• Acknowledge those feelings. When my kids are hurt - physically but especially emotionally - I hurt. I can viscerally feel their pain and their heartache. When Nomi asks how many more sleeps until she can go back to school or my kids talk about missing their friends and teachers, my heart breaks a little. I want to fix it. But we need to remember as parents that, even if we could take away the pain, we shouldn’t. Anger, disappointment, grief and upset are all part of the human experience. They are feelings we must manage as adults. They are feelings we are managing, everyday, as adults in the current climate. And it’s crucial that when our kids feel those feelings, we teach them to hold the feelings instead of trying to do away with them. It’s important in those moments to breathe with them, to connect with them, and to acknowledge “yes, you are feeling disappointed. It is SO hard when you can’t get what you want.”
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• Find moments of joy and winning. As our Director of Wellness Inez Tiger reminded our administration team this week, sometimes those moments are as simple as “I got up and got dressed this morning.” But acknowledge those wins. Each night at the dinner table we have been sharing the rose and the thorn of our day, because we need to celebrate the victories, small or big. And do what you can to create those moments of joy and winning. Sit outside. Read a book. Go for a run. Mindfully eat something delicious. On Monday night - even though it was the middle of bedtime and bathtime - I joined a national Rhymation zoom tournament (because it’s important to know, Rabbi Kligfeld was my partner for the game, and we won the first round of the tournament). This meant that my kids went to bed later than usual, and my Pesah cleaning is a little behind. But I had fun. I did something for myself. That night I approached kashering my counters with a new pep in my step.
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• Mark this time. We know that the Israelites were slaves for 400 years. The plagues lasted for somewhere between 2-3 months (feels apropos, no?). The Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years. Each of these milestones is part of the story. Part of the beauty of Pesah is that we tell the story as if we were there - sometimes this feels rote. This year however, you can dig into the story in a different way. Rabbi Chorny posted a beautiful kavanah about the extra drops of wine she will spill tonight as she misses the people around her table, as she honors the doctors, nurses and medical professionals who are battling our current plague, and for the dreams deferred and hopes suspended until life can resume. I have been thinking a lot about the things in life to which we were enslaved - busy schedules and constant overwhelm - and how we maintain a freedom from them once this passes. And for sure, when we sing “Next year in Jerusalem” I think we will all be imagining a vivid future to which we aspire.