.וְכָל הֵיכָא דְּאָמְרִינַן ״בּוֹ בַּיּוֹם״, הַהוּא יוֹמָא הֲוָה
Anywhere in the text where we simply say “That Day”—it’s referring to that day.
(Talmud, Berachot 28a)
March 10 is an auspicious and melancholy anniversary. It’s the date in my mind when everything changed for us.
It was on March 10, 2020—it was the afternoon of Purim in the Jewish calendar—and I was sitting with a group of students, planning an upcoming Holocaust-education program for our community. It was late afternoon, and of course we were all aware of the encroaching pandemic and the murmuring that college campuses were closing down. And then it happened: we all received the email simultaneously from the university President that informed us that Babson was shutting down, too.
Remember how young and innocent we all were back then? The initial outreach from the school encouraged students to take all their stuff with them when they left campus in a few days; it was Spring Break. The hope was that we would all be able to return in two or three weeks. Certainly, we figured, we would be back by Passover. Okay, by May 1. Okay… by graduation? And everything kept getting pushed back by a week, then a month, and so on…
None of us imagined then that we’d be marking the one-year anniversary of staying-at-home, social distancing, and Zoom fatigue. Let alone well over a half-million Americans dead, due in no small part to the incompetent machinations of a self-serving federal government.
But here we are. And while some have told me that it’s “depressing” to mark such an anniversary, it is not my intention to be a downer. While I yearn for the physical presence of my friends and family as much as anyone, I draw inspiration from the remarkable resilience that I’ve seen from many people.
The role of technology in our lives has been incredibly valuable; just imagine the strain of staying at home if it were just a few years ago, before videoconferencing technology was as smooth and effective as it is now. For me, personally, this has been especially true. I had cochlear implant surgery in August 2019, and can actually hear with 90% clarity for the first time in many years. If the pandemic had struck just two years ago, I would have been rather hopeless in all of my Zoom classes, meetings, and interactions. I would have been much more isolated. I would have been in terrible trouble.
The anniversary is a useful time to reflect on “that day” – the moment when everything changed in our lives, and all of our responses and behaviors seem to be re-oriented around those changes.
The Talmud has a “that day”—it was the moment of a political shakeup that occurred among the Tanna’im in the 2nd century, when Rabban Gamliel was deposed (temporarily, it turns out) from community leadership and the entire structure of the Academy was democratized. On “that day,” new books were written, new rules were put into place, and new leadership (Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah) was installed.
But if a moment in Israel 1800 years ago is too esoteric, consider that each of us has a “that day” as well, depending on what generation we belong to:
The JFK assassination, of course. The murder of Yitzhak Rabin. 9/11, G-d knows. A diagnosis, a car accident…
And probably good things as well: weddings; births; b’nai mitzvah, certainly. New jobs, new loves, moving to a new home…
Days when everything changed, for better or for worse.
Someday soon, G-d willing, these newly acquired Covid-behaviors will recede. We’ll be in the company of friends and even strangers again. The masks will come down, or at least loosen up. We’ll hug our distant family members. We’ll travel without reservation. There will no longer be daily Corona tolls in the media.
And when that happens, I hope we’ll remember the lessons that we’ve learned since “That Day.” Lessons about caring for the most vulnerable among us; about using technology for good; about how precious it is to be in the presence of people we care about. If it’s true that “everything will be different,” let’s pray that those differences will be to make us better, and that they will be for blessings.
Do you have a “That Day” in your life? You’re invited to tell us about it in the comments section below.