What We've Learned & Lost

Hi there, my name is Rabbi Jodi Gordon, and together with my friend and rabbi Jen Gubitz, we welcome you to this special mini episode of the OMFG podcast, Jewish Wisdom for Unprecedented Times.

This week we're marking the one-year anniversary commemoration We're not sure what to call it, this one-year moment that marks when COVID-19 shut us down. So much of how this podcast came to be, and certainly much of what animates our conversations, were not even a twinkle in our eye just about a year ago.

And what a year it's been. As we approached this week, we've noticed a certain tension within ourselves, reflected also in the media that we're consuming. It feels both necessary and impossible to mark this moment. It's been a year of enormity in the truest sense of the word. The great and grave scale of what this year has taken from us, the ways in which we have been forced to change. And so this episode will be a little bit different.

Before we even begin though, it feels important to note that even this opportunity to reflect is a privilege. For we have lost more than 500,000 souls to this deadly virus in the past year. At the conclusion of this episode, we'll join together in a moment of remembrance and prayer for all those who have died.

And so, as a way of capturing this moment in time, which by no means signifies that it's over, we present to you today top 10 things that we want to remember and that we've learned from this first year of pandemic living. Number 1: We were moving too fast and doing too much in the before times, as many of us have come to call it. It took a while to adapt to the COVID normal because we first tried to do exactly what we had done before, but from home, and that wasn't sustainable. We had to actually change how we do what we do to get through this year.

And now we also need to remember that it wasn't totally working for us before as we create a new pathway to return. We shouldn't rebuild that same life. Which brings us to number 2: our lives online. Zoom is a mixed bag. Now I happen to love Zoom Shiva. I have seen people show up for Shiva from all walks of people's lives who would never have been able to attend in person, and who can genuinely show their love and grief for their loss while supporting mourners. I think it's taken away some of the awkward small talk of shiva, or this weird sense of the mourners trying to play host, to really shifting the conversation to memory and love. I think in the new world, all shiva should also have an online option for at least one night. Having been married with Zoom as a huge component, I was similarly grateful that people could attend from around the world, from our cousins in Jerusalem and England to one of my best friends, Jamie, who lives in Germany, and even my niece's flower girl from New Orleans. On the other hand, Zoom burnout is a hardcore problem. I think the optometry world is going to see a huge increase in business because my eyesight has really declined this year. On the other hand, the ability to be together with people from all over the world at times that they likely wouldn't have been there in person has been a bonus.

Number 3: People, especially kids, are resilient. And I'll say more about that in a minute, but the caveat to that, or I should say the corollary, is that that's not an excuse for not supporting them. Over the course of this year, as the parent of two young children myself, as someone who cares about a lot of great little people in the world, we've worried about our kids. We've worried about the children in our communities, in our schools, in our congregations, in our own family. We've worried about what the lack of socialization does for them. We've worried about their access to enough food to eat, to the type of access to technology that would be required to let them quote unquote, go to school online. And a lot of that worry is incredibly well-placed, and kids are resilient. I have been inspired by my own children more times than I can count during this pandemic when they remind us grown-ups that it's really not a big deal to put on a mask, to go out into the world, to protect people around you, and to do what you can. And, and that's what we've been doing. That's— we're doing our best. The piece with people being resilient is that that doesn't mean we can't support them. And I, for one, have really come to a new place with realizing and seeing the reality of education in this country and thinking about the ways in which teachers and educators have been continually not supported throughout this pandemic. I have a bit of hopeful gratitude that maybe, just maybe, we are starting to realize how critical education and schooling is in the lives of children and families. And so it is my hope that with that resilience, we can build back a stronger, more resilient system for education.

Number 4, singing. Singing together in person. Oh, how we miss it. It's that collective effervescence that's really tough to achieve at a distance. It's not impossible. We've seen people figure out how to sing together in sort of the gaps of Zoom, how well-edited videos can really produce a beautiful sound, and even standing far apart enough outside to sing together. There have been moments of incredible beauty. But I cannot wait to sit inside a concert venue listening to live music once again.

Number 5, Jewish life is with people. There was a famous book sometime in the 20th century by Mark Zborowski called Life is with People, and it chronicled life in the shtetls, life in sort of the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe throughout the late 19th century. And it showed that life was with other people. And I think about that often throughout this year when I think about how much of our Jewish lives as a community have had to shift to this sort of alone-together experience. And yet, and Jen, you referenced some of this, it hasn't all been bad news for the ability to pray and learn and celebrate and even mourn together. I think back to the first pandemic Shabbat, right? On Wednesday in our congregation, we made the official decision to shut and had to do a ton of work and preparation and scrambling. There was a giant wall with Post-it notes of like all of the things we would have to do to get ourselves and the, and the building ready to really shut down for what we thought might be a couple of weeks. And by the time Friday afternoon came around, we knew we would gather online, and we couldn't imagine that we would do a full Shabbat service. And part of that was sort of the exhaustion of the preparation. But I think back to that first pandemic Shabbat. We lit candles, we made kiddush, I think there was a reading, we might have sung a song or two, we gave people the chance to greet one another, and we signed off. And I think about the way our Zoom Shabbat practice has evolved, and it only deepens my, my belief that Jewish life is with people, and that people will find ways to feel connected to other people in whatever way they can. And that over the course of the year, our Shabbat practice has, has changed as our understanding of what it means to be together in our current reality has changed. You know, how we wrongly assumed in some cases what was and wasn't possible a year ago to now where we are, where we have a very full Shabbat experience for the purpose of being together with other people.

