A CLASH OF CULTURES
One day in the 1990s, when I was making rounds as Head Hospital Chaplain at Aurora BayCare Medical Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin, a nurse approached me with a troubled face.
She said, “Chaplain Mike, there is a Conservative Jewish patient here today that we nurses cannot please. He is complaining that he needs kosher food served on wooden plates. He can’t eat the food our kitchen prepares. Can you visit him and see what you can do?”
“Yes, I will see what I can do and report back to you. What’s his name and room number?”
I knocked on his room door, opened it, stepped inside, closed the door behind me, faced the patient in his bed, and said, “Good morning, I’m Chaplain Mike, how are you getting along here? Are we treating you all right?”
He responded in a soft, warm voice: “I don’t want to seem picky, but I’m a strict Jew. I cannot eat regular food that isn’t kosher, and I cannot eat off regular plates that are not wooden.”
I asked: “Are you a Rabbi?”
“No,” he answered. “I’m not holy enough. My father and my grandfather are both Rabbis in Chicago.”
I noticed he was reading the Torah, the Jewish or Hebrew Bible. I told him I had read Martin Buber’s TALES OF THE HASIDIM and was moved by the wonderful Jewish wisdom and values.
He agreed.
Suddenly a thought came to me. I said: “When King Nebuchadnezzar and his army invaded Judah in 587 BC, they hauled off all the treasures in the Temple. The Jewish King and his entire court, all the craftsmen and smiths and professional people, were made slaves. In the beginning, were they able to choose what food they ate and all the ritual practices they had as Jews?
“No,” he said.
I said, “This hospital stay is a kind of slavery for you. At the moment, you are not able to choose what kind of food you can eat and how it is served. Your enslaved ancestors did not lose their faith or their Jewishness as slaves in Babylonia, did they?”
“No,” he said.
I went on, “You will not lose your faith or your Jewishness by eating whatever food our kitchen provides and how it is served while you are a patient here, either. God knows the purity of your heart.”
Then I took his hand and asked him to say a prayer of gratitude to God in either English or Hebrew. And he did.
As we shook hands, he said, “Thank you for your kind words. I appreciate whatever the staff here can do to help me recover my health.”
And he became a model and cheerful patient from that day on.
Sometimes you and I are troubled by a situation we find ourselves in at home or school or work. Patience and talking with someone can help us understand and calm our feelings.
You might read my little book RECHRISTENING AMERICAN CHRISTIANS. It will offer insight into the difficulties life brings us. Let me know your thoughts.