I write this piece late on our Pesach edition deadline day. For me, writing has never been easy and I always seem to have a myriad conflicting and sometimes confusing thoughts flying through my head when sitting down to write. Although not a perfect parallel, I often like to compare the process of writing to the act of davening Shemoneh Esrei (the silent Amidah) as both require real concentration, intense focus, and clear thinking. However, with both, it’s so hard to achieve that clarity and not be distracted by all that is going on both in the world, in our personal lives, and within one’s head. The dual acts of trying to concentrate enough to both daven with a clear head and attempt to write decent prose seems to have the exact opposite effect on the brain, as it sometimes becomes even harder to concentrate and do either successfully. Although I will say that davening is a bit easier because at least you have the text in front of you. With writing from scratch, that is not the case.

So as I sit here and struggle to ignore the beeps, messages, emails, requests all flooding in, I will keep it short and sweet.

I want to give a big yasher koach and thank you to our dedicated, devoted and growing staff and contributors for working so hard over these past few weeks as the paper has grown larger with the big pre-Pesach editions. I also want to say thank you to our dynamic advertisers—whether advertising weekly, monthly, seasonally, or even just for the big yom tov editions—who are our full partners in The Jewish Link’s continued growth and success. And lastly, to our readers and the communities we serve whose continued growth, creativity, acts of chesed, and so much more, always inspire me and our staff. My co-publisher, partner, and friend, Mendy (Mark) Schwartz, and I both feel privileged to have a small hand in our communities’ growth.

Last but not least, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to the many in our readership, both within and without, who read the article I published on the Bayit Association two weeks ago on the cover of our paper and emailed, texted, called, donated or came up to me in person about it. My co-founders and I were really quite taken by the varied and nearly universally positive responses, feedback and donations that came in. We look forward to sharing more after Pesach.