From 67 to 73

This Yom Kippur, rather like one 47 years ago, is to a significant degree about humility and shared responsibility.

This spring many Israelis, led by the example of the government, believed בכחי ובעצם ידי, we beat this thing by our own smarts. Too many mistook this to mean that corona was over, we had figured out the magic formula. Like the self-congratulatory high after June '67 this has been followed by a steady war of attrition that now brings us to the gates of Yom Kippur with soaring infection rates, rising critical cases and sadly also higher death rates.

In parallel we have had assorted experts confidently explaining why everything the government was doing was wrong. The virus would burn itself out in 70 days and we'd all have herd immunity. The warm weather would destroy it. It mostly only affects the old, it was no danger to everyone else, the government was just reacting with hysterical fearmongering, or worse, was engineering a covid crisis for its own sinister ends.

Or maybe the virus really is dangerous, but if we just take the right medications, eat the right wonder food, take the right vitamins and supplements, it would pass us by and we would be saved easily and simply.

Other Israelis have single mindedly been yelling that it is just Bibi. This is the answer, get rid of him, and everything will be fixed. To this end a large segment of my friends are out demonstrating in central Jerusalem each and every weekend for months in mass gatherings. Have anyone in charge, just not Bibi, that is the solution. Attending the protests was the patriotic thing to do.

Then there have been those who say there is no alternative but to live life as usual, because we have to simply coexist with covid as best we can, we cannot stop our regular way of life just because of a virus. There was no alternative but to push through for the sake of sanity and the economy, and whoever gets it gets it, but there is no choice but to plough through it.

Others meanwhile knew that the answer was purely spiritual. We just need to keep davening in shul, keep the yeshivot open, continue with mass prayer gatherings and this would protect our communities from the plague.

Still others said that we need to be cautious because this strange new virus is still out there. They watched others go out and resume normal life while they stayed home, out of the way, outside of regular existence, some from fear and some from a sense of duty that reducing crowding in the public sphere was the patriotic thing to do.

Each in his or her own bubble of logic, each in his or her own community with its norms and ideologies. Each with his or her own version of בכחי ובעצם ידי

And in the background that thin still small voice coming from still others, dedicated nurses, doctors, epidemiologists, virologists, rabbis, scientists and lay people alike - we still don't know enough. We are learning, we are hopefully making important leaps in our knowledge, but tachlis we still don't know enough, it is still so early in this pandemic, there is still so much we don't understand to know which ultimately is the right path.

The only thing we do know is that we are all on this dystopian journey together. I would say it is an overused cliche, but apparently too many of us still need to hear it, only by working together can we get through this situation as safely as possible.

There are no clear simple solutions that we can see right now, rather a tightrope of conflicting theories, needs and ideas which we need to collectively attempt to balance on to try to find a safe equilibrium. 

We don't have most of the answers yet, but knowing that we lack answers to so many questions is the first step to finding them.

Ironically this Kol Nidrei night we will (most of us) not be crowded in to synagogue or even any other kind of minyan to hear the phrase אנו מתרין להתפלל עם העבריינים, it is permissible to pray with transgressors.

More than ever this year that is what we need to hear. From the relative safety of our homes. 

On Yom Kippur we together confess a formulated list of sins and transgressions, everything in the book from theft to lying to adultery to corruption. Surely most of us have not actually committed these heinous acts? And yet we list them, aloud, together, with bowed heads, beating our breasts in contrition.

On Yom Kippur we all stand together, those who are guilty of many offences, those who are not, but we collectively take responsibility for what has gone wrong.

We humbly accept that we do not live in bubbles. It isn't "we are fine, all this crisis is because of THEM!" It isn't "we don't need to sacrifice, or inconvenience ourselves, or take responsibility because SOMEONE ELSE is the one at fault."

We take joint responsibility for our communities, or friends, our families. Maybe we didn't do any of these wrongful acts, or maybe unknowingly we did things which contributed to a bad situation, another person going astray, someone's act of desperation or maybe we simply stayed aloof and said "we are OK", while others floundered and even drowned.

