You have a level of compassion, being a nurse, and suddenly it’s more difficult, though you still have it, because you have to put on all the [protective] stuff and try to be there even more for your patient because their family can’t be there. It’s mentally stressful, physically stressful, it’s very difficult.

We are now also in a time of social and political upheaval and change. This makes the qualities of bread’s emotional sustenance even more important, especially when understood together with the centrality of bread in nearly every diverse culture, historically and in our world today. Bread, in various forms, is something all peoples share. 

Within the Orthodox community I have not been treated differently. When I did my very first Pesach, this woman asked, “Do you have food for Pesach?” I said “No,”…she sent me apple juice and all the seasonings and everything you can think of. And she said, “You’re a single woman, this is what we’re here for.” That’s when I knew I was welcome and I didn’t have to worry about much.

There are five things at the forefront of my mind these days; the national struggle against racist violence, the climate crisis, the coronavirus, death, family, but underlying it all… love.