Let’s party like it’s 2020!

February 12, 2021 in Hazzan Asa Fradkin

The pandemic was supposed to be 6 weeks long. That’s not scientific fact or some politician’s wishful thinking, it’s just what we told ourselves.

“It’ll be 6 weeks” Then summer came. . “Well the kids HAVE to go back to school in the Fall”

Then it was like “ oh ok this is 1918”

So now we buy masks with our sports teams’ logos and order B’nai Mitzvah masks along with our kippas. When we watch Television shows with characters unmasked in public it feels wrong and strange.

I have an admission to make. I’m not getting used to it. I love people and I love working with them in person, especially the kids. Feeling their energy and sharing new things. Getting razzed because I make lame jokes or don’t know their current slang feels good. It feels like being part of a family.

I’m still getting an amazing opportunity to work with four different choral groups this year. Three of which will perform for Purim. That’s the Shir Atid Youth Chorus, Gesher Chorale and High School Chorale.

They are sending me funny videos of them singing our Purim parodies for Megillah madness and it’s giving me a little spark.

But I know we are a craving normalcy, not just me. We all need to embrace our community again and feel whole again.

Sometimes it’s important for us to grieve what we have lost, rather than always making the best of a bad situation. I want to go back to Beth El the way it was before. With hundreds of people crowded into a kiddush and kids running wild in the halls, giggling in the coat room.

That’s OUR community and I am more appreciative of it everyday it is taken from us. So let’s take a moment to think of the last moment we had like that, last Purim. We will get there again.

This Megillah madness we are honoring our fight with Covid with the theme of Bravery and Resilience. Everyone is encouraged to dress up as a frontline worker to honor their sacrifices.

As we mark a year of the pandemic let’s also see this Purim- as we do in the Megillah- as a world flipped upside down.

Last year we began Covid in the shadows up Purim, this year we will release it. We will get vaccinated and by Fall the kids will again run the halls, giggle in the coat room will go back to school!!!!!!!!

Hag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom

Hazzan Fradkin