around in case of a hurricane. Many had even been to seminars about it. People talked about the need to have a flashlight and extra batteries. People talked about the need to have bottled water. People talked about the need to have some food around that is easy to open and requires no refrigeration and no cooking.
The residents came up with just about everything one needed to have in preparation for a major storm and a major power failure. Everyone was listening. Everyone was participating. Everyone was paying attention.
And just before the end of the service, I decided I had a few more questions to ask …
“How many of you have extra water in your house?”
“How many of you have a flashlight and extra batteries?”
“How many of you have bottles of water?”
“How many of you have food that does not require refrigeration or cooking?”
“How many of you know where to go if you need special medical care?”
Amazingly, not one person could answer “yes” to any of these questions. Many said that someone else would take care of it for them, but who?
Hillel asked the question, “If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And, if not now, when?”
It is time to prepare. Get what you need so you are covered. Cover for others who are unable to get the supplies they need, and remember, knowing what needs to be done … knowing what supplies you need doesn’t do any good unless you go out and purchase those things. Don’t delay. If not now….when?

Shalom My Friends,
Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.

As I returned home from work the other day, I did what I always do … I stopped on the way up to my condo to pick up my mail. I started thumbing through and, in the midst of all the junk mail, I noticed an envelope that showed that my health insurance company, which has been wonderful, sent me my renewal rates.

I am on the small business guaranteed issue plan. When I first went on the plan, my wife of blessed memory, worked as my bookkeeper, and we were fortunate enough to get in as a two-person group. When she passed away, even as I dealt with my grief, I was concerned about my health insurance. Caring for my beloved wife had taken its toll on me and I was emotionally and physically exhausted. Fortunately, I was informed that, as I had been on the plan for quite some time, I would be grandfathered in at the two-person rate.

Now, please don’t get me wrong, the two-person rate was not exactly what you would call inexpensive. But I needed a good insurance plan and I stayed with it. This year, however, I was informed that I would be receiving rates based on a one-person group. Well, let me tell you something, when I saw the rate increase, I almost had a heart attack… So you might be wondering what the new rate is? Well, let me tell you, and before I do, remember that I am only 56. I do Zumba two to three times a week and I do ballroom and Latin dancing twice a week. It is true that I had bypass surgery within the past five years, but my cardiologist says that I am in better aerobic shape than most people my age. I don’t smoke and I don’t drink. So what is the new rate? Are you ready for this? $1,553.71, and that is not the yearly amount … no, that is what I am expected to pay each and every month to keep my health insuranc!

On top of this raise … since I hope to remarry again someday, I asked my agent what the rate would be if I had a wife whom I wanted to put on the plan. He said, “Double it.” For those of you who don’t feel up to doing the math in your heads, doubling it would meant I would be paying just under $40,000 dollars a year for health insurance premiums on a high deductible no less.

I needed to come up with a solution and fast. So I did a little research and found that the small business rate I get is based on the age of the owner of the company. So I thought about marrying a 21-year-old and making her the owner of the corporation, but let’s face it, 21 is a wee bit young for me.

So when I was at one of the health centers the other day, I walked over to the nurses’ station and announced that if any of them have good insurance and would like to get married that I am available. While they found the announcement amusing, the truth is that their response was … “Rabbi, we work in healthcare, we don’t have good insurance … you’re looking in the wrong place.”

So, dear readers, I now turn to you … and who knows … maybe this will get passed on to the national or international press … If any of you ladies out there have a good insurance plan and that plan entitles your husband to go on it for a reasonable (or at least, affordable) price, give some thought to the possibility of marrying me … a good insurance plan is all I ask … okay, there may be one or two other things I ask for, but, sadly, right now, insurance has become a top priority.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

From the time I was a little Rabbi … I mean, a little boy … I was taught that everything that G-d put on this Earth can have a very holy purpose. Of course, it often appears the reverse is just as true. Using the free will with which we have been endowed by our Creator, we also have the ability to take something and use it for evil.

I guess one of the easiest examples would be the creation of Atomic Energy, which also brought about the Bomb. The same creation, the same use of man’s ingenuity, and we come up with a good thing and a bad thing. Then again, perhaps the day will come when we will find a holy and creative purpose for the bomb rather than using it as a weapon of mass destruction.

Then there is nuclear energy, which also seems to have been used for two very different purposes and, yet, we find that if the good purpose is used and a plant has a leak, well, then it doesn’t appear to be so good … does it?

Still, I am a big believer in what I learned early on in life … that everything, even the things we consider to be the foulest of the foul, can have a good and holy purpose. We just have to be wise enough to figure out what that purpose might be.

