Sabbath Guest 6 Feet Apart

          Our living room windows face the street and so we can see cars go by and people walk along the sidewalk as well as people walking up to our driveway.  Yesterday, while reading my book, I saw people. It was so exciting. A family of four walked up our driveway and they knocked. We all heard the door and collectively, we were so excited to have guests. No, we did not invite the family inside. The visiting family walked to the end of our driveway and we all came outside and stay 6 ft/ 2 meters apart.  There we were, two families, friends for many years purposefully standing apart. Yet there we were, despite standing 6 feet apart, we were talking about our children, our lives, our parents and how we are all dealing with this pandemic. We stood outside like this for little more than an hour. For a brief moment, something had lifted. We were talking to people, not through phone, nor through a computer application. Instead, we were speaking with live people almost face to face.  Normally, on Shabbat, my wife has trained us all to invite the guests in. My wife would have made sure to offer them food and drink.  The opportunity to demonstrate such hospitality and fulfill the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim  - brings my wife great joy. This time and for the near future, Hachnasat Orchim -hospitality would be confined to the end of our driveway, standing six feet apart. Yet we all felt such warmth, such Ta'Anug Shabbat - the joy of Shabbat without food, without a drink, just standing apart and talking.  Sheltering in Place and Physical Distancing have forced us to re-think having guests and celebrating Shabbat. Yet we have started to adapt and to cope. As we begin another week, I hope we continue to learn to adapt, to cope and to adjust.

Peace,
Rav Yitz

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

4/5/20 Sunday: Normal? What Normal?

          Under normal circumstances, at the conclusion of Shabbat, I turn on my phone to check the scores of my favorite teams.  These are not normal times. Our family finished Havdalah and there were no sports, no favorite teams, no scores to check. In fact, I dreaded turning on my phone and the television. I knew that the first thing I was going to check, was the increasing number of infected, and the increased number of deaths from this plague. I looked in Toronto, and then New York and California. The number only seems to go up and go up faster.  After spending 15 minutes catching up on the news, not much of it too good,  I turned to my evening project. With Pesach beginning on Wednesday, my first task was Family Shlepper. It is my job to bring all the Pesach boxes from the basement up to the kitchen so my wife can begin the monumental task of making our kitchen kosher for Pesach as well as begin cooking. However, my task is the first task of this intricate chain of Pesach Kitchen
Read more

4/12/20 Sunday: Trying to Remember Afraid To Forget

          I am always amazed at how three days can be so exhausting: the first two days of Pesach and then Shabbat, three days of praying, eating and taking walks.  Now we have a couple of days until the last days of the Pesach which are also a Yom Tov. No, there are no more seders to prepare for, rather just Pesach food. One of the additions we make to the liturgy is the same addition we make when it is Rosh Chodesh and when we say Birkat HaMazon. We add the prayer Ya'Aleh v' Yavo . Throughout the prayer, the word V'Zichron appears throughout. Other forms of ZaChaR also appear including Zichroneinu and Zacharnu. Throughout the prayer, ask God to remember us. A few nights ago, when we sat at the Seder table, the Hagaddah reminded us to see ourselves as if we were slaves and we were the ones leaving Egypt. Well, in the narrative of Yetziat Mitzrayim,  we are told that God heard the cries of Bnei Yisroel and remembered his covenant with the patriarchs. In a sense, the proce
Read more

Rosh Chodesh: "Or ask for the moon and heaven too" (Robert Hunter & Jerry Garcia - If I Had The World To Give)

          Well, today isn't just Thursday.  Today isn't only that we are heading towards our second Shabbat in this "new normal". Today (and tomorrow) is also Rosh Chodesh, it's the end of one month and the beginning of the new month, the month of Nissan. In case anyone had looked outside into the night sky, the moon and its light have been noticeably absent. Tonight and over the next several days we should begin to notice the moonlight. Normally I don't get too excited about Rosh Chodesh, but everything seems to have taken on the heightened meaning given the circumstances of our lives. Maybe a bit of boredom has set in. Maybe we are just looking for anything to reassure us that no matter how bad things are, Rosh Chodesh reminds us that the moon waxes and wanes. seasons change, and Pesach is in two weeks. Of course, when I finished davening and I joyfully wished her a Chodesh Tov. It's Nisan, It's two weeks until Pesach. It is the Zman Cheiruteinu, the
Read more