First Person

I received my bar mitzvah at the age of 74 via a Zoom video call with Chabad Rabbi Levi Gerlitzky, here in Kona, Hawaii.

After the vaccine, I was again afraid and anxious, this time about going out.

As my due date of Oct. 1 neared, it became clear that not only would this be a COVID birth, it would be during the three-week (or longer) lockdown in Israel.

I had become a firm believer in the maxim: “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” And then everything changed.

The world doesn’t need millions of clones. The Torah wants our individuality.

There are so many people who might never before have exercised such a degree of holding back for the sake of another.

I saw not only the beauty that Judaism has to offer, but slowly, the hand of G‑d in life’s little details. Little did I know that G‑d was setting in place the tools I would desperately need in my life, more than I ever could have imagined.

I could not have foreseen was that I literally would be sitting alone in a world that has plunged us all into isolation.

My husband comes from a large family. Never would I have imagined that he would be sitting as a mourner alone.

I can’t see clients in person or do treatments. I miss my clients, miss the personal human touch and contact with them, as well as with my friends and peers. My clinic is empty and so, like most of the world, is our tangible source of income.

He hadn’t spoken on the phone in several months, and besides, he was no longer conscious. Any conversation would be one-way.

“I’m sorry,” he told the shocked family. “We took out the wrong casket.”

The media cannot explain how this man came back from the brink, but we have the inside scoop.

I had heard that many women were reluctant to immerse at this time.

Before we could call America our new home, we lived as stateless refugees in two camps in Austria and Italy.

I dialed the number for the Health Ministry. They told me that if the message was sent to me, it was not a mistake, and that I must go into quarantine for two weeks

My father took ill and was taken to the hospital. Intubated. Critical state.

The bride and groom probably didn’t have their fantasy wedding. But they came face to face with what’s most important in life.

Wouldn’t social distancing be ideal for me? Sure! If it weren’t for my husband and small children who also inhabit my two-bedroom condo. Throw in a baby who doesn’t yet sleep through the night, and you have the perfect recipe for a snippy wife and mother.

I wondered if all of my personal and professional work during the past 40 years could possibly sustain me and my loved ones and my beloved “students” (aka clients).

Over the last many months, so many of the things that we thought we needed to connect to G‑d and spirituality haven’t been possible.

No children are in the street, no one is strolling. The parks are blocked off; all stores, except for supermarkets, are closed. It’s quiet. It’s empty. It’s eerie. It’s so sad, and I know it’s not just us. It’s the current state of the world.

This new situation has made me think more of my mortality and to appreciate life, but reading the stories of health-care professionals and hearing about all the death and suffering is taking a toll on even the strongest among us.

I view “Foresight” as a special gift. We are sometimes afforded the singular ability to look at our lives from the vantage point of “Hindsight,” with all the wisdom contained therein, yet with the chronological positioning to be able to let that wisdom influence the choices we make today.

Our lives have been poisoned by fear and anxiety.