Number 6. A question that we hold: when and what do we put our bodies on the line for? Thinking back to June 2020 and how going out to protest was suddenly more fraught for many of us, even though the reason for protest to support the lives of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people was so critical and to fight racial injustice and systemic racism. It was a question, "If I go out, will I get sick?" Not to mention those essential service providers who have no choice day in and day out. They put their lives on the line for medical support or other critical jobs and roles that people hold that keep cities and towns running. When and for what do we put our bodies on the line? I've never been much of a protest or rally attendee, But I also know that it's a privilege to have that choice.

Number 7, and this one feels personal and close to my heart. This country needs to have a reckoning with our lack of mental health support infrastructure. People are struggling and suffering. Therapists and other mental health professionals are working around the clock and they are burning out. A brief personal story: a very dear friend of mine is a clinical psychologist who lives in Boston, near you, Jen, actually, and throughout this pandemic he has sat in his apartment each and every day. He lives alone, and from when he wakes up until 8 o'clock at night, he sits and he opens his computer and he takes in people's pain, right? He takes in their struggles. He works as their therapist. It is his job. It is his training. It is his vocation. But the thing that has been different about this pandemic experience, and I know I've experienced as a rabbi, I would imagine you have too, is that more and more there's, there's less separation between the experiences of his patients and him. So what does it do to the people who are there to support others in their mental health journeys to, to sit and take in the stories of loneliness and the stories of disappointment and the stories of fear that you yourself as a human being are also feeling and having. I think about clergy and mental health professionals and others in helping professions who are burning out. We know that rates of suicide are up, and it is really one of my, my dearest prayers and hopes that out of this we will build something sturdier and better able to support people in this country who need mental health support.

Number 8: How are we supposed to come back from the way this pandemic has devastated women in the workforce? Let me ask that question one more time. How are we supposed to come back from the way this pandemic has devastated women in the workforce?

It's a question that sits there. It's a, it's a really big one. Number 9: We are quite literally all in this together. I have never felt that as a more lived experience than over the course of this past year. And I think one of the things that many of us will need to really wrestle with as we move toward the next phase of normal, whatever that looks like in our lives, is what it's been like to let's say it as it is, to judge friends and family and how they have handled COVID and what that has been like to sit in a place with such unknowing and anxiety or certainty and deep scientific knowing about what the risks are and to watch people you care about do things in a way that don't match you and your, and the decisions that you've made for your family and how we've had to negotiate that and navigate that over the course of this past year, I think is going to have really long-lasting and important effects on relationships that I can only hope sort of evolve toward healing.

And number 10: This year has been a lived lesson in wrestling for a blessing. Some people these days call it silver linings. A silver lining is a metaphor for optimism, helping us to see that even things that are negative may have positivity within, you know, like roses and thorns, a cloudy day with the sun shining through. And we need that. We need to maintain our optimism and our hope. And I think in some ways this year has shifted maybe how we think about gratitude. When time flows together and we don't know what day it is, stopping to add moments of gratitude and breath and reflection can really transform our attitudes and offer us optimism in a time that can also just feel quite hopeless. I'm reminded of the 3 essential prayers that Anne Lamott speaks of. She's a Christian writer, but she's my rabbi. And she says that those 3 essential prayers are help, thanks, wow. We have that same framework in Jewish prayer: praise, petition, thanks. Help. Thanks.

Wow.

And I think we have one more as well, which leads us to a final moment, which is of gratitude, being grateful for what we do have, for healing, praying for all who are sick and who are broken, and memory, remembering the amazing lives that we have lost this year and in years past. And hoping that how we live our lives will continue to manifest in blessing.

[SPEAKING HEBREW] Kezohar harakiya mazirim, et nishmatam yakireinu shehalchule olama, ba'al harachamim.

Yashti Rehem, beseter knafa leolami, bitror bitror hacha'im et nishmatam, Adonai hu nachlatam, beyanuchu veshalom amishkavam, ben omar. Amen. God full of compassion, you dwell in the heights and in the depths. Grant perfect rest under the wings of your presence to the more than 500,000 of our loved ones who have died this past year from COVID-19, whose souls have entered eternity.

Let them find refuge forever in the shadow of your wings. And let their souls be bound up in the bond of eternal life. For you, the everlasting God, are their inheritance. May each of them rest in peace, and let us say amen.

Amen. This episode of the OMFG podcast, Jewish Wisdom for Unprecedented Times, was brought to you by Rabbis Jen Gubitz and Jodi Gordon. Audio editing by Jen Gubitz. Art by Daniel Ben-Yushai. And brought to you by the letter F.

You know what OMG means?

It means something really cool.

Like what?

Like, how amazing is this new book?

Do you know like what the letters OMG stand for? Mm-mm. So OMG usually means like, oh my God.

Wow!