Wondering if this is also part of social distancing.
Shopping cart up a pole.
No one else up there.
Safe from Coronavirus, hopefully.
Maybe some illusive toilet paper to be found in the sky mall?
Desperate times calling for desperate measures or an anxious society is losing its mind. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Finishing Natan Sharansky’s book Fear No Evil.
And I rarely write twice on a book or movie, but this was so impactful.
First on our souls, Sharansky writes:
The law of attraction, interconnection, and interdependence of human souls…there is a universal gravitational pull of souls, of the bond between them and influence of one soul on the other.
Wow, Sharansky understood the deeper meaning of the soul and how they all emanate and are pieces from G-d and they are all connected to their source and each other, and what one person says or does impacts all the others (and thereby G-d himself).
Literally, I experienced this the other day…when I personally made amends on something I felt that I had done wrong, and I could literally feel somehow righting a wrong in the universe and G-d, Himself, smiling down on me.
It was the best feeling I think I have ever had in my life.
Second on fear, Sharansky writes:
My inner freedom [is] more powerful than the external bondage…[and] fear of the L-rd…is a necessary prerequisite for man’s achieving inner freedom, and is also the prerequisite for spiritual resolve, the fear of the L-rd is the only thing that can conquer human fear.
Wow again. Sharansky through his nine years of suffering and hardships in Soviet prisons and labor camps found his deep inner strength to resist the tyranny of the KGB worldly masters and overcame them with his finding his fear and faith in G-d and was able to overcome.
These are two amazing heavenly lessons that Sharansky shares with us from enduring and overcoming his incredible worldly hardships.
I am so glad I had the opportunity to read this and am with G-d’s help continuing to quench my thirst for this type of wisdom and true enlightenment. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Count Your Blessings.”
I just wanted to share a short reflection with everything going on in the world these days with coronavirus and the economic shutdown: I see people are scared and confused, under lockdown and feeling financial strain, and many are getting sick and dying. But I remember the words of my dear father who used to say: “Count Your Blessings!” And he was so right. There are so many things, literally every moment of every day, for us to be grateful for:
Certainly, we all face extreme difficulties or challenges at times in our lives, but things can always be so much worse, and there is still so much for us to be grateful for. Therefore, truly thank you G-d with a hundred blessings—and more—for every moment of every precious day. And we affirm that surely the L-rd who created us will continue to sustain us, and that ultimately all will be for the good.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
This is the Coronavirus chart that I don’t think anyone wants us to confront.
Rather than the typical chart we are shown with one high and then it tapers off and all is well…
There could be scenarios where there are multiple curves and peaks.
For example, if we send people back out to (work, school, etc.) and stop the social distancing too early–while there are still Coronavirus carriers around us and we don’t have an effective vaccine–then the contagion can start all over again.
Further, even with a vaccine, if the virus mutates (and could become more virulent) then this infection can go on spreading and killing with multiple peaks.
In short, this is the chart that speaks to cases where businesses are closed and people out of work much longer than expected, and where the recession takes hold and does some potentially real and lasting damage above and beyond what’s perhaps already priced in.
Again, let’s hope and pray that we don’t stop the social distancing prematurely and that our doctors and scientists get the vaccine for us sooner rather than later.
(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
Just a self-reflection today…
Important to me.
It’s about who I thought I was and…
Who I became.
Truly, I went full circle from a child’s hate to an adult’s love relationship with:
– Reading
– Writing
– Swimming
– Hebrew
As a kid, I tried to avoid these like the plague, and as an adult I like to practice these every single day of my life.
I wonder to myself is it that I strove to become good (or decent) at what I have previously been bad at or was somehow afraid of.
Yet now, they are integral to my life, learning, and growth.
Like the hands of a clock that circle and tick the hours and minutes.
My life takes me full circle and brings me home to who I am and what I really love spending time at. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Who would’ve thought that going to Harris Teeter would be a war zone.
But this guy in the respirator mask is showing us how bad things can start to get.
As an avid fan of the show The Walking Dead, I think we are entering TWD territory with the people walking around with their face’s half covered and some looking sick with fear and worry or perhaps even with symptoms–who knows!
What is amazing is how things can go from boom to bust, and not just for our economy, but for life and civilization itself at the turn of a dime.
Yesterday, I read how the CFO of Jefferies Group Investment Bank (NYC) died at age 56 from Coronavirus.
Even as the Navy’s hospital ships Mercy and Comfort enter the ports of Los Angeles and New York City to lend a hand and about 1,000 hospital beds each, it seems like more and more of these deadly cases are hitting the papers and social media every day.
