Refuah and Halacha- Euthanasia

I'd just like to share with you a little about what we learned on the topic of euthanasia in our class about medical laws.  If someone has a terminal illness and is without a doubt going to die within a short time, such as a week, should we shorten their suffering, or keep them alive because of the high value we have on life? 

The first opinion that one might think of is that you shouldn't be allowed to cause someone to prematurely die because of something we call the "slippery slope," where one thing will lead to the next.  If you allow euthanasia in one specific case of a specific disease, you might come to use it in other times when is isn't as necessary. 

Here are some examples of people who allowed for euthanasia:

Philosophers- Someone who is disabled is a burden on society and should be eliminated.

Nazi Party- Out of mercy for people who were a burden on society, they were killed. 

Holland- They have rules for when euthanasia is allowed and it includes having two doctors give consent but it says nothing about the wishes of the family members.

In Samuel 2 1:5-16, it tells a story of how an Amalekite boy came to David to report that he had killed Saul which caused David to kill the boy.  One might think that we could learn that euthanasia is allowed since David killed the Amalekite for killing Saul.  However, the truth is that the boy deserved to die because he killed a king.  

Next we learned about one of the ten martyrs who were killed in brutal ways.  R. Hanina b. Teradion had a wet tuft of wool put on his heart and then he was wrapped in a torah scroll so he would die a slower death when they lit him on fire.  The tuft of wool was preventing his death however it was permitted that they take it off to allow him to die less painfully.

From this we learn that we are allowed to refrain from extending a life.  Active euthanasia is not allowed, however, something preventing the death is allowed to be removed.  

The final law is that if a person is hooked up to a heart- lung machine and it is known that they will never recover it is allowed to be removed in such a way that it is not actively turning it off.  One way to do this is to put it on a timer so that it goes on and off and when it goes off, it just doesn't go on again, and another way is that when it is taken out to be cleaned, it isn't put back in again.

I know that this lesson isn't on the happiest of topics but it is an issue that people deal with and an issue that rabbis have debated over for a long time. Moving on to a happier topic, I am proud to announce that I had an amazing morning due to the pancakes with chocolate chips inside that were made at breakfast.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

My First Israeli Wedding

I don't really know why I titled it that.  It sounds like I'm implying that I'm going to more weddings in Israel which I don't think I am this year.  It kinda sounds like the title of that movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding... Anyway, I just got back from Gili and Ori's wedding that I went to tonight.  Gili is my second cousin by marriage, I think, or something along those lines.  She's the one I told you about in my Efrat post, so if you forgot, go check it out.
I left my dorm at about 4:00 (16:00) and I went to their grandma, Savta's apartment where we would be picked up and driven to the wedding.  I was there once before and I kinda remembered it.  Her apartment has the first elevator that was ever in a building in Jerusalem.  We had to wait a little bit for our ride to come, so we just sat and talked a little bit about her kids and her grandchildren and how excited she was for the wedding.  Millie, Gili's mother and two of her siblings came to pick us up. It was about a half hour drive and the whole time, Millie seemed really calm even though her daughter was about to get married.
When we got there, I said hi and talked to for a little bit all of the cousins that I knew.  I also met Avner, the Avital's brother that I hadn't met yet, see post "Shabbat at the Goldschmidts," and I met his wife, his two little daughters and his son who was still a baby.  I then started to go around to check out the buffet.  All the food was really good, especially after eating only food from the school for the past two weeks.  Now I'm not saying that the food there is bad, I'm just saying that food at a wedding is much better. I ate sushi, breaded meat balls, little pita sandwiches, and a bunch of other yummy stuff.
We then went outside for the chuppah where they would actually get married.  It was cold outside but we were out there for a very short amount of time, unlike the very long time it takes in America for people to get married. Then everybody went inside to eat more.  I had this really good chicken dish that I would recommend to everybody if I had any idea of what it was called. Then there was dancing.  They only made me dance for a few minutes but then I was able to escape.  I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes to my wedding because I really don't like dancing. Everyone was so happy and having so much fun and surprisingly even the boys were pretty good dancers.
Then we ate some more and danced some more and then there was desert.  I had some chocolate stuff and a piece of cake that I only took because the icing part looked really yummy.  I also had a clementine, and someone thought it was strange that I was eating a clementine at a wedding so they asked me if we have clementines in America, and I said yes, we do. After desert there was a very cute Shrek themed slideshow and a dance put on by Gili's siblings. At about 11:00 it was time to go home, but I didn't have a ride because Savta was staying in Efrat, so I hitchhiked.  No, I didn't really, but I eventually ended up getting a ride home with one of Yehuda and Millie's friends.  I had a really fun time at the wedding and all of the family back in America was missed.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

Shabbat in Chevron!

