Lily Festre makes a m ost valid point---one which I wanted to bring up when Rabbi Sol wrote re: not being allowed to enter another sanctuary.   

I have to say that "Good Sam" hospital spread out the welcome mat and it was well rcvd by its recipients---now to claim the above seems a bit hypocritical and/or "nit-picking".   

In fact many of these rules are about avoiding them--loopholes if you will. A few examples: Jewish Hospitals (Mt. Sinai, etc;) have what they call Shabbos Elevators. Elevators that just keep running so you are not turning on the electric (and ---by the way---you are riding---forget stairs?). Let us also not forget the Shabbos Goy (by the way --Goy is not a detrimental term for everyone's information) who works the Jewish Sabbath.   The fact is if you use the benefit of the appliances and modern practices by technical circimvention I would suppose it to be a bit of hypocrisy. Be it the Amish, the Catholics, or others---if you truly believe you should---but then don't reap any benefits by circumvention of your own beliefs.

On a lighter note---my late mother was in St. John's hospital in Santa Monica years back.   The nuns who were the nurses asked her if she wanted to see the Rabbi--scared the hell out of her--she thought she was dying. Turns out he wanted to give her fruit in celebration of Succoth and was visiting the hospital to see all the Jewish patients for Succoth. She got the fruit---lived a long time after that



Bill Hahn