Not Locked Up During Lockdown: Appreciating the Value of Volunteers

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Not Locked Up During Lockdown: Appreciating the Value of Volunteers

Rising Trustee of the Mayberg Foundation Yacova Mayberg explains why she, as part of a group of Israeli and international participants on a preparatory gap year program, went door to door in an Arab village during the climax of the global pandemic, offering support. The answer lies, she relates, in the “culture of the state of Israel and the value it places on volunteering.”

“I feel blessed to be involved with the Mayberg Foundation, which values collective effort and foundational Judaism,” she continues. “This means having an impact on communities we care about and on the world through our instilled Torah lens. I have had some incredible, expansive volunteer opportunities this past year, which further shape my understanding of philanthropy.”

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The seeds of Jewish community are planted on the front door

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The seeds of Jewish community are planted on the front door

MyZuzah Director Alex Shapero writes that in the wake of COVID-19, MyZuzah ”has managed to weather the inhospitable climate of the past year, and thanks to some introspection, quick pivoting and collaboration with fellow educators, has not only emerged into a beautiful flower, but has encouraged a field of other seedlings to flourish.”

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The need for Jewish educational continuity

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The need for Jewish educational continuity

Hebrew has two ways of posing one of the most basic questions we can ask – “why?” One is מדוע (madua) and the other is למה (lama). Madua, shares the same root as the word for “science,” implying a more empirical response. Lama, can be read as ל-מה (l’ma) – towards what end, asking what we are meant to learn from that which we are asking about.

During the COVID-19 crisis, public health officials are crucially asking the first question: madua? They seek to understand the cause of the virus in order to slow its spread, develop a vaccine, and prevent its recurrence. This is the essential first response.

However, while living with this different reality, many who are not healthcare workers cannot help but ask the second question: lama? What lessons can we learn from this pandemic? While not a reason for the occurrence, is there some collective meaning we can take away which will serve us beyond these uncertain times?

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It’s All About Relationships...Especially After a Pandemic

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It’s All About Relationships...Especially After a Pandemic

I write this sitting in a Hilton Rochester hotel room in what is known as “Med City,” Rochester, Minnesota. My wife Susie and I have been in this same room since February 10 when we arrived to enter the world-famous Mayo Clinic kidney transplant center. That amounts to more than 90 days, isolated from most family and friends. We were sheltering-in-place for weeks before the rest of the world, living like John and Yoko during their “bed-in” protest for peace at the Hilton Amsterdam in 1969.

The good...scratch that...the great news is that Susie’s new kidney - she named it “Sydney” - is working magnificently. When we arrived here, her function was around 13%. It is now 75%. Twice as good as mine. I donated my “spare” to a lovely woman in Florida, whose husband is a Southern Baptist minister who studied at seminary with my friend Pastor Rick Warren, and who, after Googling me, wrote in an email: “I feel so blessed to have a Jewish kidney!”

So, for the most part, we have been alone all this time. Yet, here’s the thing. We are hardly “alone.” We are surrounded daily by our kids and grandkids, our cousins, our friends, and our colleagues who call, who write, who send, who never let a day go by without letting us know how much they care for and love us. Much of this contact has come through the amazing CaringBridge platform where they see daily updates on our progress. We have come to depend on these virtual connections that lift our spirits. We have been alone....together.

Who knew that the entire Jewish world would learn this same lesson, simultaneously, across denominations and heretofore impermeable institutional borders?

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