I found a great example of that just a couple of weeks ago in a fascinating news story. So let me ask you something, when you were at the height of your fitness level, did you ever put on a pair of those white athletic socks and a pair of sneakers and head off for a long walk or a jog? And, if you did, did you ever have a time when it started to rain but you just kept walking anyway? When you finally got back home, you took off your sneakers and if anyone was near you, they took one whiff of those socks you were wearing and yelled out, “PHEW” or “P.U.”

Now, I have to tell you, as much as I believe that everything on this Earth can be of benefit, I never had the ingenuity to come up with a benefit to dirty, stinky white socks. But I guess I wasn’t using all the creative power that G-d blessed me with and, that’s okay, because someone else was using theirs and they found a very holy use for … that’s right … dirty, stinky socks.

I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but malaria still takes the lives of close to 100,000 people each year from across the globe and most of the lives it takes are children’s. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes infected with the disease and when one of them bites you, look out.

Well, researchers in Tanzania found that mosquitoes are attracted to the wonderful aroma of dirty, stinky socks. That’s right, just as we can’t resist walking by a bakery without getting that whiff that draws us in, those socks, those dirty, stinky socks draw the mosquitoes in like … well, like flies.

So if you put up mosquito traps and have a batch of smelly socks on them, it lures them much the same way a piece of cheese may lure a mouse into a trap. So don’t be surprised if one day you see a headline that reads “Dirty, Smelly Socks Save the Lives of 100,000 Children.” May it come to pass and may each of us use our ingenuity to find holiness in the most unlikely of places. Let us say, Amen.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County. 

I was escorted to the woman’s bedroom where she and her private duty aide spent much of the day. The TV was on and it was on loud. It also happened to be tuned to the Christian Broadcasting Network. The patient being cared for was Jewish. She could not get up from bed nor from a chair without the help of her aide. I talked with the aide about how inappropriate it was for her to have an evangelical program on in the woman’s house, but she saw nothing wrong with her actions and, in fact, felt she was doing a holy thing.­ She also let me know that the woman she was caring for never voiced any complaint about her choice of TV, and that if such things bothered her, she could say something. I tried to explain that many people fear voicing such things, as they are afraid of how they will be treated afterwards – much like a patient in a health center is afraid to voice complaints about how this or that nurse or aide treats them. The aide told me that she was not forcing the woman to participate in any other religion but her own. Yet, the elderly woman was, indeed, being forced to listen to a minister preach ad nauseum about a faith that was not her own, and she was stuck doing so in her own home.­I talked with a rep from the company the aide came from and voiced my complaint, and, again, I was told if the patient was uncomfortable, all she had to do was voice her complaint. I again attempted to explain that the woman may well be afraid of repercussions, but was told that there is no rule against what the aide was doing. I then tried to explain that just because you are permitted to do something does not necessarily make it the right thing to do. And I had to wonder to myself how things would have been if the shoe was on the other foot.­ I then asked what they tell clients about the aides they send out and was told that they send out trained staff who do everything they can to comfort and care for their clients. And that is when I said, “If that is the case, then your staff should be trained to avoid doing things that would make it necessary for a complaint to be raised in the first place.”­

You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself … not my words, but words with a great message. So let me ask you … if you were the one stuck in the bed, dependent on someone else to tend to your needs, how would you feel?­

Don’t get me wrong, the aide is more than welcome to read her Bible silently or listen to a program with a set of headphones on, but a healthcare provider should not be subjecting the patient to something so foreign to the client’s own belief system.­

I know there are those of you reading this who feel that political correctness has gone way  overboard, but when your job is to comfort someone who is in a position of weakness via an illness or an injury… Well, may you always have enough control of your body and your mind to decide for yourself what to read and listen to in the comfort of your home and may those of us blessed to visit you be wise enough to avoid causing any added discomfort.­ As I remember, the rule of thumb is, if you can’t heal somebody, at least avoid causing any harm.­

Shalom My Friends,­ Rabbi Ezring­

(And please know that most of the health care workers I come across truly are angels. At least, they are in my eyes. G-d Bless them one and all.)­ ­

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.

Independence Day is soon upon us. There will be fireworks that light up the night sky as we celebrate the many freedoms we are blessed with here in America that so many others across the globe are denied.

And yet, on the very same day that we will be celebrating our independence, I will be spending time with a number of people who have seen themselves become more and more dependent on others for their most basic of needs. Some of them are dependent on a dialysis machine to do some of the work that their kidneys used to do. Some are dependent on oxygen to ensure they get enough air to breathe. Some are dependent on others to change them, feed them, clean them and get them up into a chair. The truth is, we are all more dependent on others than we would like to believe.

