LBC life in lockdown – LBC Dean, Rabbi Dr Charles H. Middleburgh

Plenty of challenges with a vulnerable adult in the house. The best and worst thing about this extraordinary time is Zoom. It can be frustrating when it doesn’t respond quickly enough, or crashes the computer when you try to change the audio source ( done twice but never again!) but it nevertheless enables me to see students and faculty colleagues, and to interact with them. This is a moment in our lives when making the best of things is an essential mantra and Zoom helps in that regard because it lessens the sense of isolation. Having lead services every week since mid-March I have also been profoundly moved by the way congregants pop up in their little boxs, clearly very happy to be there, and then at the end talk to each other and wave to each other. The isolation of people who may have been seeing friends every week in shul is diminished by this which is a very good thing.