Rabbi's Blog

Dear Haverim,

I hope that your Hanukkah celebrations were joyous.  It, obviously, was difficult for all of us to celebrate fully because of the tragedy of the Israel-Hamas war and our worry about the fate of the remaining hostages, but we always need to find in life a balance between celebration and loss. 

The candles of courage in our hearts will never be extinguished.  We need to always be proud of who we are in the present, draw strength from the heroes of our past, and do everything that we can to ensure Jewish continuity in the future.  Reality is always complex and too often unpredictable, but if we are strong and always strive to do the work of Tikkun Olam/repairing the world, we will always be true to the best values of our heritage.

This Friday evening, December 22, at 7:00 p.m., University Synagogue member Dr. Miriam Piven Cotler, a medical ethicist, will be speaking at services that Ruti and I will be leading on the topic of “Maximizing The Quality of Our Lives As We Get Older:  What’s Important to Us?”  I strongly encourage everyone to attend, because this is an issue that all of us will face one day.  It takes courage to face the future.  It takes wisdom to know that we must prepare now for what may happen to us and our older loved ones one day (click here to RSVP).

Miriam Piven Cotler Ph.D. has been teaching and doing medical ethics since 1986. She is also a clinical ethicist at several hospitals. Dr. Cotler received an MSPH in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1986 from the UCLA School of Public Health where she later served as a Visiting Professor. She has also served as an Associate Professor in the UCLA School of Medicine, as the Distinguished Scholar in the Bioethics Institute graduate program at Loyola Marymount University, and she is Professor Emerita at CSUN where she served as Chair of the Health Sciences Department and as Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy and Ethics.

In addition to her teaching and clinical consultations, Dr. Cotler has served as a consultant to the California Medical Association Council on Ethical Affairs.  She is also a member of the Bioethics Steering Committee of the International Project for Teaching Medical Ethics of the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and she serves on several editorial boards. Dr. Cotler has co-chaired the Los Angeles County Bar Bioethics Committee, and for several years, she chaired two regional Institutional Review Boards with over 200 clinical trials. Dr. Cotler has over 75 peer reviewed publications and has presented invited papers in Haifa and Eilat Israel; Geneva, Switzerland; Quito, Ecuador; and China at the invitation of the medical association.

As we consider our quality of life now and in the future, chances are that we will need medical or nursing care. If we can’t make our own choices, who do we want to speak for us? How can we ensure that our values will be respected? These ethical questions and more will be the topic of services when we will discuss a range of options and recommendations for seniors and their families when responding to illness, while maximizing the quality of life for us all.

One of the lessons of the Torah, found in the Book of Deuteronomy especially, is “Fear Not!”  Facing issues now that will affect us and our loved ones one day allows us to not be passive in the face of the uncertainties of the future, but to exert some measure of control in an active and pro-active way.  Our future will be better, if we embrace courage and wisdom in the present.

Shana Tova/Wishing everyone, in advance, a very happy, healthy, and productive New Year,

Rabbi Arnie Rachlis