As a rabbi of a small congregation, I was involved in hours and hours of decisions about suspending each type of in-person activity. Each decision seems obvious looking back, but was excruciating and time-consuming at the time. It was hard to reflect or help our leadership reflect, re-root ourselves in our values. After one particularly frustrating meeting in April, with no grounding principles, I sat down to write some. A few weeks of revisions let me to write this, circulating it among some colleagues, revise it and eventually publish it. I heard from many, many colleagues, some I had never met, who found it helpful as both a way of thinking generally, and a way of looking ahead past the immediate and giving ourselves enough time to several months ahead toward the High Holy Days.
Three years ago, Marc, a close friend of mine and back neighbor, was preparing for his son’s bar mitzvah. Marc had never read the torah and it meant a lot to him to share the torah reading with his son. It was a double parsha week, too much for a bar mitzvah boy so it made for a natural split. I have taught bar mitzvah reading before so I volunteered to teach Marc and that made our friendship even stronger. He is musically inclined and had experience reading Hebrew so it was a smashing success.
Three years later, the Pandemic struck and the shuls shut down on the anniversary of Marc’s son’s bar mitzvah. He was devastated because he had subsequently learned the second parsha and had been scheduled to read the torah in shul that week. Since shul was closed, we went to our respective backyards at noon on Shabbat and sat divided by the stream that runs in between our yards. He read the torah that week and neighbors who heard the singing came and joined to listen, each family standing a safe distance apart from the next. Everyone was so thirsty for community and for services that, like the Pied Pier of Torah reading, we ended with a nice crowd.
Every week since then, he and I have met by the stream and have read the weekly parsha and haftarah together. We finished Shmot, Vayikra, and Bamidbar and are starting Devarim this week.
The experience has brought so much to my pandemic life and is now the highlight of my week. We spend hours every Shabbat afternoon in the forest between our homes reading and talking about the parsha, and he has since learned and mastered reading the haftarah.
This is a kinah (dirge) for Tisha B'Av (9th of Av) that laments the great suffering endured by the world during the Covid-19 pandemic. It follows the structure of Eli Tziyon (Wail, O Zion), a medieval poem that mourns the destruction of the Temple. In that poem, the pain of the destruction is compared to that of a young widow grieving and of a woman in labor.
In this version, Tziyon serves as a stand-in for the suffering of both the Jewish community and the world during the pandemic. The central image here is of a lonely Torah scroll sitting in an ark, unread, which reflects the isolation and sadness many have experienced over these months. The rest of the poem follows the Hebrew acrostic structure of the original with an aspect of the pandemic associated with each letter.
This version is not meant as a final word on Covid. In fact, we'd love for it to be an invitation to write your own verses, and even poems, about the pandemic. We hope this video will be a meaningful contribution to Jewish communities' commemoration of Tisha B'Av on Wednesday night, July 29th through Thursday, July 30th. Contains (electronic) instrumental music.
Credits:
Written by Daniel Olson and Rabbi Ben Goldberg
Editorial Consulting by Rabbi Jonah Rank
Sung by Daniel Olson
I have been struggling on how to represent the changes and destruction of life as we know it. Time seems to have shifted dramatically and feels like it is being taken apart bit by bit. Not knowing what the future will be like, the only thing we know is that life will never go back to the way it was in the past. I am participating in a text study and creative arts class which has really helped how I view art and study of sources that guide me and inspire me.
Essay written by Doris H. Goldstein of Atlanta, Georgia. A copy is housed in her papers in the Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives for Southern Jewish History at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia (Mss 275, Martin and Doris Goldstein Papers, Box 1, File 5).
Essay written by Doris H. Goldstein of Atlanta, Georgia. A copy is housed in her papers in the Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives for Southern Jewish History at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia (Mss 275, Martin and Doris Goldstein Papers, Box 1, File 5)
Essay written by Doris H. Goldstein of Atlanta, Georgia. A copy is housed in her papers in the Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Archives for Southern Jewish History at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta, Georgia (Mss 275, Martin and Doris Goldstein Papers, Box 1, File 5)
Hand sanitizer created by Jewish-owned business, Zep, at the entrance of Whole Foods. Security guard is seen in the doorway rationing people into the store.
Face mask created by Eve Mannes of Atlanta, Georgia from her husband's kippah collection. This artifact was donated to the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum on June 3, 2020.
"How Will You Move Forward?" is spray-painted onto a red brick sidewalk along 7th Street NW in Washington, D.C., in the near the Chinatown/Gallery Place Metro stop. The art was created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jaclyn Kimball donated this image to the Capital Jewish Museum of her and her family visiting their grandma in her nursing home, saying hi through the window
This email from Capital Camps to its members announces which virtual activities it will offer members that week via Zoom, along with a statement acknowledging they may not be able to open its doors for in-person camp activities this summer.
This email from Capital Camps to its members announces which virtual activities it will offer members that week via Zoom, along with other reminders and information.
An image portraying how funerals have changed in response of the COVID-19 pandemic, including reduced attendance, face masks, and social distance between attendees.
Rabbi Mark Urkowitz teaches his weekly Torah class, now via Zoom, for the residents of The Medallion, a Jewish senior care facility in Houston, May 2020. Photo credit: Stephanie Kleiner
From the collections of the Houston Jewish History Archive, Woodson Research Center, Rice University
Capital Camps' first ever Virtual Havdalah. 150 Camp Families connected with them over Zoom and facebook live, and even more have watched the recording posted to their facebook page. It was a magical evening connecting their camp community across the US and globe
