Of Medicine, Miracles and Media

I hate to get political (not really!) but I wish some people who call themselves religious would appreciate that miraculous partnership of the healing process and modern medicine.

A quick update and a couple of reflections following my prostate surgery last week.

• As of today, I’ve reached the post-catheter portion of our program, and the recovery is proceeding apace. I knew going in that the first week would be the most painful and it did not disappoint.

• I wholeheartedly recommend surgery for the specific prostate cancer I was facing, given its aggressiveness, but I also understand that for others, radiation, hormone treatment or simply watching may be better choices.

• I am deeply appreciative of all the well-wishes and notes I’ve received. So many of you have been through this or similar situations, and your words of encouragement and advice have been most welcome and comforting.

• I also came home to the great news that you are now reading a Substack orange-check bestseller. As Substack describes it: “Unlike a verification badge seen on other platforms, the only way to earn one of these bestseller badges is to start and grow a paid publication to hundreds of subscribers.” You can’t just buy your way into best-sellerdom on this platform. You have to earn it, and I have you to thank for that. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please consider it! And invite your friends and family too.

  

• In addition, literally while I was under the knife, I passed 30,000 followers. So there’s that.

• I know it can be annoying to see so much self-promotion on Substack, and it’s a little uncomfortable for me as well, but I have never believed more in the value of independent media than I do right now, and Substack is leading the way. The sheer number of high-quality professional journalists who have migrated over to this platform - at great personal risk for many - is awe-inspiring, and it is truly humbling to be counted among those who are making essential contributions to sustaining our democracy.

  • Worth a read or listen: Hamish McKenzie on How Substack is Transforming Public Discourse. One of the founders of Substack explains its unique power in an interview with Yascha Mounk

• I can’t begin to comment right now on what has been happening in the U.S and in Israel. But know that I am watching closely and feel a deep concern on so many levels. It makes me appreciate all the more the essential role of independent media platforms at this precarious moment. When powerful law firms, media companies, universities and gutless politicians are capitulating, it takes thousands of regular, courageous Americans to counteract that. One or two major publishers won’t suffice. In 2017 we let the WaPo and NYT lead the way. That won’t work this time. To see Jim Acosta podcasting with his dog chiming in sets my heart aflutter. This will be the kitchen table revolution. You can be an “elite” reporter and be a real person too. We need those. We need tens of thousands of independent content creators. And the fact that we can choose from some of the most thoughtful writers in America to appear in our inbox each day, is a very powerful weapon. As long as Heather Cox Richardson and Meidas are chiming in, I never feel alone.

• While I know I am often “preaching to the choir” when I opine, I also know that the constant interchange of ideas, motivation - and anger too - has created a “town square” buzz far more vibrant than the letters section of the Times or someone’s data-driven, right-tilting Facebook or Twitter feed. In the cesspool of corruption that social media has become, independent outlets like Substack are coming of age just in time to help save democracy, and your participation in this grand experiment makes a difference. Thousands of writers, millions of readers, listeners and viewers - it all counts. Read as many of us as you can and pay for some but at least subscribe to as many as your inbox will hold. Remember: we may have typos, but we are not Spam. Spam is an annoyance; Substack is salvation.

• In Israel I think they are inches away from a general strike that could shut the country down. We may need to do that here soon as well - but in the meantime, armies of independent journalists are filling the yawning gap left so wide open by the powerful and gutless. Indys are the heartbeat of this resistance.

Now, about the miracles of medicine….

• I want to leave you with a message that relates directly to my recent experience. In my prior posting I made mention of the miracle of the body’s healing process and the blessing that Jews recite in the morning to acknowledge what an intricate and miraculous “piece of work is man” and how noble the artist who created us.

• The fact that funding is being taken from medical care and research by an administration that purports to call itself “religious” is in itself a blasphemy.

• I experienced the miracle of modern medicine this past week through technology, administration, and simple caring. A century ago, I’d have been turned away, without a chance of survival (read this historical article from the NIH website before some idiot takes it down). And now, the MAGA administration wants to gut our medical progress, our training institutions, and the insurance programs that pay for people to get well. It is disgusting that anyone whose goal is effectively to kill people could possess the power to actually accomplish it - to make America safe for measles and polio again. This article in the New York Times says it all:

  

  The N.I.H. towers over the world’s medical research. It is where the human genetic code was deciphered, where hepatitis C was discovered, where the AIDS virus was isolated, where the first drug to treat AIDS was discovered and where basic research that helped lead to the Covid vaccines was done. It funded the work decades ago that led to the creation of Ozempic and other new drugs that cause weight loss.

  “It is very hard to cite seminal discoveries that were not in some way underwritten by the N.I.H.,” said Dr. Rudolph Leibel, a professor of medicine at Columbia University who, like most medical researchers in the United States, has received N.I.H. funding.