And sometimes, even a temporary loss of some of our independence reminds us of that very fact. Take, for instance, one beautiful young woman who recently felt what it was like to lose a blessing many of us take for granted — the freedom to walk without pain. She suddenly had a lot of pain … it was in her foot, her heel, and it took away some of the joy in her life. Tennis, which she has an incredible passion for, became almost impossible to participate in. Dancing, which she has a knack for, became another activity she had to stop. And, as the pain got worse, she wound up in one of those special boots to take all the pressure off a specific area of her foot. On top of that, she needed crutches for a while. (Yes, I do have a bit of a ‘crutch’ on her)

So how do we help someone who is dealing with such a loss of independence, even though that loss may only be temporary? Well, in this case, I decided to use humor, albeit sick humor, humor that had her groaning and probably shaking her head, but humor that helped ease her burden. She was stuck in the house and spending a lot of time on the computer, so I sent her the following e-mail:

“I just BOOTED up my computer so let me see what I can come up with on the SPUR of the moment…”

“It’s Aboot time, its aboot space about two men in the strangest place…”

“Tell her aboot it…..”

“There’s a hole in the bootom of the sea…”

“Let me tell you all a story ‘boot a man named Jed…”

“One hundred bootles of beer on the wall, one hundred bootles of beer, take one down and pass it around, ninety-nine bootles of beer on the wall. (If you think I’m going to type out the whole song then you are more than a little bit wobbly)…”

“I’ve looked at life from boot sides now…”

“Wasn’t Abe Lincoln killed by a boot? John Wilkes Boot…”

“What do you call it when you kick a guy in the ear? A bootinear!”

“Everybody loves some booty sometime…”

“Booterflies are free and so are we…”

“Have you seen the greatest movie of all time? Mutiny on the Booty…”

“If you put your cell phone down on your foot, does that make you a phone boot?”

“Shake, shake, shake your booty…”

“If you come over to see me, are you making a booty call?”

“Oh what a bootiful morning, oh what a bootiful day … I got a bootiful feeling, everything’s going my way …”

“Have you heard the good news? If not, be sure and read the Good Boot…”

I hope some of you reading this will be able to come up with better ones to cheer up someone you know who is going through a loss of independence. In the meantime, hope you have a bootiful day…

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.

I have two wonderful brothers, but they live far away. I am so thankful that we talk to each other on the phone each and every day. But I wonder what it would be like if we didn’t talk for a week, a month or a year … or, worse yet, for many years.

Well, that’s exactly what we find in the Torah. Jacob and Esau have not seen nor spoken to each other for many years. Oh, and let me remind you that when they parted company years before, one threatened to kill the other.

I am the baby in my family. My brothers and I are as different as night and day.

Then again, as different as we are, there are parts of us that are so similar, we may as well have been twins. I am blessed that even if my brothers get angry at me, it does not lead to one of them wanting to kill me … at least, not that I know of.

As the baby brother, I used to hate all the hand-me-down clothes. I used to hate trying to live up to my brothers’ reputations. Year after year, on the first day of school, my new teachers would tell me how thrilled they were to have another Ezring in their class. They would tell me how brilliant, how helpful, how studious my brothers were. Oy, were they in for a disappointment.

For years, I tried to be like my brothers and then, thank G-d, the day came when I realized that I am not them. I am me! (at least, I think I’m me).

By the time my brothers left for college, they were so dear to me that I cried. I was alone. Most of you have experienced being alone. There are times that it seems like a huge blessing, but there are also times when it feels like a curse.

Sometimes, when I am alone, my brain starts to go around in circles. I think too much. Sometimes I even get into arguments with myself, which brings us to Jacob and his famous wrestling match with an angel. But, if you look at the wording carefully, you’ll find that Jacob was alone.

Well, if he was alone, who exactly is he wrestling with? It says that he wrestled until daybreak so, perhaps, he was having one of those nights where something was weighing heavily on his mind and an internal battle ensued.

So, how does he hurt his hip? Okay, that’s a fair question. Of course, I have had times that I have thrown my hip or my back out of whack from all the tossing and turning I do at night.

Then again, there is a wonderful idiom we have had for many years now in which we refer to someone who is trying to fit in with the current fads as being “hip”.

While someone else has taken credit for the lyrics, it wouldn’t surprise me if, upon waking up from his dream, Jacob was the first to come up with the song, “Oh the hip bones connected to the thigh bone … the thigh bones connected to the knee bone … Oh, didn’t it rain.”

Jacob limps and realizes how very important each and every bone is. He sees how one relies on the other for its next step. And then, in the midst of the reading, we find that Jacob goes back to retrieve some small earthenware jugs. I suspect that those little jugs were fragile and it would not take much for one of them to break. The same is true of our relationships with others. Just as one needs to handle a small earthenware jug with care, one must also remember to handle their brothers and sisters with tender loving care.

Shalom My Friends,

Rabbi Craig H. Ezring

Rabbi Ezring is a Hospice Chaplain and Member of the National Association of Jewish Chaplains. He also provides Professional Pastoral Care Services to a number of health centers in Broward County.