Where does this sickness stop?
What happens if the virus mutates again and become even more virulent?
How do we ever feel even remotely secure again?
Can we keep taxing our already overwhelmed healthcare system with more and more sick patients?
How long can we keep printing Monopoly bailout money (incredibly, there is talk of yet another multi-trillion Coronavirus stimulus bill even after we just passed this $2.2 trillion one last week)?
Eventually, as we all know circumstances can indeed overwhelm the health and financial systems, and even our governments…thank G-d we aren’t there.
But what we are all beginning to see in the midst of crisis is that “there” isn’t really all that far away from “here.”
…That life hangs by a truly thin thread.
And because we can only do so much, this is where we really need to look up to the heavens and ask for G-d’s help and mercy. 😉
(Credit Photo: my wonderful son-in-law, Itzchak)
So these are the signs of the times of Coronavirus.
Pictures telling us not to cough on Granny.
Cover your germy mouth!
Don’t get the older and more vulnerable amongst us sick.
I was in the elevator the other day, standing in the corner next to the elevator buttons.
Someone else–an older person–gets on with a big (double size) shopping cart.
He’s standing in the opposite back corner (kitty corner from me) with this huge cart between us.
Then he starts yelling at me, literally, to “get in the corner!”
Ah, I’m already in the opposite corner.
He’s huffing and puffing angry that he wants me to literally get up against both walls.
I was almost tempted to say something like maybe you should just get off and catch the next elevator Sir.
But I held my tongue, in part out of sympathy for these elderly people who are obviously really scared (and maybe rightfully so) of the Coronavirus.
Sometimes, I think to myself what if we were really hit at some point in the future with a very deadly bioweapon that was expressly designed to kill and to repulse any sort of countermeasures against it.
What if the fatality rate was 1/3 to 2/3 of the population like in the Middle Ages Bubonic Plague or even higher like 100% of anyone that gets infected from a military-grade, genetically modified virus (similar to effects from Ebola).
Maybe it’s not good to ask what ifs, but if we are really going to learn anything from this, then I think we need to extrapolate from the relatively minor now to the potential major down the road.
If you think we have hysteria, deaths, and $2.2 trillion U.S. impact now, this is just a glimpse of what could actually happen.
We need to seriously rethink our disaster preparedness and response–big time. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
With Coronavirus media madness 24/7…
Who can think about anything but germs!
Or should I say killing germs.
Nobody wants to get sick.
And we don’t want to get others sick either.
– Wash your hands a lot!
– No more handshakes.
– No more touching “suspect” surfaces.
– Keep good (“far”) social distancing.
– Quarantine yourself in the house for 2 weeks (actually it’s more like indefinitely).
What has become of our world.
Just one big GERM BOWL.
Can we really hide from the germs? 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Coronavirus Cancels Synagogue.“
While I understand the rationale to close the synagogues, not to congregate with others and expose ourselves or spread the Coronavirus, I can’t help thinking and believing that what we need now, more than ever, is prayer to Hashem and the mitzvah of Torah study that the synagogue provides to us. Indeed, only in the hands of G-d is the ultimate power of health or illness, and life or death…To me, this Shabbat was not a full Shabbat, because there was no synagogue, no Rabbi’s sermon, no community to talk and share with. I feel robbed of my religion today. I want to be able to go to synagogue and have a real Shabbat. How many other Shabbatot will we have to continue to go through without being able to pray in a minyan, hear the Torah reading, listen to the Rabbi’s speech, and see our community friends?
Many say and I firmly believe that we are on the doorstep of Mashiach and that he is even here among us waiting for the right moment to reveal himself. We’ve survived so much and finally have returned as a people to our homeland of Israel. Now we must survive the final birthing pains of Mashiach and then we will be able to go not only to our synagogues once again, but also to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray and learn at G-d’s very footstep in this earthly world.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Everyone seems to be talking and concerned about the coronavirus.
Today, one of the people that clean the office told me to be careful and said:
Wash hands. Don’t touch face!
Someone also questioned where fundamentally did this new killer virus come from:
Is this new virus really from eating exotic animals like they say or is it really something that escaped from a Chinese biological laboratory?
Since we are dealing with an origin of the virus that is from a Communist county that represses freedom of information, the Wall Street Journal raised doubts about the information we are getting:
As the outbreak was already under way, the local government did what Communist governments always do: cover up…[and even] China’s president cannot trust the information he is getting. The lack of trust mean he must make decisions in the dark. No institution can function effectively this way.
With coronavirus more contagious than even SARS or MERS, perhaps the most important immediate questions is how far and deep will it spread?
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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