We have always been an opinionated, stubborn and argumentative people. This has been an ingrained part of our culture since Abraham challenged the conformist idolatry which was the established norm of the culture he grew up in and then challenged God's plan to punish Soddom and Gemorra. 

This characteristic has both at time been our downfall and our success. 

Our disagreements and refusal to humbly accept that we don't have all the answers cost us our freedom and many lives in the dark days leading up to the destruction of both the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, and centuries later the restored and rebuilt state of Judea. 

Yet that same independence of mind and spirit, ability to discuss everything from a million angles, to ask questions, to think out of the box has made us a nation of innovators, intellectuals, skilled craftspeople, scientists, writers and engineers. Skills that have saved us both in exile and our return to our ancient homeland. 

It is so easy to point the finger at someone else rather than acknowledge the need to come together. 

This year more than any other come together we must in humility and acknowledge that all of us need each other for whichever solution we choose to attempt to work. Maybe in a bitterly divided world that is what covid is here to teach us. 

May we all be inscribed in the book of Life, Blessing and Peace. 

Grilled lamb and madeleines

Ever since my daughter heard from a friend about Crave restaurant in Jerusalem where they make lamb bacon and use it to create kosher versions of all kinds of very non-kosher sounding dishes she has been clamouring for us to try some. 

In general the kids have come across the concept of a full British fry-up breakfast in books and popular culture and it's piqued their curiosity, a style of eating so far removed from our norms. For quite some time now they have been asking to make a kosher version for breakfast, or even better dinner. 

I recently found kosher lamb bacon and impressive looking beef sausages from a local butcher who delivers and so tonight was the night, even if I did forget to buy more potatoes.

My daughter and I got to work slicing and dicing, but it was the aroma of the Lamb bacon and beef sausages sizzling in their pans that brought the younger children running in to the kitchen. 

"What's that yummy smell? What is it? Is it ready? Can I taste it now?"

Such a simple meal really: baked beans, sunnyside up eggs, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, and the meat stars of the show, but all together they were quite a spread for an ordinary Thursday night in August, creating a festive party mood.

Previously kvetchy kids cranky at the end of a long summer day of play gathered excitedly round the table, bright eyes devouring the food from afar before it even touched their plates. Something exotic in smell and sight, ratcheting up the curiosity to try something out of the ordinary. The taste didn't disappoint either, as second and third helpings were gobbled up by our keen carnivores.  

One the most unhealthy meals I have ever made, but it was fun and different and everyone enjoyed and almost everyone agreed to try almost everything.

When I was growing up my Mum made this breakfast/dinner but with lamb chops. Most of those years we lived with my Bubbe and Zayde. My grandparents hated the smell of cooking lamb so this was a rare treat for the two of us when both my grandparents were out of the house.

So great was my grandparents', especially my Zayde's, aversion to the aroma of lamb that even during the years of rationing during and immediately after the Second World War they initially refused the lamb ration that was their right, much to the shock of the neighbourhood butcher. He was not allowed to substitute beef or chicken for the hated lamb, every family's ration was strictly measured out.

My grandmother would stand outside his shop after picking up her portion, lingering she said like some black market criminal. Except that her objective was perfectly legal, if a tad unusual. She waited to see if anyone looked like they could use a bit extra, a pregnant woman, someone with a sickly child, and then present them with the unwanted package of lamb.

Sometimes another customer would offer to exchange this for chicken. Most people considered lamb far superior to poultry, but not my grandparents. 

By the time I was on the scene my Bubbe suffered from arthritis and hammer toes. Walking more than a few steps was agony, the bumpy uneven path and pavements had become almost insurmountable obstacles.

She was too proud to use a wheelchair and for many years would not even use a walking stick. The arm of a family member was her aid to getting from the front door of her home to a waiting car or taxi. 

I remember her fingers digging in to my arm and hand as she steadied herself on this trek. Outwardly she held herself straight and dignified, mind over matter, but in her fingers I could feel her fear of falling. 

Most of the time the outside world came to her with frequent guests for Shabbat and holiday meals and regular visitors to her famous Sunday afternoon teas with fruit fluden, cinnamon rogelakh and crunchy raisin-cinnamon keikhalekh. If only she'd written down the recipes for me, I can taste and smell them in my mind's sense memory, but years later still haven't managed to reconstruct how to make them. 

