I like to think that I am strong, independent and can balance all the balls the world throws my way. COVID has taught me otherwise.
Like so many others, at least those fortunate enough to carry on with work at home, Monday through Friday I sit in a room with the shades drawn, so that the lighting is just right for videoconferencing. By the end of the workday, as I emerge from my cave, I feel as hungry and cranky as any bear ending its season of hibernation. Add to that the fact that home and office are now merged into one location; there’s no more leaving our work at the office.
Too many evenings and weekends that we might have spent relaxing are now filled with work that didn’t quite get finished during the day. If that were not enough to be unhappy about, we continue to be isolated from friends and family that don’t live nearby, or that live nearby but aren’t healthy enough to meet us outside at a safe, socially distanced location.
A shofar is blown during Rosh Hashanah services at Dezerland Park in North Miami Beach. Courtesy of Sara Schermer
Religious holidays, birthdays, graduations, weddings and every other kind of celebration look different than they did a year ago. Even the way we mourn the passing of friends and loved ones has become an event for only a handful of people at once. Two of our three sons live out of state. Having already missed celebrating Passover, four family birthdays and two friends’ weddings with our whole family, Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish new year) – soon followed by Yom Kippur – lacked the exciting anticipation it normally heralds. I knew that cooking for the holiday (because food seems to be the center of every celebration in every culture) wasn’t going to be the same this year.
But last month, we were surprised in the most wonderful way. Our synagogue, the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center (ATJC), recognized the isolation we are all feeling and planned multiple, creative ways to bring our members together in celebration of the High Holidays while keeping socially distant.
At the North Miami Beach location of Dezerland Park and its adjoining drive-in theater, ATJC hosted two services to celebrate our new year. Friday night services were held in a combination of English and Hebrew; Saturday night services were held in a combination of Spanish and Hebrew. Both nights found members smiling behind their masks and feeling a sense of community in a way none of us had for six long months.
As synagogue members drove in, each was handed a prayer book and a bag with holding bottled water, grape juice and a challah. Many people, excited to be outside celebrating the holiday with family and friends, stepped out of their cars before the service to cautiously, distantly, but happily great each other. When the service began, with a stage backed by a movie screen, everyone could see our rabbis, Jonathan Berkun and Guido Cohen, cantors, and Rabbi Berkun’s son, Jeremy, leading the congregation in both prayer and song.
As is typical of our hurricane season and tropical weather, the temperature was too warm to open car windows or put down convertible tops. No worries; we only had to tune our car radios to the designated FM station to hear the entire service in real time. As it progressed, the sun set on Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s life, the week, the Jewish year 5870 and our sense of isolation. Everyone present felt the love, friendship and sense of community we seek in our house of worship.
When things are tough and the news is bad, I remind myself to focus on that which is eternal. Going to the drive-in to celebrate a holiday that Jews have marked since Genesis, with my friends – no, with my family – and the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center reminded me that this is the kind of eternal act which restores our sense of community, and our spirit.