That Is the Whole of the Law

שוב מעשה בנכרי אחד שבא לפני שמאי, אמר לו: גיירני על מנת שתלמדני כל התורה כולה כשאני עומד על רגל אחת. דחפו באמת הבנין שבידו. בא לפני הלל, גייריה. אמר לו: דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד – זו היא כל התורה כולה, ואידך – פירושה הוא, זיל גמור.
 
I posted the above to Facebook as it cuts through all manner of bon mot about charity and pierces to the heart the matter of refugees Screen Shot 2015-11-20 at 2.58.51 PM(to employ an Aristotelian view, it must be an expression of “good” as it appears in almost every human culture in one form or another). Some “Liked” the post (I can only hope they read Hebrew….) but I am sure most had no idea what it was (but didn’t ask). So what does that make me?  Harrrummmppphhhhh…..
 
The quote is from the Mishna, the first part of the Babylonia Talmud, Seder Moed, Tractate Shabbat, Folio 31a (translation and URL for source below). The Babylonia Talmud contains the ethical principles laid down by the rabbis, and it is the feed stock for the parables of the New Testament gospel canon. There is a generation between Hillel and his arrival from Babylonia, and the ministry of the person purportedly known as Yeshua, and some argue Yeshua was an inlaw of Hillel’s. Yeshua, who was born and who died a Jew, would have been steeped in the dynamics of Judaism of the time and the tensions between form and substance, and between assimilation and tradition. Suffice it to say, that much of the gospels are lifted from the Mishna. In fact Joseph McCabe argues that, “we are then compelled to conclude that the writers of the Gospels borrowed from the Jewish Schools most of the parables they ascribed to Jesus, and in most cases lowered or destroyed the ethical value of the parables in so doing..”

Do not allow another to be treated in a manner in which you would not want to be treated. That’s it.  That’s “good”.  Everywhere you go, throughout history. Except among Christians in the United States in the 20th and 21st Centuries.

We put Emma Lazarus’ poem (New Colossus, written as a donation for the auction to support the funding of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal) front and center so as to avoid the shame of our behavior:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
But we have long ago slammed the golden door in the faces of the wretched victims of our blind self-interest. And thinking of these self-righteous Christians, I come to think of Jonathan Edwards terrifying sermon on the text “Their foot shall slide in due time. Deuteronomy 32:35″ . They are condemned, by their own faith, as sinners in the hands of an angry god, and their foot shall slide in due time.
Hypocrisy is no foundation for any tomorrow.  Garrison Keillor is oft lampooned by the snobs of the Thinkeries, but I would like to borrow his closing and tweak it, just a bit — ‘Be well, do good, and keep in touch.’
______________

On another occasion it happened that a certain heathen came before Shammai and said to him, ‘Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot.’ Thereupon he repulsed him with the builder’s cubit which was in his hand. When he went before Hillel, he said to him, ‘What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah, while the rest is the commentary thereof; go and learn it.’ [footnotes deleted]

Feingold, Henry L. Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse University Press, 1995. See Chapter 6 for a comparative discussion https://books.google.com/books?id=ts5lKWho2YwC&pg=PA94#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mending the Hole in Medicaid

Screen Shot 2015-11-19 at 2.18.46 PMI was concerned about Alaska’s response to persons seeking to take advantage of the Medicaid expansion and so wrote to the lead on the project. I received a prompt response from Chris Ashenbrenner, and a follow-up e-mail from Sean O’Brien at the Division of Public Assistance (the note from Chris appears second so that the reference to it as “below” by Sean isn’t confusing).
Bottom line?
  • If it you have a medical situation or condition you believe requires immediate attention call 1-844-231-7880.
  • If you have not yet applied for Medicaid expansion, apply for Medicaid online at MyAlaska (under “Services for Individuals” click on “ARIES Self-Service Portal”) or go directly to ARIES at https://aries.alaska.gov/screener/.
  • The federal government has set a 45 day limit for the qualification process.
Yes, there is a backlog. Specifics? They were not forthcoming. Problems? We have a desperate need for competent Social Workers as the welfare safety net becomes too complex to navigate.

The letters:
Good morning Mr. Grober,

I apologize for the delay. To add on to Chris’s information below, there are a number of variables regarding the speed of which applications are processed as she indicated. As she indicated, if there is special expediting needs related to the more immediate health needs of the individual which would be identified in the application, it would be processed more quickly. If not, the federal government has set a 45 day period for us to complete Medicaid eligibility determination. In addition, applications that are submitted electronically, either through the healthcare.gov or our DPA ARIES websites, generally go through faster than paper applications given the increased speed staff are able to process them. Based on what you indicated below, it sounds like one of our Anchorage offices is checking on this particular case. I’m also including our lead on constituent concerns, Jason Burke to check into this as well. I’m cc’ing his supervisor, Aimee Olejasz so she’s informed as well.

I hope this information helps you and your client in this particular case.

Sincerely,

Sean O’Brien, MA, CRC
907-465-5847
Director, Alaska Division of Public Assistance (DPA)
Alaska Department of Health and Social Services
350 Main Street, Suite 304
Juneau, AK 99801

_______________________

Good morning, Mr. Grober.

There is a Medicaid application backlog right now – the applications that are being processed the quickest are those that don’t require any additional information to determine eligibility. However, for a full answer to your questions, I’ve asked the Division of Public Assistance to respond to your questions. One thing you might want to relay to your client is that the Division of Public Assistance has established a process for prioritizing Medicaid applications. Here is the information from their website at http://dhss.alaska.gov/dpa/Pages/default.aspx
Medical Emergencies
Please call 1-844-231-7880, if you submitted an application for Medicaid and someone is experiencing an emergent need for medical assistance such as:
  • Medical procedures to address a life threatening illness or injury
  • Travel for high risk medical procedures
  • Prescriptions that need to be filled
Hope this helps for now – you should hear back for Public Assistance before too long.
Chris
Chris Ashenbrenner
Medicaid Redesign and Expansion Coordinator
Alaska Health and Social Services
Alaska Office Building Room 425
(907) 465-5808 – office
(907) 343-9550 – mobile

Pot Luck

Screen Shot 2015-11-18 at 8.48.40 PMA Primer: You have never been “safe” from terrorism. You can never be safe from terrorism in anything remotely resembling an open society. Increasing arms does not increase safety, nor does it decrease terrorism. When I was a young man we argued that if you were not part of the solution you were part of the problem, which was a “hip” way of arguing that there were no “innocents”; everyone has someone’s blood on their hands.  That means you.  It also means your children and their children. The US is one of the longest standing purveyor of regime change extant in the world today, and to the extent that regime change is terroristic behavior (are you really going to argue that it isn’t), a state sponsor of terrorism. In a world where everyone sees themselves as a victim, where so many see themselves in a position where they have nothing to lose, where it is easier than ever to obtain social validation of what others might see as an extreme perspective, and where arms are easily obtainable, it is likely that terrorism will increase.