Reflections & Observations

Rosh Hashanah

   This year it falls on Saturday and Sunday, September 11 and 12. 
The rabbis, in the Talmud and Midrash, said that Rosh Hashanah commemorates the birthday -- of the world, and thus the anniversary of creation itself. 
   It begins the Ten Days or Penitence, also known as the Days of Awe, and ends with the most solemn of religious days in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. During these ten days, all of humankind passes by the Heavenly Throne so that God can look into each person’s heart. Judgment is passed on Yom Kippur. 
   Throughout Rosh Hashanah, the sovereignty of God dominates. The Shofar (ram’s horn) is blown several times in a prescribed pattern -- the first to celebrate God’s kinship, the second to emphasize the role of the individual, the third to remind the congregation of all the events associated with the blowing of the horn. 
   Rosh Hashanah is a solemn yet very happy time. Families gather, slices of bread or apple are dipped in honey to symbolize the hoped for sweetness in the new year. 
   The traditional Rosh Hashanah greeting is “Leshana tova tikosevu,” or “may you be inscribed for a good year.” 
   Orthodox and Conservative Jews observe two days of Rosh Hashanah. Reform Jews celebrate only one. 
   Like all Jewish holidays, Rosh Hashanah is determined by the lunar calendar. 
   According to the Talmud, “On Rash Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jews should not appear depressed and in somber clothes, as suppliants before a human judge, but joyous, dressed in festive white, betokening a cheerful and confident spirit.” 

   with thanks to Leo Rosten for his “The Joys of Yiddish”

A Terrible Failure 

   A drug that can prevent the spread of a fatal disease is a miracle. A life-saving drug that costs only $4 is twice a miracle. 
   Such a drug exists and is available (see story, page 1). It’s called Nevirapine. It can prevent the transmission of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, from pregnant mothers to their babies, and the requisite two doses -- one to the mother as she goes into labor, the second to the newborn baby within three days of its birth -- cost only $4. It has been shown to reduce the chances of babies being born with AIDS by 47%. 
   Given all that, we might assume that the federal government and the medical community have cranked up into high gear and are rushing to make the drug available to pregnant women who’ve tested positive for HIV as soon as possible. 
   Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Santa Monica-based Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation is issuing a global challenge to governments and the medical community today to make the drug available to the women and babies who need it now. 
   The existence of the drug was announced three weeks ago. It is reasonable to assume that the government and the medical community have been aware of its development and its life-saving potential for some time. 
   Why, then, did the people in charge not prepare the means of getting it to patients moments after it went into production? 
   Why are pregnant women around the world not getting this life-saving drug right now? 
   Is it because, at $4 a dose, there’s not sufficient profit in it? Or is it because the government and medical community still see HIV and AIDS-afflicted people as somehow unworthy of our care and attention? 
These are ugly, barbaric notions, but they are not nearly as ugly or barbaric as a society that has the means to save untold thousands of babies from disease and death and doesn’t do it.