…to describe how crazy things are, yet I will do my best to write a few personal observations if only for the sake of keeping hold of some normative routine activities during this chaotic time. As a mentor of mine taught me, the more things change the more things we need to grab hold of those things that never change.

Thank God for digital communications at a time like this. There are a dizzying array of resources, ideas, and online materials being suggested, circulated, and shared to help us maintain some semblance of functionality during an unexpected curveball in all of our lives.

It feels like we are all entering our personal Noah’s Ark for the next couple of weeks to try and escape the flood of viruses spreading around the world.

I will share a poem making its way around cyberspace that frames viewing our new normal seeing the current pandemic in terms of how Jews have always viewed Shabbat granted that Shabbat is typically once a week rather than all week.

One of the wisest women on the planet named Hedy Shleifer shared this poem titled “Pandemic” by a poet named Lynn Ungar. With their permission, I am sharing it with you as I found it personally meaningful. Please feel free to accept or reject whatever parts may or may not resonate with you.

What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath-
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.

And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.

Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
as long as we all shall live.

I will close with the words of introduction to Rav Kook’s work called “Roshei Millin” explaining the mystical meanings of the Hebrew alphabet that he penned in exile in England during World War I and its aftermath which included an outbreak of the global spreading of the Spanish flu.

His son asked his father why at the time of the world at war would he focused on writing a book explaining the depths of the Torah? His father explained that at times of external upheaval in the world it is appropriate to insulate one’s spirit by immersing in deep contemplation of the Torah and spiritual matters.

Perhaps immersing ourselves in a deep dose of edifying reading of a work that spiritually inspires us could be helpful at this time. It certainly couldn’t hurt.

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Elisha Paul