Today is Purim My brothers....

Is the first line of a Yiddish Purim poem my mother-in-law used to recite every year. As she aged and became more demented this poem also got folded into her singing of Chanukah songs, or more accurately emerged willy nilly from the soup of memories in her brain.

This has been a complicated Purim courtesy of the Corona virus. This fabulous parody appeared on my FB feed last night. I am sorry I can't give proper credit to the brilliant person who wrote it. I am not translating this...it is an extra bit of joy and pleasure for folks with better than average Hebrew skills.

Many in Jewish communities all over the world including our own celebrated Purim virtually, listening to live streamed Megilla readings either from their own communities or from those further afield. My friends who listened to the Megilla at home felt lonely and sad. Those of us who braved doing the best we could in a shrunken community felt sad as well. We all did the best we could.

Yesterday though my husband and I went for a walk in Central Park with our friends Alfie and Judy. it was unseasonably warm and the trees have decided that it is already spring.

Olmstead and Vaux designed the park to create the illusion of being truly in nature.

The little pond at the northern end of the park still had the ice ladders at the ready for people foolish enough to try to walk across the water when there is ice.

Trees are just starting to bloom

Leaves are beginning to unfurl

On the other side of the pond we found crocuses.

The daffodils are just coming into bloom.

Some of last fall's leaves are waiting for a big blast to wind to shake them away.

A slope near 100th street was speckled with there teeny blue blooms

Hopefully we will all make this transition to a new season in good health in these complicated times. Those of you familiar with the lovely song set to words by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav with music by Baruch Chait are welcome to start humming now.

and for those of you who need a hint....

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מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים You are faithful to restore the dead to life. Blessed are You, Adonoy, Resurrector of the dead. That particular line is recited at every single prayer service every day three times a day, unless you use a Reform or Reconstructionist prayer book . In those liturgies instead of praising God for resurrecting the dead God is praised for giving life to all. I am enough of a modern woman, a modern thinker, to not actually believe in the actual resurrection of the dead. I don't actually expect all of the residents of the Workmen's Circle section of Mount Hebron cemetery in Queens to get up and get back to work at their sewing machines. I don't expect the young children buried here or the babies buried here to one day get up and frolic. Yet, every single time I get up to lead services I say those words about the reanimating of the dead with every fiber of my being. Yesterday, I e...

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