Spotlight on CLAL Archive
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CLAL Awarded Grant For Jewish Spiritual Guidebook For Palliative Care
Guide
to Offer a Jewish Perspective on the Spiritual Needs of Patients and Their Families, and
Tools for Caregivers and Health Experts
By Judy Epstein, Director of Public Affairs
Recognizing
CLAL’s groundbreaking work in the Jewish healing movement, the Fan Fox and Leslie R.
Samuels Foundation has awarded a grant to the organization for the creation of a Jewish
spiritual guidebook for palliative care for patients and their families. The guide will also address many of the concerns
of caregivers, chaplains and health care professionals in their work with terminally ill
patients, and is the first of its kind to be developed.
CLAL
faculty, working with Joseph J. Fins, M.D., Director of Medical Ethics at the Cornell
campus of New York Presbyterian Hospital, who will serve as an advisor on the project,
will bring together Jewish wisdom from traditional texts, stories and personal experiences
with professional medical perspectives. The
guiding principle will be to create a framework in which patients can evaluate the
decisions regarding their care, and the “quantity” and “quality” of
life issues at stake.
“Today,
the issues of purpose and meaning for those facing chronic and terminal illness are too
often left to the ‘deathbed’ or to hospice care,” said Rabbi Tsvi
Blanchard, Ph.D., psychologist and CLAL’s Director of Organizational Development, who
is also the project’s academic advisor. “But
in the Jewish tradition we learn that if people live lives of purpose, integrity and
meaning, they will have a more complete vision of themselves as they get closer to death. How they’ve lived will provide the spiritual
foundation for how they approach death, and it is important for caregivers to help them to
reconnect to that vision.”
Quality of life issues, encompassing medical and spiritual care for
those with chronic illness, will be discussed in accessible language for a broad audience.
Medical care, as seen through a sacred scope, will be discussed, as well as the ways for
patients to discuss their concerns with their caregivers. Topics will include
self-reflection, forgiveness, facing loss, finding hope, reconciliation, coping with pain,
making peace and encountering death.
Ultimately,
our work will help both doctors and patients to understand that the choices that are made
in medical care should be made in conjunction with the spiritual needs of the
patient,” said Rabbi Daniel Brenner, the Director of CLAL’s National Jewish
Resource Center, who is director of the project.
The
one-year grant will cover the design, creation and distribution of the guidebook. First available online at www.Jewishhealing.net, the guide will be made available to
rabbis, lay leaders, doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices affiliated with
Jewish communities around the country.
“We
are very excited about this important initiative. It
highlights CLAL’s expertise in meaningfully linking our tradition with critical
contemporary concerns. It also enables CLAL
to reach people across the continent with an accessible, spiritually rich guide to the
ethical dimensions of palliative care,” said Donna M. Rosenthal, Executive Vice
Chairman of CLAL.
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