Bennington Free Clinic Talk
We are here as a community – different faiths, different backgrounds – to celebrate the launching of what I think is a monumental achievement for Bennington – the birth of a free medical clinic – where those adults in our community who need health care but don’t have the means to receive health care – can come here to First Baptist on Thursday evenings and actually receive health care. This is a case of the people taking matters into their own hands and saying, you know, a civilized nation is a nation where health care is thought of as a human right. Let’s make this a civilized nation, or in our case, let’s try to make this a civilized corner of southwestern Vermont. In the midst of an extraordinarily difficult time, with economic recession, layoffs, when many of us are suffering in a variety of ways – in the midst of such a time we have had a successful and unprecedented year raising money for the Food and Fuel Fund, and now we are opening this free clinic. Our community should be proud of itself. This is what community is about, this is what community action is about. Of course, the opening is literally the beginning – the work is literally just beginning, but we should stop and celebrate the work that went into making this happen.
First and foremost I think we should thank two people whose vision and tireless work have translated directly into the opening of the clinic: Dr. Richard Dundas, and our Chief Cook and Bottle Washer, Sue Andrews. The other person who has guided us to this point and who deserves our great thanks is Reverend Jerrod Hugenot – and – First Baptist Church, their Board of Trustees, and their entire congregation, for their decision to open the doors of their facility to community initiatives like this one. It is much easier to say, well, that would be complicated, or, let them put the clinic somewhere else, etc. We should thank the entire Interfaith Council of Bennington, whose month in and month out practices faith-based community organizing. And in that spirit, we should extend our gratitude in the direction of Greensboro, North Carolina to Rabbi Howard Cohen, whose 13 years of work on behalf of the Council and of the community, among other things, paved the way for tonight’s opening.
We want to thank VCCU (Vermont Coalition of Clinics of the Uninsured), VIM (Volunteers in Medicine). Also, thanks to the following foundations for their substantial contributions: the Stratton Foundation, the Vermont Community Foundation, Merchants Bank Community Foundation and the Ben and Jerry’s Foundation.
In Judaism we celebrate and remember someone’s life on the occasion of the anniversary of their death, their yahrzeit.
Today is the yahrzeit of the great rabbi, teacher, and civil rights activist, Abraham Joshua Heschel. Among other things, Heschel used to say, “A human is a messenger who forgot the message.” It’s a great definition for what a human is. And of course it raises the question: what is the message? How do we remember the message? In our tradition, when we have a question such as this, we try to say, well, there might be a clue in the weekly Torah portion. Maybe.
This is the week we read the account of Moses and the burning bush. It’s an arresting image: Moses stopped still in front of a bush that is on fire, but is not being burnt up. Someone would have to stop for a while to notice that, right? You would actually have to wait to see that the bush wasn’t being destroyed. There’s a teaching that actually, the bush is always burning, it just takes someone special like Moses to turn aside and see it. In a similar vein, our neighbor, the other next to us, is always in need – we are just not always able to turn and see. We are not always able to ask the question that Moses does, how is it that this is happening? And then to find the sense of personal call in relationship to the experience: what can I do? This is what Sue Andrews and Dick Dundas and First Baptist and the Interfaith Council and all of you have done. This is a burning bush moment. Stopping to notice the needs of our neighbors, to ask why those needs exist, and to feel personally called to respond.
Grant Schnerr asks, why a burning bush – why that particular symbolism? What is it that burns but does not destroy? He answers, love. Love – is that which burns but does not consume. Love is that which burns but does not destroy.
So maybe this is the message that we have forgotten and that occasionally we remember: look, love, burn with justice. Rabbi Israel Salanter says we must remember that the other’s physical needs are our spiritual needs.
So may we continue to stop and notice, may we continue to feel the miracle of our interconnection, may we continue to be moved to action. Thank you.