One of the most important aspects of being an accurate health care provider is to ascertain the difference between the cultures of your patients in order to ensure that you are providing care that is sensitive to their cultural needs. The reason that this is so important is that the patients have to be able to trust in the healthcare that they are receiving. Particularly, when a healthcare professional is affronted with such a sensitive subject such as life or death, there has to be a cultural awareness and a cultural awareness in relation to what the patient’s religion might be in order to provide the best possible care. If the healthcare provider suspects that the family may be very religious, it will be important to ascertain what religion the patient is, particularly in regards to patients that are terminally ill and are about to pass away. For example, a Muslim family is going to want something different than a Jewish or Christian family. It is going to be the healthcare provider’s job to be understanding a compassionate about these differences in faith regardless if they are not the beliefs that they individually believe in in order to provide the best healthcare possible and help the family through the difficult time. For this reason, this paper is going to conduct an analysis of the difference between Christian and Jewish culture in regards to how the process of passing away is viewed. From the inferences gathered in this paper, one will be able to ascertain what practices are pivotal to providing the best possible healthcare to a family that needs support in one of their darkest hours.
Commencing with the Jewish approach, the Jewish traditions are rooted in rituals that have been in practice for many more years than Christianity. Additionally, Jewish families have fought very hard over the ages to protect what is theirs due to a plethora of religious persecution. While the Christians have faced this as well, the Jewish community because of their acute persecution in recent years is very tied close together to their family members that survived recent persecution. This is why a healthcare provider is going to see a very close knit group that are tending to the relative that has passed in the Jewish community that has strict traditions to uphold, (Snyder, J., 2011). The reason that this is so relevant is that the Jewish faith has a very close ceremony that lasts for a period of days when a relative has passed called Shiva, (Snyder, J., 2011). What makes this so important is that close family and friends support the one who lost their husband or daughter, for example and the objective is to not leave the body alone because it is viewed in Judaism that the body’s blood is sacred as it passes to the other side, (Snyder, J., 2011). At this point, the Jewish body is traditionally buried in a pine box as it is respected by the family, (Snyder, J., 2011). As a healthcare provider, one has to be extra diligent of this practice and make exceptions to the hospital’s usual rules if they observe a cultural interaction such as this going on. If they do this, they will make a difficult period for the family be more streamlined.
While Christianity does have funerals and the like, it has a different approach than that of Judaism in that the Christians are more open to the idea of leaving the body unattended after death and are also split on the idea of cremation, (Miller, K.A., 2002). This is an important difference in that a family who may be interfaith will have very different approaches on this sensitive issue, which is why a healthcare provider really needs to use their intuition in order to ascertain whether the family is open to cremation and needs to have the body supervised as they make their preparations, (Mogen, S., 2011).
Another aspect that is greatly different between the two faiths is how the two faiths view the relation of the body to the soul in the event of death. Christianity has a strong belief in heaven and the deeds that one does within their life through service and prayer to serve their Lord Jesus Christ, (Helming, M.A., 2007). This is a fundamental difference because Christians have also a belief in a heaven or hell that is much stronger in the root of fear than is seen in Judaism, (Helming, M.A., 2007). There are many theories surrounding how this transpired over the ages between the two different faiths and many of these theories are tied to the tendency for the Christian faith to experience a great deal more extremism and branching off of sectors of beliefs, (Helming, M.A., 2007). Where this becomes relevant towards a healthcare provider is that the healthcare provider has to ascertain where the family sits on the spectrum of Christianity in how they pray and view healing, (Helming, M.A., 2007).
In regards to healing, the Jewish family has to be much more diligent in the way that they pray because their traditions are more ritual based than that of Christians, (Helming, M.A., 2007). Christians tend to rely on the support of their church as those who practice Judaism do with their synagogue do; however, where their rituals differ is when the two faiths branch off to the New Testament and the prayers towards those who are ill or have passed tend to take a different turn.
References
Clark, D. A. (2014). From Jewish Prayer to Christian Ritual: Early Interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer. The University of Nottingham, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 154.
Helming, M. A. (2007). The Lived Experience of Being Healed Through Prayer in Adults Active in a Christian Church. Union Institute and University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 162.
Miller, K. A. (2002). Strangers in Their Own Homes: The Effects of Jewish/Christian Intermarriage on Domestic Holiday Celebrations. University of California, Los Angeles, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 179.
Mogen, S. (2011). Women and Death Rituals in Late Antiquity: Forming the Christian Identity. University of Calgary. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 210.
Pfeiffer, J. B. (2014). Creating a Healing Environment: Strategies Christian Nurses Use. Loma Linda University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 147.
Snyder, J. (2011). Dying Jewish: A Study of End-of Life Religious Preference. Madonna University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing. pp. 1 – 131.