Bubbe relished her outings beyond her home, but the pain was such that she limited her excursions to doctor's appointments, weddings, bar mitzvas and the occasional special afternoon tea at a friend's house. Most of the time she stayed home and was the queen of her kitchen, cooking and baking up a storm every day. 

My mother loved lamb. I never thought to ask her how she developed a taste for her parents' most hated food, but it was a treat she adored.

We would wait for my grandparents to leave together on one of my grandmother's rare but regular days out and then my mother and I would go back inside the house and two minutes later we had all the windows open to avoid stinking out the house while preparing this illicit feast of grilled lamb chops, tomatoes and mushrooms with a pot of baked beans bubbling away on the hob, hash browns in a pan. So good.

Even in my vegetarian years I loved the smell of the grilling lamb, even if ideologically I was opposed to its consumption. It wasn't the recollection of a childhood flavour or the simple pleasure of a delicious smell, rather a pavlovian response that in my mind bound up the aroma of grilling lamb, mushrooms and tomato with these mother-daughter meals enjoying a special something that we two alone in our family shared in the quiet of a big house usually bustling with the wider family and the otherwise ever present chatter of the radio.

That scent meant quiet time together over our unique meal, playing the music we wanted to which didn't usually meet with the approval of the senior generation. 

Amazing how much memory can be condensed in to a smell and a taste, Proust was 100% right about the madeleines.

Which coincidentally also take me back to my Mum, she loved them, reminded her of being a student in Paris and reading Proust in the original French. From time to time she'd see imported French madeleines in a local shop and buy them on a nostalgic whim.

We'd share them on a picnic in the park or an outing in the countryside, or every so often with tea at home when she felt like surprising me out of the blue, just because, on a random afternoon when I came home from school. 

All this is not to deride the enjoyment we derive from our familiar everyday foods and the comfort of routine. Just that a change is good for the soul too. 

Take Comfort My People

Yesterday we marked Tisha B'Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar marking the destruction of the ancient Jewish Temples in Jerusalem and the enormous suffering of our ancestors through horrific sieges, starvation, slavery and exile.

This Shabbat is the first of the seven Shabbatot of consolation, on each of which we read a comforting chapter from the Biblical Prophet Isaiah on the subject of redemption and a brighter future.

Even in the dark days of the first destruction of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian king Nebukhadnetzer, described in harrowing detail by the prophet Jeremiah in the biblical book of Eikhah (Lamentations), he finds words of hope in the middle of one of the greatest calamities to ever befall the Jewish people.

Centuries later Rabbi Akiva viewing the Roman destruction of the rebuilt and restored second Jerusalem Temple sees a fox scampering through the ruined Holy of Holies, a sign of the complete desolation of the the city, it's civilisation crushed, wild foxes and jackals encroaching on the holy site as the wilderness claims the remnants of what was once a bustling religious and civic centre.

All around him the surviving Jews are mourning the terrible disaster, weeping for the thousands of dead, their city, the crushing of Jewish sovereignty and the obliteration of their ancient religious centre. Every aspect of Jewish life in their ancient holy city and political capital has been decimated by the legions of Rome.

But Rabbi Akiva doesn't cry and doesn't mourn. He sees that the worst has happened, the nation has reached rock bottom and he is already looking to the future, to redemption, to the Jewish people with God's help regrouping and rebuilding, to Jerusalem's eventual restoration and rise from its ruins.

My mother's Yahrzeit (anniversary of her death), as well as the births of three of my sons and my own birthday and that of my grandmother fall within these seven weeks of Nehama, consolation. My mother always felt a deep connection to these seven readings of comfort and redemption, they were some of her favourite biblical verses and she knew them all by heart, quoting them often.

She was also a great lover of music and found great joy, solace and inspiration in songs which she felt expressed these positive messages of hope and restoration. She loved Neshama Carlebach's beautiful rendition to her father, R' Shlomo Carlebach's melody, of this week's haftara reading from Isaiah 40 "Nehamu, nahamu ami" - Take comfort my people.

