What Does Reconnecting Mean? By Melissa Dubinsky When this theme was introduced in early summer, this essay was ready to write itself. I had just returned from a very satisfying trip to visit family in the US, Israel was reopening, you could finally greet people and see their entire faces, and the sun was shining every day. People were returning to shul and thus reconnecting closer with Hashem as well as the kehillah. Truly, we were rapidly reconnecting with the world. But I come today, in late summer, without feeling very reconnected in the
“how do I get back to the old country to see family.” I believe it is healthier now to form first thoughts of “who can I reach out to more frequently within my current circle.” Over the generations, people who left the family unit could not expect to see them again, whether they traveled to the next town or across the world. They carried within them the essence of their families and their communities, through maintaining traditions and naming their children the old family names. Today, we have been blessed Over the generations, people who left the family unit with the ability to could not expect to see them again, whether they keep one foot in traveled to the next town or across the world. each world, but maybe it is time ways that I had forecast in the spring. to consider more deeply how our Since I am a forward-looking person, I parents and grandparents handled have thought about how to define separation. There is a scene in “Fiddler “reconnectedness” in light of the new On the Roof” where Anatevka is being reality. To me, it means strengthening dismantled, and two enemies, finding ties with family and friends whom I out they are both going to America, can see, and learning to accept that look forward to meeting up there. Why those who are far away will be is this? – because they recognize that connected by technology only. I know two enemies become family when many people whose first thoughts are removed to a foreign country. 24 | Rosh Hashanah 2021
