Bulletin
Celebrating the Joy of Judaism, Embracing all Jews. SUMMER 2020/TAMMUZ-AV 5780
THE MASK
Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg Rarely, if ever, have we looked forward to a summer as much as this one of 2020. After what we have been through this spring, the summer has to be better! The spring of 2020 will go down in the history books…and not for anything good! We were challenged medically, economically, politically, and socially — one right after the other. But they did not come right after the other — they all came together as one, creating a feeling of fear, anxiety, and for some, outright despair. Now that spring is over, summer is here, and we can hope that the threats from spring can be left behind. But there is one thing that stops us from doing that: the MASK. There are some who say that wearing a mask is no longer necessary. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Dr. Anthony Fauci say masks are necessary; I take their word for it! Some refuse to wear masks because they consider them “unmanly.” All I know is: Zorro wore a mask! Batman wore a mask! Spiderman wore a mask! The Lone Ranger wore a mask! If it was good enough for them… it’s good enough for me. And it’s not just for me — it’s for the people who might come near me. It has now been shown that wearing a mask keeps people farther away. Massimo Marchiori, an Italian computer scientist, attached sensors to himself as he recently walked through the streets of Venice. He found that when wearing a mask people stayed farther away from him. When he took off the mask, they felt comfortable getting closer to him. That is in no one’s best interest when the need for social distancing is so crucial. The only problem is…we can’t go on like this forever. That is not the nature of a human being. In Dr. Marchiori’s words: “We are drawn to one another. We do things more efficiently – shop, pass soccer balls – when we work together.” Perhaps Ecclesiastes put it best when he wrote, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor. For if either of them falls, the one will lift up his companion. But woe to the one who falls when there is not another to lift him up. Furthermore, if two lie down together they keep warm, but how can one be warm alone? And if one can overpower him who is alone, two can resist him. A cord of three strands is not quickly torn apart.”
So when will we be able to take off the masks and be back to our natural selves? Be back together again? No one knows for sure, but perhaps Jewish tradition provides some guideline. In the Torah, the Day of Atonement is always called Yom Kippurim. This name, Yom Kippurim, led the sages to make a very strange pun. They said Yom Kippurim can be read as “Yom K’Purim — This day is like Purim.” Yom Kippur is like Purim? It is anything but like Purim. Yom Kippur is for fasting; Purim is for feasting. Yom Kippur is for confronting one’s mortality and confessing one’s sins; Purim is for clowning and making merry. What on earth can these two days possibly have in common that our sages would make such a strange pun — Yom K’Purim — this day is like Purim? A great rabbi once answered that the two days have one thing in common: the wearing of a mask. On Purim we put one on; on Yom Kippurim we take one off. Yom Kippur is a day for facing ourselves as we really are, no secrets: without bluff, without pretense, without any cover-ups. No masks! In this historic year we started putting on masks after Purim. Let us hope that we’ll be able to take them off by Yom Kippurim, which will bring in a year fulfilling the words of our prayers: “Ha-baah aleinu l’tovah – which will come upon us for good.”
High Holy Days at Beth Tfiloh Congregation Most years our summers are spent hard at work gearing up for the High Holy Days: arranging the seating plans, working out logistics, planning kids services, writing sermons, and more. This year, we are hard at work coming up with creative ways to connect, inspire, and grow together safely. We are closely monitoring Baltimore County’s reopening progress and considering multiple possibilities for in-person High Holy Day services, as well as pre-holiday programming and learning, so that we can be together as much as is safely possible as we begin the New Year. We will share more information with you as soon as possible – as soon as we know, you will know!