Ripple in Still Water

          Well, today we all prepare for our second Shabbat living a life of Shelter in Place.  It is also the first day of the Month of Nisan. In terms of time, the week is drawing to a conclusion and culminating in Shabbat.  Among the rituals that occur at our Shabbat Dinner table includes blessing the children. With our eldest in Boston, my Bracha for her usually occurs by sending a WhatsApp message right before Shabbat, blessing her and reminding her how proud I am of her. For the children who are home with us,  I offer them a blessing, kiss them and then they walk over to Mom who kisses them as well. At the conclusion of the ritual, we ask our children to reflect upon the week that passed and share an example of something good that they experienced or something they are proud of.  We instituted this little ritual as a way of getting our children to reflect on the past and to "count their blessing".  However today is also Rosh Chodes...

It's early Friday morning. It is still dark out. For now, the house is quiet. Coffee is brewing and I have a quiet moment to spiritually breathe. It has been a long time since I have looked forward to Shabbat as much as I have this week.  It has been a trying, difficult week for the world. For me, I have conducted 9 funerals over the past 11 days. 9 different lives, 9 different narratives, 9 families grieving for the loss of a loved one. My wife, sensing that I needed to see or experience something happy, hopeful and life-affirming showed me a very unique wedding that happened "down south" on the Lawrence& Bathurst section of Toronto. A wedding, in this environment? Yet there it was. With neighbors standing on their porches, and cars lined up in the streets, there were perhaps 15 people outside, practicing social distancing  and parents walked their daughter down the sidewalk on to their driveway, there was a chuppa and there was a Chata. They stood there and a weddin...