The last 13 months, encompassing Corona and a third and fourth Israeli election, have been just plain creepy. Even the weather has been weird, with the coldest post-Pesach week I can remember in 35 years.

Well, thanks to the efforts of our excellent prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, we seem to have tackled Corona. Through his efforts at badgering the CEO of Pfizer, who received phone calls from Netanyahu 30 times, most Israelis have been vaccinated already, and our numbers have fallen from 70,000 actively sick Corona patients on February 10, to 3,300 as of yesterday (April 12). Most of the actively ill are people who refused the vaccination.

My husband and I recently visited the village of Peki’in, 40 minutes from our home in the Galil. It was incredibly moving to meet Margalit Zinati, the 86-year-old lone surviving Jew of Peki’in, and to visit the cave where some speculate Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai hid from his Roman oppressors. I love that every single corner of Israel not only has such a wealth of geopolitical and religious history but that we feel a genuine spiritual connection and link to the Land we now call home.

We usually do a lot of hiking on Chol Hamoed. My darling wife Chana is an avid fitness enthusiast, while I try to play the good husband and tag along and try to enjoy myself (or at least pretend to enjoy myself) as much as possible. Well, I guess my acting isn’t as good as I thought, and after several years of this itinerary, she told me that I needn’t shlep along anymore, and we could find other activities to enjoy together.

Have you ever blushed? Have you ever experienced “butterflies” in your stomach? Have you ever felt your heart racing out of excitement or fear?

These common occurrences are undeniably physical phenomena. Yet their underlying causes are not physical but emotional. Might there be other physical phenomena, even illnesses, whose true, underlying causes also reside in the world of our emotions?

Many of us would, understandably, reject such a possibility. Our mindset is a Western one. What is observable by the senses and empirically verifiable is legitimate. What isn’t isn’t. Moreover, the mind and the body are two separate entities. Emotions may be responsible for emotional illnesses. My back pain, however, is caused by a structural abnormality, my irritable bowel by inflammation, my chronic fatigue by….well, nobody really knows but certainly not by my inner world of feelings.

The month between Purim and Pesach abounds with excitement and anticipation as families prepare for Seder night. By rosh chodesh Nisan, mothers in our community are readying their homes at an impressive speed for a meaningful and joyous chag. And this year’s calendar means many will be turning the corner full-throttle into Shabbos Hagadol. It’s that auspicious time when spring thaw and erev-Pesach buzz are in the air, but it can be difficult to savor the moment with family while checklists grow and time dwindles. Instead of bringing in Yom Tov for a smooth landing, it is easy to find ourselves out of gas and struggling.

The following is a stream of thoughts and impressions on the loss of our Rav Sheftel, zt”l, which is still so fresh and real. Harav Sheftel Meir ben Harav Naftali Halevy Neuberger was a Legend of a man, a Lion for all of klal Yisrael, and a Leader for his yeshiva, Yeshivas Ner Yisroel of world renown. I was privileged to call myself a talmid of his for close to 24 years, during which time he made an indelible and everlasting impression on me along with thousands upon thousands of talmidim around the world.

If I have learned anything from teaching middle school for the last 12 years here in Dallas, it is that we live in an age of superlatives. Nothing is just nice, it is “amazing.” If it’s unpleasant, it is “tragic.” With all the emoting and words that are causally tossed around, I am left to wonder what word might describe what Texas went through the week of Parshas Teruma. “Devastating” is a contender, as are “traumatizing” and “crippling.” Perhaps I will land on the all-time favorite term used by my students, “epic.”

 Well, here we go. I’ve started making my Pesach lists as I sit here eating Purim chocolates, which I should have given away or thrown out but of course didn’t. Has a year gone by already? This has been the fastest year yet. I’d like to blame it on COVID which kept us constantly moving from one thing to the next. Maybe I’m just getting old because I’ve always heard older people talk this way about how time flies. Nah, I’ll just blame it on COVID.       

It seems that, along with all the other hardships of COVID, travel has become distinctly unpleasant. Reading horror stories of frum Jews being thrown off flights on such airlines as Delta, Frontier, Spirit, and JetBlue leaves one to wonder whether their deplaning was precipitated by legitimate safety infractions, COVID-induced hysteria, or anti-Semitism. While the possibility of anti-Semitism is distressing in the extreme, at this point, it is hard to tell. But whatever the situation, polite and considerate behavior while on board is always in place and can prevent trouble. Here, a few of Baltimore’s frequent fliers share their travel experiences, opinions, and common sense tips on etiquette.

It’s that time of year. I live in Ramat Beit Shemesh with my husband and four children and try to visit my parents in Miami once a year, around winter vacation. I book a trip for January 17 to February 2 for me and my baby. It’s a direct flight: $745 for the two of us. Awesome! As I prepare to leave, my mother is admitted to the hospital for emergency gallbladder surgery. I will be able to be with her – a perfect “coincidence.”