16 years ago I spent the Tishri holidays in the hospital.
My father, the good man, Rabbi Shmuel Keder, peace be upon him, hovered between life and death in intensive care at Tel Hashomer.
On the day of Sukkot, he succumbed to cancer and returned his soul to the Creator and he is 53 years old. In those terrible days I moved between the external noise of the breathing machine, and the internal noise of the existential questions about the finality of life and the righteous and the wicked.
In between I got to hear another noise, the wailing of the shofar and the holiday prayers.
It was obvious that the hospital has a synagogue, minyan and kiddush.
For some reason this is not taken for granted in psychiatric hospitals.
Until one stubborn woman came along and changed the order of the world this year.
Her name is Vared Mazoman-Aviad.
She is 45 years old, a mother of four, a member of the Beit Hillel rabbinic organization, an educator and a researcher of Judaism.
One of her family members was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was hospitalized.
After he managed to reach a medicinal balance, he was rejected by the religious frameworks.
"They didn't want to accept him, neither in a voluntary framework nor in a Torah study framework. This caused a big break in me. What's going on here? In the religious community do people with mental problems are denounced? There was a lot of ignorance and hysteria. They told us: 'We are afraid of suicide.' But not every person with mental problems He is suicidal, and even if he is, he cannot be removed from his social home."
"Who has heard of people sleeping in a mental hospital? We have proven that these places are not prison facilities, but a hospital like any other hospital, which you can visit and sleep in. This is the change we want to lead."
After years of suffering and hiding, about a year ago her family member agreed to come forward, Ward began to act.
She founded the Coalition of Religious Organizations for Mental Health, with the aim of leading change, and is even its head.
The one who closely accompanies her at every crossroads is Rabbi Yuval Sharlo, who also leads the coalition, along with Rabbi Benny Wartzman, Rabbi Deborah Evron, Prof. Israel Strauss, Tami Smet and Efrat Shapira Rosenberg.
The two main activists of the coalition in the field are Nitsnit Riklin and Ariel Sharlo.
At the moment, until they become an independent association, they operate under the auspices of the Tzahar Rabbinical Organization.
without the religion
What began as an informational activity within the religious society, turned into a cross-sector mission, such as the prayer campaign in psychiatric hospitals promoted by the coalition, and a broad protest that they are planning these days under the title "Not Without My House", against the procedures that do not allow parents of children in psychiatric hospitalization to stay regularly at the bedside of their children .
The idea of the holiday prayer journey has been brewing in Vared's mind for a long time.
The pilot was started in Gaha Hospital last Passover.
"Gaha was the first to pick up the gauntlet and agreed to host volunteers for the Shabbat night prayer from Pesach. It wasn't easy with them either. It took us months to convince them. They wanted every volunteer who comes to the prayer to sign 14 pages, come to an interview and obtain permission from the police. Only after our persuasions and explanations that we We don't bring people we found on the street, but people with families, well known in the communities, they agreed.
"The person who actually coordinates the prayer is Noam Kronfeld from Petach Tikva. He has been a volunteer in Gaha for 11 years, comes every Shabbat, does Kiddush, talks to the sick and distributes choppers in the youth department. Since Passover he is also the center for 150 volunteers from Givat Shmuel and Petach Tikva, who come in turns The minyan holds a Karlibach-style prayer on Shabbat night. On some Shabbats, the inpatients in the closed ward were also allowed to participate in the prayer. Traditional and religious people come to the prayer, anyone who wants to, and the patients' reactions are amazing. There is a patient who wrote that every week she waits for the prayer, for people who come with a good smell and in Shabbat clothes, people who prove To them that they are not in captivity, that there is someone who cares."
After the preliminary pilot was successful, Vared decided to turn to 14 psychiatric hospitals (not to psychiatric wards within general hospitals).
Within two months she plowed the country and managed to meet with 13 managers and representatives of the hospitals.
"We told them about the project at Gaha, a hospital that belongs to Tel Aviv University, where most of the staff members are secular, so it is impossible to suspect him of religion. We suggested to all the hospitals that our volunteers come to pray on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur at the hospital. We explained that it is precisely on these terrible days that they must not be left alone ".
Why are the holidays and the terrible days a difficult and stressful time for mentally challenged people and their family members?
"On the holidays of Tishri, a person stands before God, on Yom Kippur he is supposed to beat a sin. But how can a person who suffers so much suffer a sin? What would he ask for forgiveness for? He is only suffering in this world that God created. He feels that the one who needs to ask for forgiveness is The world is from him, not he from the world. The holidays also bring out all that others have. You come to synagogue, everyone is beautifully dressed, excited and happy, sitting with their families, and you know that your child is stuck at home because of the medication and cannot come. How can you worship the name With joy when your child suffers so much?".
"Sleeping in a psychiatric institution"
In practice, it took time for the hospitals to digest Vared's proposal.
Some of them, such as "Kfar Shaul" and "Shaar Menashe", preferred to hold an evening of forgiveness or an activity in preparation for the holiday.
On Rosh Hashanah itself, there were minyanin in Gaha, Acre and Be'er Sheva.
"In Akko and Be'er Sheva, the hospitals operated independently, with the cooperation of the local rabbi, without connection to us. I think this is as a result of the waves of our activity, but I cannot take credit for that."
The significant breakthrough was precisely on Yom Kippur.
Besides Gaha, Acre and Be'er Sheva, prayer services were held in Shalvata in Hod Hasharon, and in Abarbanal in Bat Yam.
