University of Southern California

Jewish Perspectives

On Responding to the Uninsured

Following are insights from Judaism related to the growing problem of Americans without health care coverage, including prayers from Gates of Prayers, sermon resources for the parashah for May 15, 2004 (Behar/Bechukotai), lessons from Jewish teaching and passages from Jewish sources.

Prayers
Jewish Sermon Resources
A Jewish Perspective on Providing Health Care to All
Jewish Source Materials on Health Care
Health Care in Jewish Law

Prayers

Creator of Life | G'vurot

Great is Your power, O Lord, and endless Your love. The evening stars tell of Your might, and growing things are a song of Your love. You have taught us to uphold the falling, to heal the sick, to free the captive, to comfort all who suffer pain. In sickness and in health, in life and in death, You are with us. Blessed is the Lord, Creator of life.

Hear now our prayer for those who cannot see a doctor when they are sick and in need of healing, who suffer pain unrelieved by health care they cannot access. Strengthen us to use our hearts and hands, voices and vision to help see that all people have the health care they need.

Help us to use our strength | Hoda'ah

Your might, O G-d, is everlasting;
Help us to use our strength for good and not for evil.
You are the Source of life and blessing;
Help us to choose life for ourselves and our children.
You are the support of the falling;
Help us to lift up the fallen.
You are the Author of freedom;
Help us to set free the captive.
You are our hope in death as in life;
Help us to keep faith with those who sleep in the dust.
Your might, O G-d, is everlasting;
Help us to use our strength for good.

Jewish Sermon Resources

Prepared by Rabbi Martin J. Pasternak, United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, Congregational Services.

In the Torah portion for the week May 10–16, Behar/Bechukotai, you will find a wealth of statements and declarations that relate to covering the uninsured. Here are just two:

  • ". . .you are but strangers resident with me" (Lev. 25:23).
    In the eyes of Ad-nai we are all the same. Any inequality between persons that is the result of human enterprise—insured and uninsured—is a repudiation of Ad-nai's desires for humanity. Therefore, it is our obligation to do everything in our power to correct the inequalities that we have created in society and restore the parity that Ad-nai intended.
  • "For it is to me that the Israelites are servants: they are my servants, whom I freed from the land of Egypt, I the Lord am your G-d" (Lev. 25:55).
    To Jews Mitzrayim (Egypt) is not only a country, it is a metaphor for oppression. Lack of insurance is Mitzrayim; it is oppression to those who live with it—or rather without it. To be uninsured is a constant source of frustration, limitation and fear. As creatures created in the image of Ad-nai, our greatest accomplishment is to emulate Ad-nai. Ad-nai liberated us from slavery and oppression; thus, any time we can undo oppression and liberate the enslaved, we must—it is an act of emulation; it is an act of gratitude.

A Jewish Perspective on Providing Health Care to All

Prepared by Hannah Rosenthal, Executive Director, Jewish Council for Public Affairs and Rabbi David Saperstein, Executive Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Two central ideas underlie the abiding Jewish commitment to provide health care to all of G-d's children. The first is Judaism's teaching that an individual human life is of infinite value and that the preservation of life supercedes almost all other considerations. We are constantly commanded "not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbors." The second is the belief that G-d has endowed us with the understanding and ability to become partners with G-d in making a better world. The use of that wisdom to cure illnesses has been a central theme in Jewish thought and history.

Three health care obligations flow from these core values:

  1. First, physicians have an obligation to heal. As Moses Maimonides concluded in commentary on Mishnah Nedarim 4:4: "It is obligatory from the Torah for the physician to heal the sick and this is included in the explanation of the phrase: 'and you shall restore it to him' meaning to heal the body."
  2. Second, patients have an obligation to obtain health care. Our bodies and souls belong to G-d, and we have to ensure that they are cared for. The verse in Deuteronomy (4:15) "You shall indeed guard your souls" has traditionally been interpreted as commanding us to protect our health. Furthermore, based on the passage in the Talmud, "Whoever is in pain, lead him to the physician" (Baba Kamma 46b), the rabbis concluded that people should live near where doctors are in order to have access to health care.
  3. Third, providing health care was not just an obligation for the patient and the doctor, but for society as well. It is for this reason that health care is listed first by Maimonides on his list of 10 most important communal services that had to be offered by a city to its residents (Mishnah Torah, Sefer Hamadda IV:23). Doctors are required to reduce their rates for poor patients and, where that was not sufficient, communal subsidies were established (Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 249:16; Responsa Ramat Rahel of Rabbi Eliezer Waldernberg sections 24-25).
From these themes, we must conclude that when members of a society at large are ill, our responsibility—not only of the medical profession but all of us—expands to ensure that medical resources are available at an affordable cost to those who need them. This principle is also embodied in the concept mipneh tikkun haolam —what we are obliged to do in order to repair the world in which we find ourselves.

The provision of more affordable and more easily accessible health care in America is a priority matter for Jews, who operate with a prophetic mandate to "do justly" and to provide for those in need.

Jewish Source Materials on Health Care

  • Why did G-d begin creation with one person? To teach that one who saves a single life—it is as if he has saved the world. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
  • Neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. Leviticus 19:16
  • Whoever is able to save another and does not save him transgresses the commandment neither shall you stand idly by the blood of your neighbor. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Rotzeach 1:14
  • Make it your special concern to visit and treat poor and needy patients, for in no way can you find more meritorious service. Isaac Israeli, Doctor’s Guide, number 30
  • A person should see to it that the body is kept healthy and strong, in order that they may be upright to know the Lord . . . For it is impossible to understand and comprehend the wisdom of the world when one is hungry and ailing or if one's limbs ache… Since when the body is healthy and sound, one walks in the way of the Lord, it being impossible to understand or know anything of the knowledge of the Creator when one is sick . . . Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De, ot 3:3, 4:23
  • Worship the Lord your G-d, and G-d's blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you. Exodus 23:25
  • Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all G-d's benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:2-3
  • The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; G-d will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord and G-d will respond to their pleas and heal them. Isaiah 19:22
  • You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. Ezekiel 34:4 (condemnation for ignoring sickness)

Health Care in Jewish Law

Hatzalat Nefashot—The Saving of Human Life
So great is the commandment of saving life and health that it is of greater concern than ritual matters. Nearly all religious observances are subordinated to it—we must even violate the Sabbath to save a person's life (pikuach nefesh doha et hashabbat).

Shemirat Habriyut—Preventive Care
In addition to requiring a response to illnesses when they occur, Jewish law also requires that we make all attempts to stay well. Maimonides understands this obligation to include positive aspects, such as exercise and seeking out proper medical care, as well as negative ones, such as refraining from damaging one's body through the consumption of harmful food or drugs.

Tzedakah—Communal Obligation to Meet Basic Human Needs
Just as the Jewish community recognizes an obligation to provide for such basic needs as food, clothing and shelter through the collection and distribution of communal funds, so too have Jews long insisted that no person be denied access to basic health care on account of inability to pay. While physicians are not required to provide their services for free, communal subsidies are called upon, matched by reduced rates for poor patients.

Bikkur Cholim—Visiting the Sick
Judaism recognizes that illness affects the whole person, presenting threats not only to the body, but also to one's mental state and financial ability. Bikkur Cholim, the mitzvah of visiting the sick, ensures that the needs of the sick are attended to in all these areas, creating a communal support system to complement the work of medical doctors.