This is indeed a challenging time. There is no way around that. Whether it’s people actually fighting an illness, parents struggling to keep their kids educated and entertained, trying to find household essentials and to say nothing of our concern for the economy, our jobs etc.

However, with all that said, I wanted to take this opportunity to publicly express an enormous thank you to the leaders of our community who are going above and beyond to keep us safe, healthy, educated, entertained, engaged and sane. This applies to our government, public servants, councilmen and women, managers, utility workers, police and firefighters etc.

I want to especially focus here on our religious leaders in the schools and shuls. The way our principals have been handling this crisis, with achdut and forward thinking is truly remarkable. Ashreinu ma tov chelkeinu that we have such great leaders. Not only are they leading us, they are leading us together; they are collaborating and thinking of only the greater good.

The same goes for our shul rabbis and the RCBC. This is a challenging time and we can all see how our rabbis are handling everything with care and sensitivity. They are organizing virtual shiurim and heeding the advice of medical experts and ensuring God’s mandate “v’chay bahem” remains of the utmost importance.

This is a difficult time, and things may yet get much worse, but I humbly suggest we take this opportunity to acknowledge how lucky we are to live here right now with the great leaders we have.

Thank you so much.