DEAR RABBI MOSHE AND REBBETZIN MYRNA
By: Suri Davis
Dear Rabbi Moshe and Rebbetzin Myrna Weinberger:
For these past weeks, I have been watching your weekly equisitely charming fireside chats, and looked forward to them every Friday. I rewatched the first couple of episodes this week to remind myself of what we were like when Coronavirus first started.
The fear of the unknown as choshech was descending. The utter sadness at people falling ill and dying around us, who would be next, but no despair, working hard to inject Emunah in the place where despair might lodge itself.
There was so much I wanted to say about what the quarantine meant to me, but I had to wait for a sign that it was the right time. Pirkei Avoth 4:18:
רַבִּי שִׁמְעוֹן בֶּן אֶלְעָזָר אוֹמֵר, אַל תְּרַצֶּה אֶת חֲבֵרְךָ בִשְׁעַת כַּעֲסוֹ, וְאַל תְּנַחֲמֶנּוּ בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁמֵּתוֹ מֻטָּל לְפָנָיו, וְאַל תִּשְׁאַל לוֹ בִשְׁעַת נִדְרוֹ, וְאַל תִּשְׁתַּדֵּל לִרְאוֹתוֹ בִשְׁעַת קַלְקָלָתוֹ:
Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar said: Do not try to appease your friend during his hour of anger; Nor comfort him at the hour while his dead still lies before him; Nor question him at the hour of his vow; Nor strive to see him in the hour of his disgrace.
It reminds us that when the dead is before us, is not the time to comfort a mourner, when someone is in the throes of anger, is not the time to mollify him. So, I waited for a signal, the all clear signal to talk about what the quarantine meant to me, and I got it last Friday, in the Rebbe and Rebbetzin’s fireside chat, we can talk about some of the silver linings that came with quarantine. They didn’t say so, but just look at the Rebbe and Rebbetzin together, and you can see it.
The first part of the quarantine was sheer disbelief that we had to quarantine. Fear of the unknown and fake news, and contradicting information. A numbing, paralyzing choshech, an inability to move with people falling ill around us, the ambulance sirens all day long, and the mounting names of those who had passed on. Not just quantity, but we lost foundations/pillars of our community and klal yisrael.
Please understand that there was nothing redeeming at the moment I can see about the Coronvirus. It was sent to us, and I am wondering how those reading leaned in to the situation. How did you make the best of it, how did you cope, I know some of my readers reveled in the togetherness? So, I thought I would share with you about how I leaned into the quarantine.
You see, this week’s torah portion is about perspective and prism. There were 12 people who went to review the land and report to the Jews about what they found about Israel, the promised land. They all physically witnessed the same facts about the land, but the question is how they perceived it and how they processed it. Do you look at a pool and see the drowning, or do you see the exquisite lightness of being? Glass half empty or full. Yes, the land had giant settlers and fortresses, but that means nothing in the face of a G-d who promised this land to you. The G-d who laid low Pharaoh and his great army during the ten plagues and the miracles at the Red Sea. They saw the challenges, but only two had the belief/Emunah to understand that it meant nothing as compared to G-d’s omnipotence. I will share with you my facts, and how I leaned in to the situation at hand, and what became of it.
On the powerfully negative side, friends of mine took ill erev Pesach. As I mentioned at the time, I was alone for the first Seder, and it turned out to be a blessing. Not only because I leaned in to those who were with me at the Seder, Moshe, Aaron, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Tarfon, the eternal four sons and Elijah the Prophet, but I found out an hour before Pesach started that my friends were so ill, they could not buy food or cook for Pesach. After the relatively quick Seder, I prepared food for these friends, soup, knaydlach, matzoh brie, chicken, groceries pots and pans, I tried asking the Amazon delivery man to deliver it on Pesach morning and he refused, understandably.
I remembered that I had my bubby’s grocery wagon in the basement, and I brought it up, filled it with goodies and walked it over to my friends. As I walked the two miles in the rain, I could feel my bubby with me. It was with this same wagon, before Tomchei Shabbos, that she would deliver whole meals to shoes in the community she knew needed food. I was a child when I walked with her to deliver the packages of chicken soup, knaydls, chicken, potato kugel and sponge cake. Yad Hashem that I was alone, finished Seder early, and was able to put together food by the next morning.
This past January, I celebrated 30 years as an attorney in the community. Raising four kids, law practice, divorce, and some health issues, made me wish that I could take a sabbatical. How could I? I have 30 years of clients with whom I regularly meet, and 50 cases in court. How does one suspend 50 active cases? It seemed virtually impossible.
Then came the Coronavirus and quarantine. Clients were busy with Purim, Pesach, foraging for food, and adjusting to life at a standstill. My 50 cases were with a judge, who RL died of the Coronavirus, so all legal action with regard to those cases came to a screeching halt…and there was mostly silence.
My daughter and son came home from college. My eldest son came home from the Mir in Israel, and suddenly, we were all together for days on end. My housekeeper had to stay home with her child, my secretary with hers, the two attorneys who work for me with their children, and I took a deep breath, and leaned in, staying in the moment, and foraging as others did for different foods from different stores at all hours of the night.
The end of the story? My eldest son, Yisrael, was supposed to start Beis Medrash Gavoha after Pesach, but they were closed. So, he started shidduchim, as they say, and instead of going into the BMG freezer, he is now engaged to Chani Lazar of Monsey.
My daughter was a senior in Stern College, and this past Sunday she graduated, and is applying for her Ph.D. program.
My youngest is going into his senior year at HAFTR HS. Instead of going to Moshava, he is taking his road test when DMV opens and is taking his SAT.
I’m having breakfast, lunch and dinner with the kids, what a treat. As I work from home, the wonderful cooking smells waft in the air, which usually means my daughter is making shakshuka for brunch for us all. How lovely, that for the months before my son became a chosson, and returns to Israel with his wife, we had to be together as a family of adults together, what a wonderful gift of togetherness, before they go on their own way, moving up and out.
I haven’t yet completed what I had hoped to accomplish with my Sabbatical, but I was given a gift I didn’t even think I could ask for, a lot of family time and now time to prepare for my eldest son’s wedding in six weeks iyh.
Entering quarantine as caterpillars, exiting butterflies.
Listening to ambulances all day long, saying tehlim for unknowns who were being transported. As the list of those passing grew to 90, readers pleaded with me to remove the evidence of the growing tragic loss to our community. Pillars of our community, foundations of klal yisrael passed away. We were sure Moshiach would herald the end of the disease, and we continue to wait.
Please email me at: Thefivetowns@aol.com, with your story of quarantine.
The glass might be half empty or half full, but we must remember that the glass is refillable. Do we fill it with gall or with Emunah? I recently created a new life motto: Emunah Goreret Emunah ® Faith begets greater chances at seeing greater acts of G-d in our everyday lives, and these challenging personal and communal times.
Shabbat shalom.
Suri