I Almost Drank My Juice

Oddly for me I wasn’t nervous or dizzy when I walked through the sliding doors of Baycrest for my first day of volunteering this past Friday. I attribute this to the extremely and even overly friendly atmosphere of the volunteer office on the second floor. Janice Sternhill is the coordinator and she made the process of finding my placements within the hospital swift, fun and easy. I’m scheduled to volunteer every other Friday in the Oneg Shabbat programme and as a friendly visitor to the patients when the Shabbat programme is finished. I will also be volunteering my Friday mornings in the Jewish Culture and Heritage Museum on the first floor doing research and maintaining electronic and paper files.

After Cameron and I finished the final paperwork and were issued our I.D. badges Janice escorted us to the sixth floor where we met with Irina Iordanova the recreational therapist for the fifth floor. We followed her to the fifth floor where Cameron and I helped to transport the clients to the Shabbat service on the sixth floor. The participants varied in physical abilities from seemingly incapacitated to fully alert and active in participation. Some could eat and drink the bread and wine, others could not because of dietary restrictions or physical limitations. Whatever the case may be, as Irina pointed out, it is our duty to facilitate an environment that is enjoyable and welcoming to each participant. One very active participant was not even Jewish but I never would have known except for the fact that another volunteer pointed it out. The Shabbat service has led me to reflect on two things. First, the importance of recreation and programmes like Oneg Shabbat in supporting the health and sanctity of life for the clients. The idea that cognitively impaired individuals were present seems to support this. And to what extent I have yet to discover. Also, the individuals that could participate did so with enthusiasm I don’t frequently have in even my own weekly ritual activities. The second point of reflection was on my own mortality-but not with a depressive state of mind. Most of the clients appeared to be over the age of 70 and in one glance I thought of the blessing and privilege it would be to survive for that long. In fact I think I would be satisfied to live to be 80, but 102 is on the top of my wish list.

I also realized anew something about myself while sitting in the cafeteria after my session was over. I realized that if there is any way I can avoid harm or disrespect for individuals and institutions I will do it, in keeping with my personal values of course. According to the kosher rules of the cafeteria no one is allowed to eat food or drink in the cafeteria brought in from the outside (just in case their food isn’t Kosher). I almost drank the juice I brought from home forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t in an ordinary cafeteria. Even though I was really thirsty (and I was having some of the cafeteria pea soup that was really dehydrating) and I knew my juice was kosher I still opted out of disrespecting the rules of the institution. On the other hand I overheard a group of ladies doing just the opposite. To go even further with this example is the realization that religion in the public sphere is not easy. People have to deprive themselves of things in order to make other groups comfortable. While in my situation it didn’t hurt too much to go without fluids for a half hour, situations can certainly exist wherein the demands that religions place on the public may cause hostility.

Opinions, Opinions...

Although I haven’t yet started my placement at Baycrest I have been busy with the formation of my very own public on no other social networking site than...facebook! Ok-sort of. After four years on facebook, only a few days ago I posted my very first opinion on a political issue that just so happens to be a highly controversial one. My previous postings on my own blog and the RPS main blog give the impression that I am usually outspoken and outwardly opinionated, but I’m very new to sharing my opinions and I have to encourage myself constantly to do so. Anyways, my pseudopublic was initiated when my lawyer friend posted this comment Prime Minister Harper recently made:

“Well I personally think there are times when capital punishment is appropriate”.

Above my comment were the usual and expected sarcastic remarks of agreement mingled with facts. And then my comment:

“I agree! And it doesn’t have to be capital punishment either”.

I didn’t explain my opinion and although I knew what I meant-no one else did. This is the problem with being new at expressing your opinions. You want to keep them short and sweet and hope to your personal deity that everyone else understands. Needless to say, my lawyer friend had another friend that had spent three years in a federal prison (by his own testimony) and he did not agree with Harper and certainly not me. In brief he informed me (and a few others) that I was ignorant, that I wasn’t God so I have no right to take a life, and suggested that I visit a prison for the express purpose of informing the inmates that they deserve to die. Clearly he thought that my judgement was reactive in that I prescribed the death penalty for any and all heinous crimes, and also he thought that my emphasis was on capital punishment. However, I think my response somewhat clarified my position:

“I don't know about Harper but I would never say to anyone "you deserve to die". As per my comment I wasn't solely thinking about capital punishment, because of course depending on where you go in the world you'll find that people can be executed for things that we might find trivial here in North America. However, I do think there are instances where people "need to die". Picture a police officer killing someone (that perhaps could have been rehabilitated) because he/she was holding someone hostage with a gun to their head. Or picture a rebel leader in say Uganda who rapes and kills women and children day after day. How do you stop evil/harm in areas where justice does not prevail and where there are no justice systems? I would argue that "capital punishment"/lethal force is warranted and constitutes justice in the above mentioned scenarios and scenarios like them. No one is God, but it has been my experience with the Bible that God does not object to preventing harm to people(s) by using lethal force on the perpetrator”.

I would also add that my opinion on extrajudicial killings has led me to be somewhat less hostile towards capital punishment as I was in the past, hence my initial statement. What is interesting about this whole scenario is how fast religion became a part of the discussion. In fact, the topic of God’s authority was an argument in and of itself. Not to mention that fact that underscores that the same religion (I think) can be used to argue two different positions.

Pre-Service

"Service to others is the rent you pay for you room here on earth”-Shirley Chisholm

My philosophy on service to others is similar to Chisholm’s but mine is also heavily influenced by my spirituality. Ironically, it wasn’t a sense of religious obligation that initiated my first service experience, simply a secondary school requirement. Since then, I have fallen in love with service, and the concept of service learning via reflection will no doubt cause me to evolve my understanding of my identity in relation to the next person.

Without thinking too hard I would answer in the affirmative to the question of whether religion in the public sphere was beneficial. However, like law, context and exception shape my response. In some instances it is easy to see when religion in the public sphere is a harmful concept (i.e. Taliban rule in Afghanistan and their brutal treatment of women) and perhaps a beneficial concept (i.e. Christmas’ ability to unite peoples in common celebration, which is now ironically a “non-religious festive winter holiday”). I don’t believe that theocracies should exist in this day and age, but I do believe that governments and institutions should make religious accommodations where feasible for a fundamental reason: governments and institutions inherently exist to serve people, many of which are religious.

Now that I have briefly relayed my attitude toward service and religion in the public sphere, I want to discuss my service learning placement and its implications as well as what I can contribute to the learning process. I am going to be volunteering at Baycrest (Geriatric) Hospital, working in a variety of Jewish oriented programs such as a program for Holocaust survivors, a Sabbath welcoming service, and a Sabbath candle lighting service. Each of these run every other week so I’m pretty sure that I will have a choice. After doing some research about the hospital I was surprised to know that such an institution existed for the Jewish elderly. I had the preconceived notion that Jewish people were very communal and so their elderly lived in the family home. That being said, I am looking forward to hearing stories from those Holocaust survivors who are willing to share. I am also looking forward to experiencing the dynamic of the Baycrest geriatric Jewish community, and possibly have an opportunity to compare their health and wellness with non-Jewish or even non-religious residents. This would provide strong evidence for or against the utility of religion in the public sphere. In regards to what I can offer the community as a volunteer, I believe first and foremost is religious sensitivity. Sensitivity as an individual of religious leanings with close ties to Judaism, and sensitivity as a student of history, amazed at the longevity of the Jewish culture from its inception and against all odds.