Will They Believe You?

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this blog is to practice time travel at the Shabbat table... Please print and share...
Here's your counting down to Passover.

Last week we turned on the way-back machine.

This week, let's travel to the future.

It's the year 2060. Your (great?) grandchild is learning about Covid-19 in History class.

He or she phones you up and says,

"Hi Bubbe/Zeide! I'm doing a research report on the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic! My mom said you actually lived through it! Is that true? Can I interview you for my report?"
So when the interview begins, your grandchild or great-grandchild has three questions:

1. "What was it like? Was it scary? Is it true that everyone panicked?"
2. "What was the worst thing about it?"
3. "What was the best thing about it?"

2 questions for your table:

A. Based on your experience until now, how would you answer these questions?
B. How do you imagine or hope you'll answer them 40 years from now?

Family Fun Idea - On Sunday, make a video of each member of your family answering the above questions. 40 years from now your grandchildren will love it.


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Pesach is around the corner and once again we are offering our downloadable Pesach Kit of ideas, activities, games, and miscellaneous wisdom. Free thank you gift for your small donation - Click here. 

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i to the Power of One?

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this email is to get that Shabbat table conversation out of quarantine... Please print and share...

Are you counting down to Pesach?

Let's turn the way-back machine waaaay back. All the way to high school.

You'd rather not? Bear with me. I'd like to turn it to high school algebra.

Specifically the unit on imaginary numbers.

Ring a bell?

I'll give you a hint: what's the square root of -1?

Coming back to you?

I'm guessing that with a little practice it will come flooding back, in a rush of pure joy of course.

You see, one thing I left off of this week's mid-week email (7 Ways to Help Someone) is:

#8 - Find a kid who is distance-learning and offer to help them with their math.

First question for your table: What else should be added to that list?

Speaking of altruism, last night I heard the following thought:

Covid-19 probably began with a single person becoming infected on November 17. (We don't know what he did — did he get too close to an infected bat? Did he do something imprudent? But it seems likely to have been a single person.)

Let's contemplate this thought:

Due to the actions of a single person, the entire world has been turned upside-down. 

Question for your table: If that's the potential damage from a single person, does the same potential apply to the good of a single person? Or is this potential limited to the proverbial rotten-apple?

Your answer should be double-spaced, 12-point font.... (sorry, parenting a brood of distance-learners is taking its toll....)

Shabbat Shalom 


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7 Ways to Help Others Make it Through this Crisis

The purpose of this blog is to turn lemons into lemonade... Please share...

1. Find someone staying home in fear – buy them a bag of groceries.

2. Offer an older person to run errands for them.

3. Call someone who is isolated from friends/family and talk to them.

4. Call a senior residence and offer a video class/chat on a topic you know about.

5. Order takeout from a local restaurant.

6. Offer a single-parent to watch their kids so they can go to work.

7. Order creative interactive games for families you know with kids stuck at home.

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Kavod-19

 s

The purpose of this blog is to release dinner table conversation from quarantine... Please share...

Strange Fedbellows

Purim may have passed, but it's still in the air (and for some of us, around our waistlines). 

In the spirit of last week's world mask message, we can start to peel back the mask, looking for hidden messages.

The world brought to its knees by an invisible force.Question for your table: For those stuck inside because their schools, shuls and almost every other activity have shut down - is there something deeper to meditate on here?

Let's first lay out seven facts:

1. There is worry and even panic.
2. The coming storm is invisible and quite unpredictable.
3. It's name Covid-19 sounds a lot like "kavod-19", which is Hebrew for "the honor of 19".
4. The threat is global.
5. It's shutting down shuls and schools.
6. It's shutting down sports, theaters, restaurants and excursions.
7. Korea has suffered only a fraction of the average fatalities, not by massive quarantines but by massive testing, making an interesting comparison to Italy (also see this) (for some, bringing back memories of an earlier Korea-Italy match). This proves that indiscriminate quarantines is not (in theory) the only rational policy response.

As far as I know, the number 19 (like all numbers) has a very specific Jewish symbolism:

1. Prayer (because the traditional Amida consists of 19 blessings).
2. The various idolatries that people often get sucked into (because the Torah warns us 19 times not to stray after "other gods").

And now we have a worldwide disease that sounds a lot like, "kavod-19" - the honor of the 19.

These are some facts. 

Question for your table - how do you interpret them?

Further food for thought - this and this (advanced: this, this)
​

Shabbat Shalom 


PS - A nice Jewish high school student in Seattle has created a basic and useful COVID-19 tracking site.

PPS - Are you counting down to Pesach?

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When the World Wears a Mask

The purpose of this blog is to reveal something hidden at the Shabbat table... Please share.

(Note - this post was written and emailed on Friday March 6 but somehow the blog version didn't get published on time.)

In case you didn't notice it, Purim is nearly upon us.

How could you not notice it? Everywhere you look, it seems that the whole world is getting into the Purim spirit.

All the images you see now from Chile to China, Japan, India, Italy, Russia, Arabia - everyone's wearing masks! How is it that even our sworn enemies are getting into the Purim spirit?

Some countries are even adding it to their money!!!!

When all the world's wearing a mask
You might as well go ahead and ask:
If all the world's a stage,
As Bill Shakespeare mused,
Where, then, is the script-writer, set-designer and director,
And why are the actors so confused?

Three questions for your table:

What are the chances that we're living in a virtual reality simulation?
If we are living in a virtual reality, is a virus a software bug?
If it were possible to find out/prove it, would you want to know?


Shabbat Shalom and

Happy Purim!

PS - Do it, do it....click the pic...

PPS - Who are you calling a fraidy-cat?

PPPS: With one easy trick, Amazon will turn that shopping into a $500 donation to JSLI, helping keep our computers humming and programs running. Simply use Amazon Smile, and designate Jewish Spiritual Literacy as your charity — for the same cost to you.

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