Elul

One of my favorite things to do at this time of year is take my shofar with me to work. From the beginning of Elul until Yom Kippur, I have it with me. I sound it for my Jewish patients. I let the nursing homes where I work know what it is, why I have it, and that I will visit any Jewish resident so that they can hear the sounds of the shofar. In a nursing home with a younger, more alert, special needs population, the activity department and I schedule a program so that the Jewish residents can prepare for the New Year.

In a job where almost everyday provides the unexpected, I never know what to expect once I take out the shofar. I do a lot of education with staff and residents at this time of year. I never sound the shofar without making sure that everyone around me knows what I'm doing -- especially when I'm on a dementia unit.

Sometimes there are moments of serendipity, of grace. I'm in a nursing home doing a spiritual assessment on a new patient. We're meeting in a corner of the activity / dining room. The activity director, spotting my kipah, comes over to tell me that they are making "cards for the Jewish New Year." I am able to respond not only by coming over to meet the residents and talk about the meaning of the New Year, but by saying, "I have a ram's horn in the trunk of my car. May I go get it so that your residents can hear the sound of the New Year?" And while I have it, a nurse mentions a bed-bound Jewish resident down the hall and I am welcomed into her room so that she can hear the sound of the shofar. "Her family will be so happy when we let them know that you were here."

I'm visiting one of my Jewish patients. We sit in her room and I talk to her about the season. There's no response today, no eye contact, no acknowledgment that I'm present. I take out the shofar and blow it. Her head jerks up, her eyes open, and, for a moment, she's there.

Another patient, another home - my patient is a 100 + year old Holocaust survivor. We visit in front of her room, by the nurses' station where she sits each day. I take out the shofar -- Tekiah -- and the woman sitting next to her in the hallway glares at me and loudly asks, "What are you trying to do - wake the dead?"

Another survivor. Not yet my patient, but when I talk on the phone about hospice with her out-of-state son, he asks that I take in the shofar so that she can hear it. It turns out she's in a different place in her dementia. The shofar scares her. When I greet her in Hebrew or Yiddish she gets agitated and motions me to be silent. She responds to me and converses only when I greet her in Polish. Unfortunately my Polish extends only to "good morning," "how are you," and "thank you," but that doesn't stop her from taking my hand and talking to me - as long as the shofar is not in sight.

Once again it's Elul. This morning I opened my living room cabinet and took out my shofar. I don't know what the next month will bring, but I do know that for my Jewish patients it will include the sounds of the shofar as, together, we prepare to either close the Book of Life or to greet the New Year.