Rabbi Shimon Posner has learned 24 things from the coronavirus thus far. How many of these resonate with you?
By Rabbi Shimon Posner, Chabad of Rancho Mirage, California
Whatever I need to know, I learned from coronavirus.
Despite the fall-out of the pandemic looming over us, and so, so many friends having lost mothers, fathers, in-laws, brothers, I almost feel guilty for having things so good. So good, that I was even able to find 24 fall-ins:
1) Your responsibility to educate your kids doesn’t end with a school drop-off — that’s when it begins.
2) Physical exertion is good for the mind as well as for the body.
3) Mental exertion is good for the body as well as for the mind.
4) Spiritual exertion (character) is good for your body, mind, soul and everyone else around you.
5) Getting up and dressed in the morning is important.
6) If you need someone other than yourself for discipline, go back to grade-school. Or have a talk with yourself.
7) Another word for ‘undisciplined’, ‘unbridled’, ‘unrestrained’ or ‘free-spirit’ is . . . ‘incontinent’.
8) I don’t need that much money to live.
9) I don’t need to go to restaurants.
10) It is a good thing to have six months expenses in a rainy-day account. Governments should too.
11) I put stupid things on my credit card.
12) Having a credit card was stupid.
13) ‘Leveraged’ is a cynical euphemism for ‘compromised’.
14) Beginning my day with an hour of prayer engenders productivity.
15) If no one in my family died from corona than I have no problems, only inconveniences.
16) Inconveniences turn out to be good.
17) Without distractions I focus on important things.
18) Whenever I whined that I don’t have time, what I was really saying is I don’t have focus.
19) A Jew can make a bris without a brisket. Or bagels.
20) A Jew can have a bar mitzvah without a bar.
21) Weddings don’t last. Marriages can. Invest accordingly.
22) My cellphone is neither smart nor stupid, what I do with it invariably is.
23) With less noise, I shift easier from my default of taking things for granted to receiving with gratitude.
24) When the all-clear siren goes off, I will revert to my default unless I get my act together now.