Ariel Sharon lies unconscious in a hospital room, tubes entering and leaving his corpulent body, "clean" fluids going in, waste going out. No one knows how much of his brain is left -- not even the doctors who operated upon it. The man who sent the murderers into Sabra and Shatila, who is among those responsible for the continous state of war in which my own sons will soon find themselves taking part as soldiers in the IDF. Now better know for evacuating the settlements of Gush Katif -- a brave act designed, in part, to ensure Israel's hold over the West Bank.

A country prays for its fallen leader. A public prayer for his healing is recited in my own synagogue. I hold back. Why should I pray more for this man than for any other person? I do not wish his death. I do not wish to pray for him, either. I am glad that he has left the national scene.

There are interesting things to ponder on a socio-cultural level. When the winter storm "of rare severity" predicted for the last few days failed to materialize, I joked to my friends that science, for all its touted expertise, can perhaps build an atom bomb, but it can't predict the weather, and it can't tell us whether Sharon is going to wake up. Seriously, though, this man could quite literally afford -- didn't even have to afford -- the best medical care money can buy. Yet that apparently didn't stop his care being bungled. Possibly it was even bungled for quite reasonable, conscious reasons. After all, had he not been given the blood thinners and then been felled by another blood clot instead of a brain hemorrhage, everyone would probably be blasting the doctors for withholding them. The doctors, with their usual fear of lawsuits, etc., perhaps tried to figure which possibility was the more likely, and got it wrong.

So what does that have to say about the rest of us, under our semi-socialized health-care system? Does one really do better with private health insurance? (And maybe I'm just saying this because we didn't get it? Is expertise better than intuition? And do we want our health-care resources spent on rescuing old men's brains that have been blown out anyway?

More to come ...