Going to chevron on this shabbat was really special because it's the week that we read Chayei Sarah in the Torah where it talks about the actual buying of Me'arat Ha'machpela, Cave of the Patriarchs, where Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, and Leah were buried.  I heard that there were 20,000 people there for the weekend.  It is also one of ten days that the section where Isaac and Rebecca are buried is open to the Jews.  The rest of the year it is a mosque where only Muslims are allowed to go. 

Since there were so many people there, they put us up in a school in Kiryat Arba where many other girl's schools were also staying.  Each of the classrooms had about thirty girls staying in each one.  After we got ourselves settled in, we walked about 15 minutes down to Chevron where the cave is located.  There were also so many soldiers there this weekend.  About every two minutes of our walk down, there was a soldier posted on either side of the road.  When we got there, it was packed with people but we somehow managed to get in. The building is beautiful.  The architecture is really nice and the vibrant colors of the paint on the walls are extraordinary.  

We went back to the school where we made our own dinner.  We had cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers so we made salad and we squeezed lemon on top.  We had some deli meats which we put out and lots of bagels.  For dessert, we made fruit salad and we had lots of rugelach.  We walked back to Chevron again in search of  some rabbi's house where everybody was meeting.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find it, but we did find some other rabbi's house that we were invited into where they fed us cookies and popcorn and brownies.

 We decided to go to sleep early so that we could wake up early to go down to Chevron before too many people were there.   I fell asleep at around 1:00 but I woke up again an hour later because there were at least three girls snoring and the room was freezing.  I found out later that someone left all the windows open and it was under 50 F outside.  I was up until the morning so I decided to wake everyone up so we could go to Chevron but nobody wanted to get up.  I finally fell asleep and woke up a couple of hours later.  

We had the same routine in the morning as we had the night before.  We went to Chevron and then came back where we made our own lunch.  We then hung out in our room for a little bit when a few of us decided to go for a walk.  We ended up exploring Me'arat Ha'machpela a little more because it was much more empty and then we found a cave where there were a bunch of men singing so we decided to stay and listen.  Before we knew it, it was time to go back.  

My friend Rebecca who likes to play mommy, says that I have to go to sleep early so I'm going to go now. I hope you all had a good weekend! Shalom V'lehitraot! 

Kedma Medical Clowns

About two months ago... (* thanks adeena for your brilliant idea)

We had to decide what volunteering program we wanted to do every Tuesday.  There were over twenty choices ranging from taking care of kids in a troubled family, to teaching kids English, to playing with mentally and physically disabled kids. I chose to be a medical clown which combines two of the things I love most, acting and medicine.

About one month ago...
We had our interviews... and I got in!

Two weeks ago...
We had our orientation on Monday night where we met everyone from other schools who were being medical clowns, got some basic information, and watched a little bit of the movie Patch Adams.  Friday morning we had our training session.  First we learned about the proper way to enter and exit rooms.  Then we learned how to make balloon figures such as a dog, giraffe, panda, flower, and a sword.

Last Tuesday...
We had our first day of volunteer work.  I went with my friends Danielle, Dana, and Orit on the train to the hospital, Shaarei Tzedek.  We got there and went to the bathroom to get dressed.  We put stickers on our faces and put our hair in pigtails.  We went up to the sixth floor and started visiting kids' rooms.  We would go into a room and give them a sticker and then make a balloon doggie for them.  They really loved it and their family who was there with them really enjoyed it too.  While we were there we happened to meet a real medical clown who has been clowning for a few years.  He let us come with him into some of the rooms to watch him work.  It was so cool to watch a proffessional do it because he was so good at it.  We were just starting out and needed a lot more practice.

