Did you know that it is a faux pas to accept a gift when it is first offered, that you must wait until the giver offers it at least three times?

Did you know that if you finish all the food on your plate your host might be insulted as it is a sign that you did not get enough to eat?

Did you know that if your host serves you a full cup of tea instead of half a cup, it means he wants you to leave?

If you never heard of these rules of etiquette, you are not a discourteous boor. You simply do not live in China, Kazakhstan, or Korea, where these customs are understood and practiced. Every society has its own rules, and people who are brought up within it know them intuitively. An outsider is clueless and, although well-intentioned, will seem impolite.

Pesach alone? By yourself? Just your immediate family? No grandparents, no cousins, no guests? No grandchildren to ask the Ma Nishtana? How weird? Nobody could imagine that happening. But this year, it actually did, and many of us were surprised to find it an overall good experience.

Young Couples Stayed Home

Thousands of young couples who did not expect to be leading their own Seder for another few years found themselves leading one this year. For some, it was hard to believe. “You mean I have to clean the refrigerator, kasher the oven and the sink, cover the counters, and cook!? You mean I have to buy pots and pans and every kind of kitchen utensil? Help! Impossible!” Next came the frantic phone calls to Mommy and the Star-K.

It’s hard to believe that here we are in May of 2020 and no child in Baltimore is in school – from kollel members to teenage yeshiva boys to girls whose seminary year in Israel was aborted, all the way down to kindergarteners and preschoolers in playgroup. It’s almost like science fiction, a world turned upside down! This is completely unexpected, so schools were caught completely unprepared.

To find out how the new arrangements are working out, I spoke to a handful of teachers, parents, and students. It is not possible to generalize, of course, because each school is dealing with the situation in its own way, and within each school, the teachers are not the same. While I got many varied responses, the one point that was clear across the board is that each family is different. What works for one family may not work for another. Moreover, the situation is evolving as time goes on.

We are in the season of Yetzias Mitzrayim, when we talk about leaving Egypt and slavery and gaining freedom. Sometimes people experience their own personal Mitzrayim. But when one chooses to rise above their circumstances, however troubled, and, instead of giving up and blaming their failures on their past, makes a better future, this essentially is their own private Yetzias Mitzrayim

I had the privilege of interviewing Mrs. Faigy Rabinowitz, the wife of Rabbi Pinchas Rabinowitz, director of Bikur Cholim. Faigy is an LCPC-licensed mental health counselor and an example of someone who experienced a Yetzias Mitzrayim of her own. She went from growing up in an orphanage in Meah Shearim to living a fulfilling life as a wife, mother, and successful professional in Baltimore.

In a mother’s womb, twins had a conversation.

One asked the other, “Do you believe in life after delivery?”

The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”

“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”

The second said, “I don’t know, but it will be lighter than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”

I took two books out of the RYS library on the same day. They happened to be about the same topic – children who escaped from Germany right before the war – although one is fiction and one is non-fiction. I found them both riveting. 

The topic is especially interesting to me, because both my parents came from Germany and managed to escape before World War II. My parents left with their parents and siblings, but they could have easily been the main characters in these books, who were alone.

Recently I read another book from the RYS library. This book deals with a completely different topic, a yeshiva bachur with mental illness, but it has a similar theme.