We are all very familiar with many a bar mitzvah boy’s speech for this week’s parsha equating Avraham’s journey to the journey that the bar mitzvah boy takes as he embarks on the next part of his life as a Jewish adult who is now obligated in all of the mitzvot. While always beautiful and always fitting, I’d like to propose a different connection, interpretation and message that relates to our modern-day COVID-19 journey.
Just as Avraham had complete and total trust and faith in Hashem when he was told to leave everything and everyone he had ever known and travel to a new land, we too are experiencing much of the same today. In March, out of nowhere, life as we have known it came to an abrupt halt. We were told to change everything that we have known and re-learn how to do all of our simple, everyday tasks all over again. We learned new ways to work, shop, socialize, pray, educate our children, celebrate and grieve. Just like in the time of Avraham when there were many skeptics, today there are too. I, however, have complete and total faith in Hashem that this new journey is a necessary one and that the lessons we have all learned from these last eight months are essential to our future as a people, just as the journey was in the time of Avraham.
What are some of the lessons that we have learned in our journey of this global pandemic? How will we emerge stronger and better on the other side? How will we have changed as individuals and as a community? Personally, I have learned how important the concept of hakarat hatov is and the place for expressing gratitude for what we have each and every day.
I cherish the little things like health, time with my family and having the ability to not stress over the small details. As a self-proclaimed control freak, I now realize that there are just things that are out of my control and that ultimately Hashem runs the world. As a parent with two children living in Israel and two living here, I realize how much I had taken for granted that I could jump on a plane at any time and see my children, attend an IDF tekes for my lone soldiers or just spend a Shabbat. I know now that we can never take anything for granted ever again. These are just some of the personal lessons that I know will remain with me.
What about our schools? As a school administrator who has worked tirelessly to make sure schools could open and open safely, I am in absolute awe of the teachers. Wearing masks and face shields all day is incredibly difficult and uncomfortable. Then there is the planning of lessons for in-person learning while simultaneously planning lessons for children who are at home; simultaneously catching children up who are at all different levels while trying to meet the social emotional needs of each individual student; trying to communicate with parents while trying to take care of themselves and their families…the list goes on and on.
Honestly, I am exhausted just thinking about all they accomplish on any given day. Most people couldn’t accomplish half of what these teachers do. What’s more, they do it with a smile and an enthusiasm that is not to be believed. They do it for your children, for our children. Everything they knew about educating young children changed on a dime last March yet they are going way above and beyond what they ever needed to do, working miracles each and every day. Never could I have predicted that our community teachers could achieve what only superheroes can. They deserve a standing ovation and our never-ending hakarat hatov.
So, as we hear the parsha this Shabbat and we read about one of the most famous journeys of faith in our collective history, let’s look to Avraham’s strength, perseverance, resiliency and bitachon in Hashem to inspire us on our own personal journeys through the pandemic. May Hashem grant all who are sick a refuah shelaima, may the suffering end, and may we arrive at our destination stronger, more appreciative and ultimately more unified than ever.
Jessica Kohn is the early childhood director and founding educator of Ben Porat Yosef.
