People are looking at their lives and asking themselves, does this work for me?Does what I have always done feed me? Nourish me? Allow me to be who I want to be in the world?

As I sit down to write this reflection, I am struck by the dichotomies that have become an everyday occurrence in this past year. What does it mean to put on a mask on Purim when we have spent the entire year masked? What does it mean to be showing more of ourselves when most of us have seen into each other’s homes virtually? We’ve been into the homes of our bosses, our colleagues, our therapists, and even our clergy, where we probably would never have been invited physically.

It’s been quite a year…. some of us have lost jobs or our livelihoods, some of us have been sick, far too many of us have we have lost loved ones and had to grapple with how to mourn without community, and we have struggled with how to be there from afar for those who mourn.

Beginning on the second night of Passover, Jews begin the counting of the Omer. We count every evening for 49 days; a full seven weeks, and on the 50th evening we celebrate the holiday of Shavuot.  Shavuot is the holiday in which we commemorate receiving the Torah - the ten commandments on Mount Sinai. We celebrate our acceptance of the contract when we collectively said, "Yes!" 

As I prepare for Passover, I think about what it means to me this year and I notice that I have no idea. It feels so different than years past. We’ll have a small seder without many of the dishes we usually make, our friends won’t be gracing our table, and for the first time in her life - our youngest daughter will not be coming home. 

I personally have always had a hard time with the celebration and the Holiday of Purim. To start, I never enjoyed going around all over town delivering Mishloach Manos (baskets of food to others) the drinking, or the drunk drivers on the road. The story itself is a violent one. A man kills his wife because she refuses to put on a show for his friends. He selects a new wife who has no choice but to marry him. One group of people blame another group for the problems of the time, leading to a civil war, where the people kill each other in order to stay alive.

As many of you know on June 25th, 2017 I got injured and have been suffering from PCS (post-concussion syndrome). As I struggled to figure out how to take care of the symptoms, I finally took two months to heal, reflect, retreat in order to come up with a plan for going forward.

“There is a knife sticking out of my heart and a constant trickle of blood comes out… every so often the knife gets moved, twisted and the blood gushes out. I do my job at work, take care of what I need to at home, do the shopping and the errands and marvel that no one sees that I am leaving a trail of blood behind me.” This is what a woman at a support group meeting said in explaining what it felt like when her child didn’t let her know that she had given birth.

It has been 9 months since I was hit in the head through no fault of my own. I have been suffering from Post Concussion Syndrome. My symptoms creep up often and I have no control over when they come, how long or how often they occur. What this situation has birthed is a new me, someone who like our ancestors has picked up and moved into a new unknown land.