WWW: Let me begin by saying thank you so much for joining us; we appreciate your time. I guess we will jump right in to the most pressing thing on everyone’s mind: COVID. You were just inaugurated. How do you think the city has handled COVID so far, and what do you think you can do better in the future as mayor?

Scott: I think that we have really done a good job of handling COVID thus far, under the leadership of the city health commissioner, Dr. Dzirasa, who is doing a fantastic job. But, yes, there’s always room for improvement. We are, first and foremost, going to continue following the advice of the public health professionals. I also want to say that I feel lucky to be mayor of the city that has 11 hospitals. It has Johns Hopkins, which is leading the world in COVID research. We also have University of Maryland Medical System; we are using them as well to help influence what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

We’re going to communicate more frequently with the public, and we’re going to try to be more nimble in sending credible messages out into communities. We need to have the well-respected folks in the neighborhoods, including within the Orthodox Jewish community, carry the message so that it is reaching everyone and so that people understand how important this is and trust us as we move through this very trying time – especially as we prepare for the vaccine rollout.

Chaya Milevsky was born in the Jewish ghetto of Shanghai and moved to Cleveland as a baby, before life took her to Mexico, Israel, Toronto, and ultimately Baltimore. Her husband, Rabbi Dr. Uziel Milevsky, zt”l, a musmach of Ner Israel yeshiva, was the former Chief Rabbi of Mexico and founder/lecturer at Ohr Somayach Toronto. Chaya shared her incredible life story with me.

My mother died in childbirth with me at the age of 30. My father remarried one year and a month later, and I acquired a step-mother. There was a lot of shouting in my house growing up and nothing in the way of love. Through the pain and anguish, I knew that I was different. From the youngest age, I felt a hunger for I didn’t know what. I just knew that I wasn’t like my family.

When I was five-and-a-half, we moved to Cook County, Illinois: dirt road and a house that needed a ladder to get to the second floor. There was a cornfield at my backyard. My favorite color was red. I was a monochromatic kid, a red top, and red sneakers all the time. It was my only stability.

Have you ever heard the expression, “Like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand?” Could it be that we are ostriches when it comes to crime? When we hear a radio news report about a murder in Baltimore, we pretend it has nothing to do with us – although it happened only two miles away. Our heads rest easy in the sand. But when crime creeps closer and closer to our own homes, it becomes harder to be in denial. And when our friends are victims in our own neighborhood, being an ostrich becomes impossible. And it is very scary!

My connection to Tehillim began when I was 12 years old and part of a bas mitzva celebration with six other girls on a Sunday morning at Congregation Agudas Achim Anshe Sphard, in Lower Park Heights. In the faded green play folder I saved from the 50s is a cantata on “The Seven Days of Creation,” written by Rabbi Harry Bolensky. In the cantata, Rabbi Bolensky wrote “King David looked up and sang Hashamayim misaprim kvod Kel, uma’aseh yadav yagid harake’ah, the Heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the sky testifies to the work of His hands.” Because I only had a Sunday School education, I needed the transliterated words. My Hebrew wasn’t good yet, but the message was clear: King David in this psalm said, Look up to G-d and appreciate the beauty He created. That was my first contact with Tehillim.

 My article in the last issue of the Where What When, about a young woman’s experience being hospitalized with COVID, caused some consternation among readers. As a follow-up, and to provide a candid, unrestrained glimpse into hospital life these days, I asked a hospital-employed nurse for an anonymous first-person account of what it is like to take care of a patient load that includes COVID patients.

A distinct memory from my childhood is the many long hours we spent in the car traveling between Connecticut and New York to visit my grandparents. In those days before cell phones, tablets, and other handheld devices – truly the dark ages – there was nothing to do during those long night drives but to...well...sit in the dark. The only entertainment was to look out the window, which, though it may sound dull, was actually magnificent. The sparkling lights of the bridges spanning the vast darkness of water, the other cars and trucks racing to their destinations –  the view was mesmerizing and ever changing. The only constant was the companionship of the moon, which followed me on each journey. I knew I could count on the moon from the minute I left one house to the moment I reached the other.

This is the final installment of “Letters to My Children and Grandchildren.” If you have been following the series, you know that these letters are part of a book of advice for life, based on Pirkei Avos, that I wrote for my children. I have received good feedback from readers and hope that you have been inspired to write your own letters as a legacy to the next generation. If so, then my goal in sharing will have been accomplished.

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Dear Children,

Celebrate simchas and siyumim to their fullest. Each time you celebrate, give proper hakaras hatov (gratitude) to Hashem. Give tzedaka to the less fortunate so they can have simcha as well.

Happiness

In today’s Covid environment, those of our loved ones living in a nursing home or hospitalized are bereft of visits from family and friends. Did you ever wonder how someone in such circumstances interacts with nurses, therapists, and staff when we’re not around? My wife, Rivka Elling, a”h, was resident in King David Nursing and Rehabilitation Center this year, from March 11 until her passing, on September 29. Most of the conversations we had with her centered on matters mundane and routine, with one notable exception: she was very scrupulous in ensuring that the electric Shabbos lights were functional each erev Shabbos.

During shiva, three staff members of King David came to our home to be menachem avel. During this visit, they opened a window on Rivka’s interactions with the staff. For instance, after recovering from a Corona infection sometime in June, she remarked: “G-d loves me. He protected me from the Coronavirus.” I was on the edge of my seat as they went on. It quickly became obvious that she lived on a higher spiritual plane than most. But rather than hearing further from me, read from the pen of Yaffa Citer, below, who works at King David as an occupational therapist:

I was eating a sandwich a while back when, without warning, I suddenly felt a small pebble in my mouth – only it wasn’t a pebble. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was a piece of my molar. I felt around the affected tooth with my tongue and discovered a small crater. I’m one of those women who belong to the petrified-of-the-dentist-No- I’m-NOT-going group. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mind going to the dentist for my biannual teeth cleaning. I’m okay with everything from plaque removal to teeth polishing. I’ve even learned to tolerate – well, put up with – the occasional filling, as long as the dentist has strict instructions about Novocain and my need for it. But this tooth breaking-off episode clearly did not fall into any of those categories.

Our mother's yahrzeit is on 23 Teves; we are grateful to share our memories davka in this issue that comes out on Chanukah. Our mother was liberated from Bergen Belsen just before Chanukah, and always spoke of the great chasdei Hashem that carried her from those horrific times and throughout her blessed life.

On Monday, December 6, the United States Supreme Court heard a landmark case which pits three Jewish families against the Federal Republic of Germany.

The Jewish families live in California, New Mexico, and London, England. They are the heirs of prominent Jewish art dealers who were forced to sell their property to agents of Hermann Goering in 1935. The priceless collection of artwork was in turn presented to Adolph Hitler as a surprise birthday gift. Today, it sits in a museum in Berlin with no mention of its history.

In this era of uncertainty, we are faced with challenges that even the most cynical of us could not have possibly predicted. We have changed our behavior regarding everyday activities from shopping to carpooling and from doctor’s appointments to visiting with friends. Our expectations regarding simchas and even small family gatherings have been revamped to the point where questions like, “Was it a Covid wedding” or “Did you zoom with your family?” are not uncommon. Regardless of how well we have adapted, though, there are still things that take us by surprise. We are so hypo-focused on anything that has to do with Covid that we don’t even realize that other aspects of our life, which we took for granted, are being upended without warning. My most recent collision with an ever-changing reality occurred while looking through one of our venerable international frum magazines during Chanukah.