  Dr. Francis Collins, a former director of the N.I.H., said, “If you are taking an F.D.A.-approved drug that is improving the quality or length of your life, there is a 99 percent chance N.I.H. was involved in the pathway to its discovery.”

• As one reader (and medical professional) just told me, “I’m thinking, wouldn’t it be incredible to have preventative vaccines for cancer.” Wouldn’t it, now? So many wondrous things are possible, and all of these discoveries are for the benefit of humankind and the pleasure of the Lord. I ask you, in what alternate universe does God not want us to alleviate human suffering? Only in the bizarro-world of MAGA. If the price of “owning the libs” is killing millions of fellow Trump supporters and perverting God’s will, where does that land you?

• I hate to get political (Not really! Bring it on!) but I wish some people who call themselves religious would appreciate that miraculous partnership of the healing process and modern medicine. What I've seen in the diagnosis and treatment of my illness goes beyond anything I could have imagined. I really think physicians and religious leaders should study more together. Biology and theology go hand in hand.

• Just ask Pope Francis, who came out of the hospital around the time I did. I didn’t appear at my window, though. He penned a prayer on his departure, extolling the “tenderness of care” he received. He called for a "miracle of tenderness" for those experiencing hardship and thanked healthcare workers across the globe. Medicine and Miracles, hand in hand.

• Maimonides knew all about that partnership. A doctor and a rabbi, his Oath for the caregiver has become the Jewish version of the Hippocratic Oath.

  

• It is a profound religious statement, and it was formulated by a physician. Maimonides is also considered the author of a similar, longer prayer. ¹

• Hey, Elon: Can we at least declare hands-off - a ceasefire zone - when it comes to medicine? It’s not a compromise I’d be anxious to support (people are being killed in so many other ways by this administration), but at least as a stopgap. A carveout. Saving lives is the ultimate religious value. Keep the research and medical support funds flowing.

• As an aside, I was amazed at the fastidious protocols within the hospital where I stayed (Yale-New Haven), which all make perfect sense from a legal standpoint, but also emphasize the degree to which responsibility, caring and the preservation of life are supreme ends in themselves. From the moment I checked in to the moment before surgery, I was asked no fewer than six times when I had last eaten. I felt like I was being welcomed at Disney (where everyone is a greeter), and the responsibility of my destiny was being willingly embraced by so many. I was then introduced to the whole team of doctors, nurses and technicians who handled my case. I only wish religious institutions were as fastidious in their protocols.

• The medicines themselves. I know I might sound like a drug ad - the part before all the disclaimers: “Oh yes, on rare occasions, this drug will cause you to die of Chlamydia).” It’s easy to see the greedy underside of Big Pharma, but many of these drugs do incredible good, some wondrously so, and thanks to regulation, the disclaimers provide a slice of honesty in a world that just keeps on getting more and more dishonest. Can you imagine if megachurches added disclaimers to their million-dollar ad campaigns? “On occasion, we might promote candidates who want to abduct immigrants to El Salvador without due process, because we are petrified of our megadonors stiffing us. Oh, and our lawyers have already caved.”

• The partnership between religion and science is at the core of Jewish belief. One hundred years ago, in July, 1925, the Scopes trial highlighted the tensions. As Rabbi Harold Shulweis wrote:

The Church had to choose between the truth of Darwin or the truth of God's testament – either/or. For the synagogue, this is a false choice. Why? Because there cannot be a conflict between scientific truth or biblical truth (Editor’s note: I believe that is true for Christianity as well). Truth is one and God is one and the name of God is Truth. So we read in the Talmud (Sabbath 55a), "the seal of God is truth.” … In Judaism truth has no race, no ethnicity, no religion, no geography. In Judaism there is no secular truth as opposed to religious truth. There is no Jewish astronomy or pagan astronomy, or Jewish biology or Gentile biology.²

And we are compelled by our belief system to pursue truth and knowledge for the betterment of humankind. Most of all, to preserve life.

I close with a poem by the great Indian writer Rabindranath Tagore:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, Heavenly Parent, let my country awake.

To sum up, there is a lot about our healthcare system that needs fixing. I only pray that we can maintain what we still have until sanity is restored to our leadership, and that religion and science can pave the way to the far greater healing, physical and spiritual, that our country and world so need.

1. Maimonides Prayer:

2. See also:

• 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense (Scientific American) - Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up.

• Secular Science and Jewish Faith - A classic sermon by Rabbi Harold Shulweis z’l, champion of the marriage of science and religion. The great Scopes Trial in the 1920s, 100 years ago, highlighted what is a faulty argument for Judaism – that somehow Darwin’s theories and the Creation account in Genesis are in conflict. And yet here we are, a century later, still hearing those arguments.

• And click here for my sermon on the topic: Science and Sinai