Dear JCOGS family,
Our members are strong and resilient, creative and adaptive. They are forging ahead in this new normal we are all facing, each from our own corners, still connected — perhaps now more than ever.
But the strain of this moment is real, and especially felt by the medical professionals in our community. This is such a tough time. Stress levels are high as they do their best to keep our communities and their families safe, all at the same time. No small task.
I think of how we treat those on the front lines to protect us from the Coronavirus as how we treat those going off to war. The enemy is different. But the potential for lives sacrificed is the same. Already the strain is too much to bear.
How can we support them in this time? How can we even perhaps make what they do less dangerous?
As we know, there is a huge shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) to meet this moment, including: N95s, surgical masks, gowns, and medical grade gloves. Several members of our community are healthcare professionals preparing to treat those sick with the virus, and they have asked us to step up and help them help everyone. If you have any of the following medically sanctioned items or have connections to those that may have them, please write to jcogs@jcogs.org immediately. If you would like to make a donation to help support those on Vermont's front line of the pandemic, please donate to the rabbi’s discretionary fund (write "to rabbi's discretionary fund" in the payment notes).
We can also offer our thoughts and prayers. Send a text. Let them know we are thinking of them.
Here is a stunning prayer written by one of my rabbis, Victor H. Reinstein.
A Prayer for Healthcare Providers in Time of Great Stress
Compassionate One who embraces all, Healer of broken hearts and broken bodies who lifts up the fallen in spirit; help me, please, to rise to the holy work that is mine to do, to be the healer I am called to be. Help me to hold my fears and those of others, and to allow others to hold my fears, at one with my colleagues, so close together even in our distancing. Help me to cry at times, and yet to laugh, to sing, even if in minor key. In this time of great illness and its stress, please protect our families and help us to remain healthy, blessing our hands and hearts that we can continue to be healers for all who suffer. Of lessons painfully learned in this time of the Coronavirus, help people to know and turn to good what we have known all along, that all humanity is one organism, inextricably joined, as we to you and to each other, healers all.
Amen.
Tihiyu briyim, may we all be safe and healthy as we send added prayers and supplies to those most in need of them.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi David
p.s. Join us tonight at 6pm for a musical service with some special guests, and/or tomorrow at 7:15pm for an all-ages puppet show by Steve Schneps (aka El Schnepo), followed by havdalah.