Today...
We went to a different hospital, Hadassa Ein Kerem, which was much bigger and had more of a variety of people.  When we were there we met up with my friend Esther.  After walking around for about a half hour, we finally found the pediatric section.  We went up to the third floor and did the same thing that we did before.  It's always so muc fun to see how much happier a child gets when you give them a balloon animal.  We also made balloons for siblings of the sick kids and that made them feel special too. When we got to the fourth floor, we saw a bunch of kids and their families in a play room. We probably spent half of our time there because it was just so much fun playing with all of the kids and making balloon animals for them. I'm so excited to go back every week.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

Negev Hike

We woke up early in the morning to eat breakfast, pack lunch, and get on the buses.  Our first stop was at David Ben Gurion and his wife's gravesite. It was in the middle of the desert because he was the one who really cared  about creating settlements in the Negev.  About half of Israel is made up of desert land with very few settlements and the majority of people living there are bedouins.  We ate lunch there and then began our hike in a part of the desert called Ein Avdot. For the first half of the hike, we walked along an oasis.  It was really cool to see a river of water flowing with plants growing all aroundn it.  The second half of the hike was walking up lots of stairs on the side of a huge mountain.  When we got to the top and looked down, we saw an amazing sight.  We saw the river in a valley down below and up above, a desert plain that stretched on as far as the eye could see and in the very far distance we saw a huge mountain range.  At night we stayed in a town called Arad in an Israeli girl's school.  We met some of the girls who went to school there and it was so funny talking to them because they were 15 year old girls who were so curious about everything we were doing and our lives back at home.  That night we had a big surprise.  There was fondue and karaoke night.  It was so much fun and very chilled out.
The next day we woke up at 6:30 in the morning.  We ate breakfast, packed our lunches, and got back on the buses to go to our next hike.  For this hike we had the option of doing an easy one or a hard one.  We found out later that there wasn't much difference between the two, but I signed up for the hard one not knowing that.  The main reason that the hike was so hard was because there were four ladder- like structures that we had to climb down.  In four very difficult spots on the hike, there were metal rungs nailed to the wall so we could climb down them.  We were walking mostly on the rocks the whole time in the middle of the desert.  We also learned about a few plants.  We learned about one that was salty, one that stored water in it, one that cleans your hands, and one that sticks to things.  After the hike we went to the Dead Sea and we made pita there.  It was so yummy because it was fresh off the fire.  After a long hard day of hiking, we went back to the dorms and then we went out to eat for my friend Melissa's birthday. I really enjoy hiking and I suggest that when you visit Israel, you should definitley go on a hike.  Shalom V'lehitraot!

More on Food

One of the best things about Harova food are the occasional chocolate chip pancakes.  Every once in a while, the head of our kitchen likes to surprise us with pancakes. You wake up in the morning and you can smell the pancakes from three floors up.  We run downstairs to get them before they are all gone because once word gets out that there are pancakes, the dining room becomes a mad house.  The first people to get downstairs  usually get about five pancakes.  Don't worry they aren't that big.  When I usually come down, people are only getting about two or three, and ten minutes before breakfast is over, when there is the biggest crowd, they only get one. Honestly, on pancake days you can really see that everyone is so much happier in the mornings and it's a great start to our day.  We all look forward to pancake mornings.  I hope there's going to be one soon.
I have recently nicknamed  the girls in my school "The Harova Animals" because during meal times, you should see the way they attack the food.  First of all, if you don't get there early, it's likely that you will miss out on some food. Before the food even comes out, girls grab plates and utensils and hover around the area where the food will be put.  The second the food comes out, it is surrounded by girls who are all trying to take at the same time.  There are times when there isn't enough food for everybody so some people don't really get much to eat, but it doesn't happen to often.  The food isn't even that amazing, it's just that we're all hungry and we don't want to miss out on any of the food.
Another thing we like to do is eat out a lot.  I say that the second thing I spend most of my money on is food, the first being transportation.  As you saw in my tour video and some that aren't mentioned in the video are a bunch of restaurants all within a three minute walk from where we live.  There's Coffee Bagel, Marzipan, Mozzarella, Holy Bagel, Burger's Bar, Papas Pizza, Falafel, Pizza Cardo, and Ma'afe Ne'eman and they're all really good places to eat.  I feel like I talk about food a lot, but it is a very important topic.  So don't be ashamed to eat what you  want because who doesn't love yummy food? Enjoy the food in whatever country you live in. Shalom V'lehitraot