"The person who coordinated the prayer in Abarbanal is Rabbi Shai Ben Naim from Bat Yam. In addition to volunteers from the city's residents, four young people from Rocham, who devotedly slept on Yom Kippur at the Bnei Akiva branch and came to all the prayers at the hospital, organized it. The most moving event was in Shalvata, where Milti led the minyan Levinson of Hashmonaim and Rabbi Elkana Sharlo Miroham, together with the Rabbi of the hospital Shimshon Tal. In total, 14 men and seven women stayed there on Yom Kippur. The hospital allowed volunteers to sleep in the hospital. It's unbelievable, we had a pajama party in a psychiatric hospital.
"Me personally, due to my family difficulties, I could not stay there on Yom Kippur, but I came on the eve of the holiday to bring yeast cakes to break the fast. I saw that everything was organized in an exemplary manner and I talked with lovely hospitalized women, who were so excited that they were not left alone. I told them: 'You Not here forever, next year you will be enjoying yourself here with us as volunteers and not as inpatients."
The echoes of the peaceful prayer on Yom Kippur still continue to reach Ward from the volunteers, their parents, the patients and the staff members.
"It was a crazy event, especially when Rabbi Elkana Sharlo, in his magnanimity, let the patients lead part of the prayers, and among the volunteers there was even someone on the line, who also chanted. Our volunteers also talked to the patients, listened to them. This is especially important on Shabbat and holidays, when The professional staff operates in a very limited format.
"It was a ground-breaking, boundary-breaking event. Who has heard of people sleeping in a mental hospital? We proved that these places are not prison facilities, but a hospital like any hospital, which you can visit and sleep in. This is the change we want to lead. Only through Connecting to the community and opening the hospitals for visits by parents, family and friends, the real healing will come."
After the holiday, Dr. Shlomo Mandelovitz, the director of Shalvata Hospital, called a thrilled Vared. "You don't understand what you did here," he told her. He described how the mood of the patients improved miraculously, and how the staff was also in the clouds after not having to carry the burden alone The holiday duty. "I asked Dr. Mendelovitz to enter the zoom meeting we did with our volunteers. We had about 30 new volunteers, which was the first time they entered a psychiatric hospital, so we held a preparatory meeting for them with the psychologist Elisheva Lev-Ran. After a day In Kippur we also had a processing and summary meeting.
"Dr. Mendelovitz joined this meeting, he thanked the volunteers profusely, asked that the relationship continue and invited them to a spoonful dinner at the hospital, where they will also get to know more deeply what goes through a person in a psychotic attack, something like a 'dialogue in the dark'."
Not everyone is as brave as Mendelovich.
There were those who withdrew at the last moment.
"The truth is that there was supposed to be a prayer on Yom Kippur also at Shaar Menashe. We already got ten volunteers and the person who was supposed to lead the prayer is Dr. Asaf Malach of Ofra, but unfortunately at the last minute, after we worked so hard, the hospital got worried and canceled.
They did agree to a special activity in Sukkot.
Also, we are now organizing the Beit HaShuaba Simchat in 'Eitanim' and 'Beer Ya'akov' with the lovely 'Mazmor' band.
I understand the difficulty of hosting and the fear, and I hope and believe that after the first swallows, everyone will come, and we will soon reach the days when, just as every general hospital has a minyan and a synagogue, so too will every psychiatric hospital.
Days when the mentally ill will not be removed from the community."
whose rabbinate?
And from Tishrei holidays, to the upcoming election holiday, and to the polls.
Now it's in fashion.
However, like most of the Israeli people, I got tired of frequent visits to the polling stations, politics and especially invited and trending surveys, but the next survey actually caught me.
It is interesting and thought provoking.
This is a survey of the research institute "Mind Bank" commissioned by the Rabbinical Organization of Zahar.
The survey sought to examine the position of the general public in relation to religious issues on the agenda such as kosher, conversion, weddings and the chief rabbinate.
The most interesting question in the survey was: "If you knew a spouse who is not Jewish according to Halacha and who cannot convert in the rabbinate, what would you do?".
32% answered: "It wouldn't have bothered me to marry him/her."
35% answered: "I would look for other Jewish solutions such as independent conversion or conversion abroad and the like." Only 33% answered: "I would separate from him/her immediately." This means that 67% answered that they would remain in a relationship with Ben or a non-Jewish spouse who cannot convert through the rabbinate.
In another question, 81% of those who hold the opinion answered that the way in which conversion is conducted in Israel should be changed, and 57% answered that they do not want the Chief Rabbinate to be the body that carries out the conversion.
Even if it is a survey commissioned by a body that is currently in an oppositional position to the Chief Rabbinate, it is sleep-deprived.
The disconnection of the Chief Rabbinate from the Israeli public already has consequences that endanger the future of the Jewish people.
no less.
Those who today dictate a rigid conversion policy in the State of Israel are, unfortunately, rabbis whose worldview is not a state one.
They see before their eyes the good of a small and strict camp, not the good of the general public.
The chance that their offspring will meet a non-Jewish spouse in the army or at university tends to zero.
The chance that my children or yours will meet young Israelis, donors, wise and kind-hearted, but not Jews according to the Halacha, is much greater.
And if the issue is not addressed urgently, in our grandchildren's generation it will already be lost.
We're going to miss the train in a minute.
Weep over the inauguration of a subway line on Shabbat (indeed, sad) and do not see how we are rushing towards a reality of separation and encampment, that we do not marry these descendants.
The solutions are found in the Halacha.
There are ways within the halachic limits to ease the laws of conversion, especially in the conversion of small children.
Along the way, it won't hurt to make the conversion a welcoming process either.
For this you need halachic courage and broad-shouldered rabbis who do not make considerations of the here and now, but look beyond the shtetl wall, to the horizon.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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