Where the jackals howl

We went out for the first time in over two weeks last night to try to see the comet.

Turns out it was probably too close to the horizon, despite the amazing vantage point we found overlooking the lowlands and coast.

Still it's always great to get out to even semi-wilderness and be the only people around. Plus it was perfect timing to watch a nice slow pass directly overhead by the International Space Station.

We noticed abundant gazelle droppings along a path, but did not catch sight of any actual gazelle.

We listened to jackals yelping and cackling all around us and had fun howling back at them.

We heard owls screeching, bats and crickets clicking and chirping in the silence between the spookily loud jackal calls.

We heard the distinct rustle of a porcupine's quills moving through the bushes below but could not make out its shape in the inky darkness.

In the twilight we saw several braces of chukar partridges doing their comical chicken like run along paths and rocky hillsides, visible for an instant then melting back in to the thickets and undergrowth.

We saw a swift fox dart across the road in a blur of bushy fur.

We heard nocturnal bird calls which even I didn't recognise.

We watched the lights of the coast, picking out power stations, towns and roads, their glow illuminating the distant horizon even as full darkness settled on the wooded hillsides above.

We watched planes overhead and in the distance (so long since we've seen that many) and a helicopter circling several times.

Most of all though we enjoyed being out in a wide open space that allowed such a clear view of the wonderful vast canopy of stars, along with Jupiter and Saturn. Plus the odd stray meteor.

How wondrous is Your Creation. מה רבו מעשיך

What of herd immunity and the Encephalitis lethargica epidemic?

I've had a lot of questions asking why high risk people can't just be locked up at home and let everyone else go about business as usual so that healthy people achieve herd immunity and the virus hopefully fizzles out.

These are excellent questions and as a layperson I've been trying to research the likelihood of this paradigm as a covid exit strategy. I say again, as a lay person, I am a humanities major, but I did learn how to research and read statistics and data, and of course to consult with doctors, scientists, immunologists and epidemiologists far more knowledgeable than I. This is my understanding as a lay person.

My conclusion to date, as far as anyone has a conclusion in the midst of an ongoing and unprecedented modern crisis, is that the herd immunity theory for covid19 seems doubtful. So far, according to most of the studies I have seen. This thing is far from over, the virus is very new, there is much we simply do not know and obviously this impedes effective decision making at all levels because there are no long term peer reviewed watertight studies to base policy on, we only have a few months of data to rely on.

A note, I realise that this information can be unsettling. My intention is to try to comprehend where we are regarding our understanding of the dangers of this virus and to balance that knowledge with the requirements of maintaining daily life and the economy to constructively think of coping strategies during this crisis. It is not a zero sum game. There are many important considerations at play. Having as informed a picture as possible can hopefully help to formulate effective policies to safeguard the maximum number of people.

What exactly does this virus do? How dies it do it? How do we stop it from doing it? Can we kill it? How do we kill it?

1) The evidence of herd immunity is highly disputed and many studies suggest that even if we do expose most of the population they will not achieve any long lasting natural immunity.

2) Even if you lock up all the high risk people for the foreseeable future that has no impact on "normal" people becoming infected. Indications are that many "regular", young and healthy people may not experience symptoms, but could still suffer long term heart, lung, neurological and other damage, some of which might only become evident in months and years to come.

3) This virus has not been around long enough for us to know just how long term this damage to apparently even asymptomatic people will be. There is evidence to suggest that even young 20 somethings who experience mild to asymptomatic cases of covid19 will be left with disabilities and permanent health conditions, including high risk of stroke, covid triggered diabetes, lung scarring, neurological symptoms, brain damage. Even if this long term damage only effects maybe 10% of cases, that is not something to be lightly unleashed on an otherwise healthy population.

4) What will be the long term effect on the general population and the economy if allowing widespread covid infection leads to a large increase in people suffering permanent disabilities or a virus who's symptoms could flare up again months or years later? We are familiar with viruses such as malaria where recurrences like this are common. There do seem to be signs that infection with covid19 can lead to a raft of fibromyalgia type symptoms, like long term debilitating fatigue.

