REFLECTIONS
ON A PANDEMIC
BY: DR. NURIT ISRAELI
“Dawn comes after the darkness, and with
it the promise that what has been torn by the
sea is not lost.”
– Lisa Wingate,
The Prayer Box
Seeing, again and again, the videos of
the brave quarantined Italians singing
inspiring songs from their balconies,
their voices piercing the lonely streets, I had a
fantasy: Each and every one of us here, at North
Shore Towers, going out onto our balconies, or
standing by an open window, putting on Pete
Seeger’s recording of ‘We Shall Overcome’ (I’ll
never forget singing along with him years ago
in Central Park), and singing along together:
We shall overcome / We shall overcome /
We shall overcome, someday / Oh, deep in
my heart/ I do believe / We shall overcome,
someday...
I now include this inspiring song in my daily
meditation – a prayer of faith, an expression of
hope, a mantra...
I cannot help looking into hidden meanings:
In the letters of CORONAVIRUS hide the
Hebrew word NORA – horrible, but also the
word ANCHOR – grounding and steadiness
that may keep us from drifting away... I see the
letters of OSCAR: no Oscar for this performer;
this virus is not going to win! But US (standing
together), or the USA (standing united) will! I
see SIN (have we sinned and done wrong?),
but also SUN. I see RUN, but also CAN.
VORACIOUS (the virus?), RANCOROUS
(some of us?), ARSON (yes, feels like a fire has
been set), SCOUR (all day long, with a garden
variety of soaps and sanitizers), ROARS (it
does...), and SOON...
Challenging times... This Pandemic, spread-ing
familiar things we blithely took for granted to
an unfamiliar halt. Much of what we have been
used to is no longer, and the open-endedness of
the situation is unsettling.
The first negative emotion we need to cope
with is fear. We are scared, and fear in the days
of Corona is objectively induced: We have an
invisible enemy, unfamiliar and stealthy, which is
out to get us – inflicting mass harm by attacking
the most vulnerable among us, often by using the
younger and healthier among us as accomplices.
We have never met anyone like him before! So 20 NORTH SHORE TOWERS COURIER ¢ May 2020
around the globe, brought so many of the