The Light At The End Of The Tunnel Looks A Lot Like Love

Last week, because my parents and I were finally vaccinated, I drove north to the Bay Area and got to physically hug my Mother and Father for the first time since January 2020.

Who knew that “physically hug” needs to be specified? Who knew that I would so hunger in my body for that hug?

It has been a dreary and depressing year for us all. And a deadly year for many.

A year ago, in March, my family enjoyed hosting the students, faculty and friends of the Ziegler School for Purim. We gathered in our living room for shacharit services and to read the Megillah, recounting the raucous story of Queen Esther and her uncle, Mordecai. We feasted on a bounteous barbeque and laughed at hilarious shpiels (skits) written and performed by the students. It was a glorious, wonderful day.

And I now think of it as the “Last Happy Occasion.”

The following week we entered into lockdown and isolation. We thought that new arrangement might last a few weeks, maybe a month. But it is now well over a year later, and we have not been able to enjoy in-person gatherings as a school, as a minyan or even in class.

It is Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, all the time.

So much has transpired in this difficult, brutal, challenging year. In our isolation, we mourned the death of over 500,000 Americans and countless others around the world. The failure of the federal government to recognize the enormity of the pandemic compounded the fear and suffering, and many brave people were forced by economic necessity or by their commitment to their community to venture outside their safe shelters to work. These essential people were often the lowest compensated workers, disproportionately People of Color. As usual, they bore the greatest risk on behalf of us all.

We worked hard to muddle through. We threw all our courses online instantly and made the transition work as best we could. We gathered as a school in Zoom town hall meetings and even started monthly meetings for our alumni/ae — now rabbis serving across North America, Europe, Israel and Africa. American Jewish University launched B’Yachad, an expansive set of conversations and classes that has educated and engaged tens of thousands of people on a wide range of contemporary and Jewish topics.

The students rose to new heights of leadership and engagement. They created a structure called Kehilateinu (“our community”) that created a caring outreach to other students, offered evenings of song, online movie nights and electronic holiday celebrations. We launched a voluntary book reading group and a Hesed (compassion) committee.

And our congregations pivoted as well: online services, electronic prayerbooks, adult education, pastoral visits and chaplaincy, all conducted online. And a sad procession of funerals and shiva minyanim, also through Zoom.

But hope is emerging, as evidenced by my trek north and those healing hugs. I was eligible to receive the Moderna vaccine a month ago, and my parents were as well. Breaking through their isolation and our distance felt like the darkness lifting, the light starting to piece through the gloom.

Breaking through their isolation and our distance felt like the darkness lifting.

Entering my father’s home in Sonoma, seeing him sitting in his recliner chair and being able to lean down and hug him felt transformative and redemptive. Isn’t reconciling parents and children the prophetic description of a messianic future? In San Francisco, my Mother introduced me to her cute COVID kitten. We sat on the floor together, laughing as the cat scampered and played. Life doesn’t get better.

The morning’s dawn is finally on its way. The night sky horizon is starting to give way to hesitant light that is offering its first glow. It is the sunrise of healing, of hugging, of coming together in person again — for Shabbat meals, holidays, weekend barbeques. For life.

And, as always, it is powered by love. It was all powered by love. We sheltered at home because we love each other and want to protect each other. We isolated and moved our communities online because we love each other’s health and vitality and we wanted to keep each other well. We mobilized to transform our government from denial and chaos to an informed coordinated response that is turning the tide — because justice is the implementation of love.

I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. And it looks a lot like love.

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson (www.bradartson.com) holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Dean’s Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is Vice President of American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He is also Dean of the Zacharias Frankel College in Berlin, which trains Masorti/Conservative rabbis for Europe.