5) Following the 1918 influenza pandemic there was an epidemic of Encephalitis lethargica and while still not proved conclusively there are many who consider it to have been triggered by the influenza outbreak. Several researchers today studying the neurological effects of covid19 posit that the virus is causing similar effects in a substantial number of those infected and could trigger similar disease further down the line. Until we know more about covid19 and what it can do to the body it would be prudent to do all we can to contain the spread of the virus and prevent people from becoming infected.

To be clear, I am not saying that therefore we should be in lockdown for the next decade. I am saying that we need to be extremely cautious with the temptation to say lets just have all the lower risk young and healthy people get the virus and see if it burns out that way. In trying to formulate what I would call a longer term survival strategy of living with covid19 we need to think carefully how to balance avoiding infection, restricting the spread and of course caring for people's psychological and economic well being. Achieving herd immunity though may not be the panacea many hoped it could be.

Getting education out of the box

I see a lot of very stressed people around me. Parents worried that their kids are going to be lifelong delinquents because school isn't able to teach in the usual way. Parents worried that their children are doomed to failure because 5th grade or 8th grade or even 1st grade this year was for many something of a write off. Teachers convinced that if their pupils do not complete this years' coursework and matriculation exams their students have no academic future and no possibility for gainful employment.

So they are trying to keep things normal. Give kids the same usual pages of their maths workbooks to complete. Give out the usual written assignments, whether or not there is bandwidth for teachers to adequately explain to the pupils what is expected of them. Parents pressuring their children, or being pressured by teachers to pressure their children, to keep up with their studies, with their homework, with their projects and exams business as usual, as if the world hadn't been turned upside down.

I don't say this to dismiss any of these concerns or to critique parents or teachers or anyone else who is concerned that children will not be learning because schools are either closed or face constant disruption from outbreaks and quarantines, not to mention that even when open their functioning is impeded by covid restrictions.

This situation is not good. I can say it no more simply than that. It is not good and it may not improve for a long time.

Attempting to just keep on keeping on as though nothing is different, that seems to me to be a recipe for more stress and more anxiety at a time when there is more than enough of that around already.

Please don't misunderstand, routine is important, learning is important. But recognising our dramatically altered circumstances and adapting how we approach both of these is no less important a life lesson.

Much as we like to maintain our regular schedules, sometimes, even without an apocalyptic global pandemic, life will throw us curve balls. Learning to roll with those punches, seeing our parents, teachers and role models adjust to this altered reality is as much an education as reading, writing and long multiplication.

In the midst of a global emergency we need to be focusing on survival, not worrying that a few months of disrupted formal education will damage our kids futures.

I hear a lot of people saying that kids aren't learning anything this year. In many countries and in many schools, with all the good will in the world, distance learning isn't always functioning well. And even if it is, it isn't always the best plan for many students, not everyone learns in this way for all kinds of reasons.

It seems like academically the covid months, maybe years, are going to be a write off to some extent/ There is going to be continued disruption from outbreaks, quarantines, activities that can't take place, restrictions on school life due to the situation - whichever way you slice it this is not going to be a regular school year.

Priority unfortunately I think needs to be on keeping kids as mentally stable and happy as possible, keeping them engaged with learning in some form, even if it isn't conventional or curriculum based, is of course all the better. Judging learning by regular school standards in such an unpredictable and unprecedented situation seems to be like a recipe for added stress on both pupils and teachers, and setting them up for failure and recriminations.

The other priority is of course enabling parents to work. At the moment the prime role of school is to keep younger kids occupied (ie childcare) so that parents can keep the economy functioning.

At the end of the day keeping the economy functioning, keeping kids and their families healthy, that has to be tops. Learning can be caught up when Iy"H this crisis is resolved somehow. I realise this isn't a popular perspective, but I do think someone needs to instill this in Education Ministries the world over over.

The state of the global economy means that money is tight everywhere, but budgets for WiFi infrastructure, equipping the poorest students with smartphones and/or laptops or notebooks and setting up strong internet in schools seems to be areas that governments should be investing in so that learning can continue remotely as much as possible and so reduce the need for in person classroom time and create a new distance learning routine that will help pupils to maintain as sense of normalcy even if they are in quarantine, become infected or there is a lockdown in their area.

