Already at the end of Adar, even before we left for vacation between times, the room of my yeshiva friend Elhanan would turn into a small work office.
Guys would come in and out deaf, and Alchanan would check them out.
Those in "Hadassa" and those in "Bikur Holim".
The kashrut rabbis of the major hospitals needed manpower in order to train the hospitals for Passover, and thus I found myself part of a group of students who wanted to use the vacation for a small financial income and to avoid housework, following the late Rabbi Rakovsky through the corridors of the huge Hadassah hospital, and preparing department after department : the central kitchen, the department kitchenettes, the dining room and the cafeterias.
Boiling water on the counter, a noisy and sputtering burner on cooking and grilling surfaces, scrubbing and cleaning and disinfecting, testing and covering, signing and stickering.
The night before Passover, the hospital was declared a sterile area kosher for Passover.
Did the guards rummage through the bags of those who wanted to enter the hospital during Passover, and take GVNA sandwiches from among them? I suspect not.
Did the guards politely arrest a group of boys from a youth movement who came to make the patients happy with hametz muffins made by the branch, arranged in boxes one on top of the other?
I guess so.
Common sense is what they call it, and here is a commodity that not only cannot be found in today's discourse, it is also not consumed and really irrelevant.
The hametz law in its original form from 1986 was, apparently, quite necessary.
In the Israel of that time, fixing traditional visibility rules in the parshasia was a double necessity, both to determine the appearance of the parshasia and to protect the rights of the religious minority.
It has been able to prevail for quite a few years since then and settled, like other status quo clauses by the way, on a rather convenient execution formula, in which common sense plays a central role: the kosher and clean mechametz hospital in the common areas - and that's it.
No interference with what the individual patient eats in his room, no tampering with the following utensils.
Who cared if it continued like this?
Two important truths should have led this public debate, if it had been held in due time and in a sane manner:
One, the presence of chametz in front of the eyes of the ultra-Orthodox patients on Pesach is an offensive nightmare, no less;
And the other - rummaging through a dish in a hospital island to find chametz and burning it is an unimaginable evil madness.
These two clauses may seem to contradict each other, but they really are not, and if the discussion had been devoted purely to this question, the bill that was approved this week by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation would have had no chance of gaining public support.
Because it's not normal.
Because it would be equally possible to prohibit the introduction of legumes to a ward where most of the religious members are Ashkenazi (and what about a patient who is half-half? And what about a Sharoi? And what about a Liphit?) and on the other hand - there was no way that the liberal center would not support the protection of the feelings of the traditional patient on Passover .
What would come out?
which has always been
A legislative basis that is not enforced and a reality on the ground that determines itself according to common sense.
But the times are not right and the manner is not sane.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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