Two Writers Send Passover Messages

My friend Mendel Horowitz has a lovely essay on the op-ed page of the New York Times today.
It's about one memorable Passover with his wife's bubby, her grandmother, a survivor.
You could/should click on the link right here: 
 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/opinion/passover.html?referringSource=articleShare

Mendel is a New York guy, who moved his family to Jerusalem. He is a husband, father, rabbi, psychotherapist, volunteer first-responder, runner, Mets fan and soccer buff, and also very much a writer, currently working on a book about Orthodox Jewish men, group therapy and faith.

We get together for lunch once a year or so when he comes back to Long Island. I love his stories about the male group sessions, or how, when he responds to a crisis with the medics, he never knows if the victim(s) will be speaking Hebrew or English or Arabic – “and it doesn’t matter.”

Two years ago at this time his article on Passover and baseball was published in the Jewish Journal.  
 
https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/opinion/232675/why-is-this-sport-different/

I can only imagine how many Seders this evening will be asking why this year is different.
One answer might be that Jeff McNeil should be swinging at the first pitch and smacking it into left-center field to set up a lead for Jacob DeGrom. I suspect there are deeper answers.
                             *    *    *
Another writer, my classmate from junior high and Jamaica High in Queens, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, is in the midst of a glorious career. She issues a personal newsletter from time to time, and in her current one she includes a snarky political cartoons and photos. 

For the why-is-this-year question, and how we can make the most of it, she reproduces a poem by Kitty O'Meara. (It has been attributed to Kathleen O’Meara, a writer of the 19th Century, but the Web says it is by Kitty O'Meara, a contemporary, different person. Thanks to reader Paul Rerecich for the update.) 

And People Stayed Home by Kitty O’Meara: 
And people stayed home
and read books and listened
and rested and exercised
and made art and played
and learned new ways of being,
and stopped
and listened deeper.
someone meditated
someone prayed
someone danced
someone met their shadow
and people began to think differently
and people healed
and in the absence of people who lived in ignorant ways,
dangerous, meaningless and heartless,
even the earth began to heal
and when the danger ended
and people found each other
grieved for the dead people
and they made new choices
and dreamed of new visions
and created new ways of life
and healed the earth completely
just as they were healed themselves.

               *    *    *
Letty finishes with her holy days wish:  

Wishing you a sweet Passover starting tomorrow night. A happy Easter on Sunday. And a generous Ramadan starting April 24. Stay strong, stay safe, stay home.   – Letty 


“Chag Pesach Sameach"   -- GV

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