March 6-8, 2015
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
Spiritual Dimensions of Illness and Healing
It is a grievous mistake to keep a wall of separation between medicine and religion. There is a division of labor but a unity of spirit. The act of healing is the highest form of imitatio Dei.
~Rabbi Abraham Heschel (1964)
Rabbi Heschel’s words seem as relevant today as they did in 1964, when he spoke them to physicians at the American Medical Association. Contemporary western culture continues to divide carefully care of the soul from care of the body, apportioning the former to religious communities and the latter to medicine. The division of spiritual and material care of the human person has allowed us to meet many clinical needs efficiently, but it has also wrought unwanted outcomes, including increased mechanization of care and isolation in the experiences of illness and dying. [More Details]