A conversation I had too often as a congregational rabbi:
- Mrs. Cohen: Rabbi, why didn’t you visit Abe Levi in the hospital?
- Me: What? Abe Levi was in the hospital?
- Mrs. Cohen: Yes, last month! He had a heart attack! EVERYONE knew. He and Helen say they are never going to forgive you and now they are looking for another synagogue. I don’t know what they teach you in rabbinical school these days!
Unfortunately, I am not making this up. Many people don’t realize that in the USA, hospitals and other medical institutions are prevented by law from informing clergy when congregants are admitted to the hospital. Also, clergy cannot read minds and hear surprisingly little from the “gossip mill” in the synagogue.
Alternatively, I’d find out that someone was in the hospital and “hadn’t wanted to bother” the rabbi. If my congregant was in the hospital, I wanted to be “bothered”! If you don’t want us to visit, you can say so, but let us know something’s going on.
Here, as a public service, I offer these rules for calling your rabbi:
- Synagogues have methods of getting messages to rabbis in time of emergency; there’s usually something about it in the voice mail message. An emergency is (1) someone has died or (2) someone is in the hospital in crisis. It is OK to call your synagogue’s “emergency number” in either of those circumstances, even if the hour is very late or early.
- Hospitals in the USA cannot notify your synagogue about congregants who are patients. If you want your rabbi to know about your health, you will have to call the synagogue and tell them.
- Your rabbi wants to know that you are going in for surgery, even if it is surgery you don’t want to think about. Give them a call ahead of time and let them know.
- Your rabbi doesn’t need to know medical details unless you want to tell them.
- For things that are not emergencies (even miracles, like new babies) call during office hours.
- Call your rabbi during office hours if:
- You would like a counseling session
- You are planning a lifecycle event (the earlier, the better: A year ahead is not premature!)
- You have happy news.
- You have sad news.
- You have received bad news.
- You’d like to be more active at temple, but don’t know what you want to do.
- You need somewhere confidential to talk something out.
7. If you need to leave a message for the rabbi, leave your phone number, spoken slowly and clearly. They may pick the message up at a time and place where they can’t look up your number.
Rabbis train for the rabbinate because we love Torah and we want to serve the Jewish People. Help your rabbi out by not requiring that they read your mind. Call the rabbi!
Thank you for this. Something like this should be published in every synagogue bulletin–it’s not something that most of us are born knowing, so having it spelled out is great.
Thank you, Madeleine – if you think of any other similar things, let me know, because one of my goals for this blog is to make that sort of thing clearer!
Very helpfu, Rabbi Adar!
Thank you, Rabbi! If you have amendments to offer, I am all ears!
On the back of our Canadian Healthcare card there is a check box. “In the event of an emergency please call 1: a Priest/Pastor 2: a Rabbi 3: other.” There’s also a card one can write in a phone number. You are the real deal Rabbi Adar 🙂
That sounds like a good system, Dennis. I cannot express how much it distresses me to hear that a congregant was in the hospital and felt abandoned by me or the Jewish community.
Reblogged this on Journalism as Art and commented:
Important information for those in need. Helpful hints from Rabbi Adar.
Greetings to you, the best governments and the crown of the Zionist regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran
I am Hadi, I am from Iran and I am trapped in the Zionist regime of the Islamic Republic and I have a lot of financial problems, and my son, who is an 8-year-old girl and a minor, has a congenital heart disease and needs surgery, and he has a mitral valve problem, and I am a worker.And I don’t have much income, and the banks of the Zahak regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran do not help me and my child, please help me and my daughter to save her, please please donate the amount of money. I will give you the address of my Tether cryptocurrency wallet on the BSC network, please donate money so that we can save my child and not become the villains of this dirty regime of the Islamic Republic, thank you.My family and I are Jews born in Iran and live in Khorasan Razavi, because we are Jewish, the Zahak regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran has all my bank accounts, my family, my parents, my wife, etc. We have been blocked and deprived of all government facilities, and now my daughter has a mitral valve problem and we are trapped for expenses and living expenses, please help me financially so that we can save and treat my daughter and also do not need these pretended Muslim savages for the expenses of life. Thank you, sympathetic to the human community and humanity. The cost of treatment and surgery of my daughter’s heart is almost the same as my daughter’s heart problem, which is the mitral valve of the heart. Hospital and surgical costs….. To the Iranian currency in Razavi Hospital in Mashhad, which is a private hospital with free tariffs, and since we are deprived of medical and government services, the expenses of the hospital and surgery can be approximately 340 million tomans, i.e. 3210 dollars, please help us, ask for any identification document, I will give you, we don’t even have money for bread to eat, save us from these dirty Muslims so that we don’t need their help.
My contact number :
My Email : mahboobemirzagoli64@outlook.com
My residential address in Iran :
My wallet’s Tether address on the BSC network
0xa3Ffd9C40f2f4dd0d107F5C1efEF45963B807886