When our lives are full of a title of a Mel Brooks movie—High Anxiety

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Thursday April 02, 2020 · 1:43 PM PDT

2020/04/02 · 13:43

no image description available — A resident in our town put this on their lawn to cheer passing motorists and walkers.

Life in a pandemic is a time of high anxiety for most of us. Even if you’re not a health care worker worrying about sufficient PPE and exposure to the virus or one of the 1400 NYPD members with a confirmed diagnosis, you’re worried about whether the people in the supermarket are getting within six feet of you or how you’ll pay your rent or for your food or how to make sure your child gets their homework done while you try to work from home.

Here in Connecticut, where we’re fourth per capita in cases and fifth per capita in deaths, all the other tragedies of life go on. A former student’s grandmother has died; a former coworker’s young daughter, who has struggled with depression for several years, committed suicide; and an eighteen-year-old had a traffic accident, which resulted in a 14-year-old and a sixteen-year-old passenger being thrown from the vehicle and killed,

And yet, despite this, many people have found something in their lives to feel good about. In my town’s Neighbors and Friends page on Facebook, people have posted about these. As you can see above, someone used their Christmas lights to put a heart on their lawn as a message to those who walk or drive by. On some streets they’re ringing bells at 8:00 pm, or putting hearts on doors, or teddy bears or rainbows in the windows.

People have posted about discovering that their children can actually get along, that they’re enjoying family game nights, taking walks, or not commuting. And, of course, they’re all talking about how much they love teachers and health care workers and grocery store workers and truck drivers!

So I thought it might be good to share a silver lining experience. And if you want, to accompany it with something you miss—especially if it’s something you used to find annoying.

Two weeks ago, I was driving my son home from work because I didn’t want him to take the bus. He’s 26 and is on the Spectrum and doesn’t drive (something that we were going to work on this spring/summer). He asked me how long this was going to last. I told him that, quite likely, it would last at least until the summer of 2021, and that we didn’t get to complain because we had a roof over our heads and food on our table and that’s what counted. And yet . . . And yet . . . There are so many things to be missed. Who knew what a privilege it was to go to the supermarket 4 times in a week because you’d forgotten things? And, man, I just want to go into a Starbucks, or have lunch out. Or visit my mother in the nursing home and sit there with her and my father and discuss what an idiot the occupant of the White House is. Or see a movie with a friend. Or even attend a synagogue committee meeting. (Yes, that’s how desperate the situation is becoming, folks).

There’s been a silver lining for me (but not for my husband). The courts here in Connecticut are mostly closed and so he’s been home. AND, even worse for him, there’s no lacrosse season. He’s been coaching youth lacrosse since he graduated college. And this is lacrosse season. So that means coaching lacrosse, watching our town’s high school teams play, his university team play, and watching games with teams from adjacent towns in order to make scouting reports. Between that and work, it’s a nearly 24/7 proposition. I really don’t see him from March through mid-June. And, now, there is no lacrosse. And so, today, we took a walk together. And I see him a lot every day. And that turns out to be a really good thing. Who knows? We may actually survive retirement one day!

What little things do you really miss? What’s something good you’ve experienced since this started. Share them with us.

If you’re looking for a reason to start liking Joe

betorah

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Tuesday March 31, 2020 · 8:36 AM PDT

2020/03/31 · 08:36

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Be gentle with me, folks. After years of commenting on Daily Kos, I’m posting my first diary. It was requested that I do so by Momentary Grace after posting this story as a comment on another diary.

I was a Warren supporter early on and was looking forward to voting for her in the Connecticut primary. With her withdrawal, I’ve switched to Joe. Like many others, I’ve looked for reasons to feel good about that decision. I came across this posting on Facebook and was heartened by it. It’s written by Rabbi Michael Beals of Delaware. And I know it’s true. How? After I shared it on Facebook, a friend challenged whether or not it was true. So I searched and found a photo of Joe and Rabbi Beals (see above). My cousin, a rabbi, commented that she knew Rabbi Beals and that the story was true. And since she tagged him in her comment, I was astonished when Rabbi Beals also commented on my post and said it was true and that I had his permission to share it widely. (Indeed, if you google his name, along with Joe Biden’s, you’ll find this story on different sites.) So here you have it, almost straight from the horse’s mouth.

It was about 16 years ago, and I was a young rabbi, brand-new to Delaware, on my way to lead a shiva minyan — a worship service following a death of a Jewish person. I was from California back then, I didn’t know Claymont, Delaware from Scranton, Pennsylvania

A quick bit of background: When someone passes away in the Jewish faith, we observe seven days of mourning, called shiva. We gather a group of ten Jewish adults together — a minyan — to say the Mourners’ Kaddish. It usually happens in a person’s home — somewhere intimate.

In this case, the deceased individual — her name was Mrs. Greenhouse, of blessed memory — had not been a person of means. She had lived in rent-controlled senior housing in a tall high-rise building off of Namaans Road. Her apartment had been too small to fit everyone into, so we conducted our worship service in the building’s communal laundry room, in the basement of the high-rise.

We assembled the ten elders together, and it was in this most humble of places that I began to lead the kaddish. Toward the end of the service, a door at the back of the laundry room opened, and who walks in but Senator Joe Biden, his head lowered, all by himself.

I nearly dropped my prayer book in shock.

Senator Biden stood quietly in the back of the room for the duration of the service.

At the close of the kaddish, I walked over to him and asked the same question that must have been on everyone else’s mind: “Senator Biden — what are you doing here?”

And he said to me: “Listen, back in 1972, when I first ran for Senate, Mrs. Greenhouse gave $18 to my first campaign. Because that’s what she could afford. And every six years, when I’d run for reelection, she’d give another $18. She did it her whole life. I’m here here to show my respect and gratitude.”

Now, the number 18 is significant in the Jewish faith — its numbers spell out the Hebrew word chai, as in “to life, to life, l’chayim!” But it’s also a humble amount. Joe Biden knew that. And he respected that.

There were no news outlets at our service that day — no Jewish reporters or important dignitaries. Just a few elderly mourners in a basement laundry room.

Joe Biden didn’t come to that service for political gain. He came to that service because he has character. He came to that service because he’s a mensch.

And for those of you who aren’t Jewish, you may not know this, but there is no higher complement that you can give a man, than to say that he is a mensch.

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