Targets will not be met with conventional schooling methods at the moment. There needs to be more creative out of the box thinking about learning in other ways, whether that means more Brain Pop type online options, zoom classes, kahoots type games, telephone tutoring, production of new programming on Educational TV - learning comes in all shapes and forms.

Anything that helps to keep young brains curious, creative, learning new things during the current crisis, that is a good thing, even if what they are studying isn't necessarily part of the core curriculum. I realise that to many unschooling is a dirty word, but I think that in the present situation it has many concepts that can help maintain learning at a time when conventional schooling is problematic for so many.

Pressure to shoehorn conventional curriculum studies in to a very unconventional situation, that is not necessarily going to be helpful, only adding to stresses already faced by families and teachers alike.

Coronatine

Coronaroutine on an average Tuesday evening:

Farmer calls to let us know from a safe distance that he's delivered a box of fresh dates and figs straight from the Jordan Valley to our door.

Wait a few minutes, throw on a mask in case I meet my neighbours (who never smiled back even in pre-mask days) and discover that we also have a box of olive oil, natural dried pineapple and oatmeal from another local supplier. Today's online grocery shop.

Loud animated chatter and laughter from our big son's room. He's on a zoom to his class and some non-school friends with a football themed Kahoots activity he designed.

The littlest kids are outside building an airport for two massive polystyrene gliders under the guidance of our middle son, riding his bike around them in circles and calling out advice and critiques.

On the dining room table there are a bunch of upside down boxes with assorted painted canvases drying on them. The kids have gotten in to painting mandalas and we are turning in to a craft workshop. They did a batch last week for a relative's birthday. This week they've made us a welcome sign for the front door, name signs for their rooms and a couple of random designs.

In the lounge I am working through a massive pile of laundry DH has just taken in from drying racks outside. Every so often mid kid dashes in with his arms outstretched in forklifter mode to deliver a stack of folded clothes to the relevant bedroom. "Special laundry delivery service coming through" Then he is back outside again to check on the airport construction project.

In the kitchen there is not a banana bread or sourdough loaf in sight. We do have home roasted peanuts, several melons of different varieties and copious quantities of peaches, plums and cucumbers though. Yesterday's farmer's market delivery. The kids are making swift work of it all.

DH is working at the table while a few chairs over our oldest is joining a zoom rehearsal for a community musical that earlier this year had been planned to be staged early this June/July. Performance date is now anyone's guess but the team continue with spirited online rehearsals. This evening's song seems particularly appropriate. I don't know if we're "growing success" but we did plant a new rose bush last week and it is flowering.

Every bursted bubble has a glory!
Each abysmal failure makes a point!
Every glowing path that goes astray,
Shows you how to find a better way.
So every time you stumble never grumble.
Next time you’ll bumble even less!
For up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses of success!
Oh yes!
Grow the roses!
Those rosy roses!
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!
(spoken)Yes I know but he wants it to float. It will!
For every big mistake you make be grateful!
Here, here!
That mistake you’ll never make again!
No sir!
Every shiny dream that fades and dies,
Generates the steam for two more tries!
(Oh) There’s magic in the wake of a fiasco!
Correct!
It gives you that chance to second guess!
Oh yes!
Then up from the ashes, up from the ashes grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Those rosy roses!
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!
Disaster didn’t stymie Louis Pasteur!
No sir!
Edison took years to see the light!
Right!
Alexander Graham knew failure well; he took a lot of knocks to ring that
bell!
So when it gets distressing it’s a blessing!
Onward and upward you must press!
Yes, Yes!
Till up from the ashes, up from the ashes grow the roses of success.
Grow the ro
Grow the ro
Grow the roses!
Grow the ro
Grow the ro
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses of success!
Grow the ro
Grow the ro
Grow the roses!
Those rosy ro
Those rosy ro
Those rosy roses!
From the ashes of disaster, grow the roses of success!
Start the engines!
Success!
Batten the hatches!
Success!
Man the shrouds!
Lift the anchor!
Success!