Should the Government Instruct People How to Pray?
I think not, but that’s what a poster from the New York City Health Department does. The poster, which is intended for a religious Jewish audience and is also available in Yiddish, reminds people to wash their hands for at least 20 seconds. It also shows several hand washing steps that you would expect on a poster in the bathroom, such as “scrub” and “rinse.” The unusual thing is, the instructions incorporate a Jewish hand washing ritual and the prayer said after using the bathroom. The last instruction on the poster is “Pray,” underneath a picture of a scroll containing the first two words of this particular prayer.
I would find it cute and informative if a Jewish organization published this poster in an effort to educate people simultaneously about hygiene and Jewish religious practices. But the state shouldn’t tell people how to practice Judaism, or any other religion.
I’m not against translating government documents into foreign languages, and translating a poster into Yiddish could be reasonable in a city with a large Jewish population. However, the translation should present the same content as the original — it shouldn’t add religious instructions.
I feel like I must be missing something here because this is so weird. From a public health theory perspective, I appreciate the effort to make a campaign culturally relevant. I’m sure someone’s MPH professor is very proud.
But as a former religious Jew, I’m just thinking, wtf? Steps 7 and 8 are very right wing, and rather alienating for leftist and centrist Orthodox (not that there are any of those in NYC…oh wait!). Admittedly people do tend to either do ritual washing or regular washing, not both, so I get where they’re coming from with that. It makes sense to try and tie those together. But the way they portray it is not really how it’s done by most people, and doesn’t even really make sense in that context. There are two different handwashing rituals, and this would make a little more sense for the other one, but with the one shown here it’s particularly weird.
I don’t know. Like I said, if the government’s going to fund public health interventions, then every effort should be made to make them targeted and culturally relevant which studies have repeatedly shown to be crucial factors in effectiveness. But at the same time, I think this shows the danger of such efforts–namely, looking clueless and even mildly offensive.
Comment by Chaya Kristen Chopra — November 3, 2009 @ 5:28 p.m.
My experience is that people who do ritual washing after the bathroom do steps 1 through 9 as shown here so I’m not sure I understand your objection that it doesn’t make sense in this context. But I agree, not everyone does this ritual washing, so there is the issue of appearing to take sides and endorse one religious practice over another.
Comment by Sarah Brodsky — November 3, 2009 @ 5:54 p.m.
I am not Jewish, but could this be related to Kashrut law? I believe most states provide complementary hand-washing signs to display commercial rest rooms. Perhaps a sign telling Jewish employees preparing Kosher food not to perform these rituals is just as offensive as non-Jews being told how to pray? I am sure the state of New York gives the managers at restaurants/food preparation facilities the option of a sign that does, or does not, include Jewish hand washing rituals…
Comment by DaveG — November 3, 2009 @ 11:28 p.m.
Sarah, I have always learned that although you wash before asher yatzar you don’t have to wash with a kli (or rather, in this instance the faucet can serve as a kli), it’s just a chumra so just regular washing is fine. To my knowledge it is only normative in more machmir communities, but hence my point–in my experience a lot of UWSers and YU students would look at this and go, “really?” But then as you say it may seem completely normal for other communities. But yeah, it does appear to endorse one practice over another which is an issue in itself–the last thing Jews in New York need is more reason to argue over halacha!
DaveG, as I point out above there are (basically) two handwashing rituals, one related to waking up in the morning and one related to eating. The latter is only for actual eating though, not preparation of food. So I don’t think that’s the case here, since to my knowledge the OSHA signs only deal with handwashing before food preparation or going back to work. That being said, your comment does remind me that in more “mixed” kosher restaurants sometimes the kitchen’s sink gets used by customers to wash before eating, so I could see this fitting somewhat in that application.
Comment by Chaya Kristen Chopra — November 4, 2009 @ 2:42 a.m.
Thanks for the comments everyone. To be clear, the purpose of this post was not to start a debate about Jewish law, just to point out that New York added religious content to a health poster.
Comment by Sarah Brodsky — November 4, 2009 @ 7:22 a.m.