Dr. Naor Bar-Zeev, who has been in the forefront of educating the public about COVID-19, graciously agree to answer a few questions about COVID-19.

Q: In Israel, they have already vaccinated 1 million people. Why the delay here? When and where will the vaccine be available?

Grocery shopping and taxes are not often thought of as having much in common. Yet they are similar in that they both require adequate, often time-consuming, preparation in order to be done efficiently.

Before shopping, you have the option of preparing a list. Items can be prioritized and a plan put into place before setting foot in the store. This will save time as there will be no need to go up and down every aisle looking for inspiration and then having to go back after realizing that you missed something. A list lessens the chance of arriving home only to realize that you forgot that one important item that brought you to the store in the first place.    

Many years ago, I read an article in Jewish Action by Rabbi Abraham Twerski, MD, entitled “Time for a Rosh Hashanah Overhaul.” His message has stayed with me over the years, but I am only trying to implement it now.

Rabbi Twerski, who has done extensive work in the field of alcoholism, was at a meeting where a man who was sober for 30 years said, “The man I once was drank. And the man who I once was will drink again. I can stay sober only by not going back to being the person I was before I began drinking.”

Life presents us with challenges as we go about our daily activities: working, shopping, bringing up our families, and more. We try to do all this as ehrliche Jews, keeping to the halachos. Sometimes, though, we are not aware that halacha has something to say about a given circumstance. Take the seemingly esoteric – though actually quite common – situation where one person is trying to obtain something and another person undercuts him or her and takes that item instead. Let’s examine a few such scenarios.

As Torah-observant Jews, our desire is to teach each generation to cling onto our etz chaim, and we have established a multitude of day schools and yeshivas to accomplish that goal. To create healthy, wholesome branches within our children, I believe that incorporating the methods and tools of other educational approaches can stoke the flames of real Torah passion even further. I would like to share here some more specialties of Waldorf/Steiner education. As noted in my previous article on Waldorf education, the ideas I have outlined here are separate from Steiner’s general philosophies and beliefs, which are anti-Torah.

Back in 1979, when I moved to Baltimore, Jack’s Grocery was the “in” place to shop. It was a cozy, quaint, heimishe mom-and-pop grocery store, where everything from the freshest produce and canned goods to appetizing and hot take-out food specialties, all within two aisles. The proprietors, Jack and Rose Boehm, a”h, were hardworking, ehrliche, goodhearted Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia who worked their way up in America, despite not knowing a word of English when they arrived.

Today was an awesome, incredible, amazing day. As I write these words, and even before I begin, let me remind those of you who may have already forgotten that this was the day of the totally out-of-left-field snowstorm we experienced, beginning on Wednesday afternoon, the sixth day of Chanukah, and continuing into the night, also known as erev Zos Chanukah, a night of miracles for the Jewish people throughout the centuries.

In 2021, we take it for granted that we have day schools for our children to attend. We are hardly surprised when we hear that Bais Yaakov has six or seven parallel classes in each grade. It was not always like that. When I attended Bais Yaakov (I graduated in 1973) there was only one class per grade, and my class had about 17 girls. But, although the school was much smaller, I also took it for granted that I was entitled to attend a Jewish school and get a Torah education.

My sister, Debbie Burnstein, a”h, passed away in December, at the age of 66. Debbie was developmentally challenged and lived in a group home just about her entire life. She was raised in a generation when people didn’t talk about children who had such challenges. They were “put in the closet,” so to speak. But my parents were not like that. Unfortunately, their family and friends did have that mindset, so my parents had it hard. Even our relatives, as wonderful as they were, never called and asked, “How’s Debbie?” or “Where are you putting her?” And my mother was too uncomfortable to tell them that they had to put her in a non-Jewish place.

The date March 2, 2020 looms large in my mind. That is the date of the last occupational therapy mental health group I led, and I have proof: The date is still written on the dry-erase board in the rehab gym.

Since March and the onset of COVID-19, so many changes have occurred at Levindale Hebrew Geriatric Center and Hospital in Baltimore, where I work as an OT (occupational therapist). Occupational therapists treat people who are recovering from illness or injury, focusing on ADL (activities of daily living)/IADL (instrumental activities of daily living) as well as cognition and psychological function. I mostly work on the four inpatient Brain Health units, with patients diagnosed with dementia and/or mental illness. I also cover on acute rehab, sub-acute rehab, and the “Households” (similar to assisted living) as needed.