For the first time in nearly a year, I felt a few blessed moments of normalcy.
Chris King, Elizabeth Kaplan and I were in the Temple kitchen – rolling out and cutting dough into circles, spreading them with raspberry jam and Nutella, then folding and pinching them into the tri-cornered shape of Haman’s hat. Although we were masked and spaced well apart at the stainless-steel baking cabinets, we were talking and laughing while we baked 150 hamantaschen for our students and fellow teachers.
We were about an hour into the task, when a moment of silence brought us to voice the same realization: our activity made us feel so “normal.”
I felt the same way again later that day when returning to bag the hamantaschen after it had cooled. I opened the 16th Avenue East door and the sweet smell of the pastries wafted down from the kitchen. The smell was wonderful. And it reminded me sharply of how long it has been since anyone has cooked in the Temple kitchen.
When I have been at Temple to develop lessons and teach classes online this year, I am often alone in my office. Sometimes Rabbi David or Nicole or Mona are here, in their offices, or Marko is in the boiler room, but most often not. Even during regular office hours, entry by others into the building is highly limited.
Morah Elizabeth packs up some hamantaschen for her preschooler’s at-home Jewish learning packets. This
month, her students learned about Purim.
The most activity I experience occurs on the last Mondays and Tuesdays of the month when Chris and Elizabeth put together the Jewish learning packets we send home to our preschool, kindergarten and first-grade students. Pick-ups of the packets involve one parent entering the back hallway, occasionally with a student in tow, and a few minutes of brief conversation with whoever of us is manning the door. For some families, it’s just a quick hand-off at the door.
I know that all of us are anxious for more blessed moments of normalcy.
As fortunate individuals in our Temple community receive the COVID-19 vaccination, local schools re-open to more students, and local businesses begin to open more to the public, I ask that everyone please continue to mask up, stay socially distanced and refrain from going out when you are sick. Normalcy will return. But for most of us, it and a vaccination remain many months away.
Youth Education Director
Andrea Novel Buck
