Rabbi’s Column
Mar-Apr 2021 Chadashot
Dear Friends,
We are approaching one full year of this global pandemic, a year apart and yet, we’ve still found paths to be together. Just less than a year ago, we gathered for Purim without a real sense of the tsunami that was coming. A week later, we held our last in-person religious school class, a board retreat, and by the middle of March our world had become unimaginable. I’ve grasped for the words to mark this moment, one year in this alone and, yet, together. Here is what I have to offer:
One Year
One year.
One year since our lives
were upended by the pandemic.
An anniversary of sorts
or perhaps,
a yahrzeit.
One year of mourning
the deaths of loved ones,
beloved community members,
friends, neighbors, coworkers,
and strangers,
lives unnecessarily cut short.
We long for hugs and kisses,
high fives and seeing people’s smiling faces in the flesh
for singing together on Shabbat
and breaking bread
and meeting new people.
A year ago, we couldn’t fathom
that this would still be our world.
Surely, by summer
we would have been together.
Summer came and went,
then fall,
now winter
soon spring.
And, still this surreal life.
This year.
The first yahrzeit marks not the end of grief,
but rather its turning point
At first, we thought,
we don’t know how we’ll get through this.
But we have.
We stand now at the cusp
of who-knows-how-long
that still lies before us.
And, yet, we know we can get there
because we are here.
We tell ourselves the fabled tale
of Itzhak Perlman
and the broken string.
Let’s make music
with what we have left.
Photo by Taisiia Shestopal on Unsplash