The Great Pause and the Power of the Tomato.

“...during the coronavirus pandemic, when, amid the grief and anxiety, it became normal to hear people express a sort of bittersweet gratitude for what they were experiencing: that even though they were furloughed and losing sleep about the rent, it was a genuine joy to see more of their children or to rediscover the pleasures of planting flowers or baking bread. The enforced pause in work, school, and socializing put on hold numerous assumptions about how we had to spend our time…. And it became clear—from the ritual applauding of emergency workers, grocery runs undertaken for housebound neighbours, and many other acts of generosity—that people cared about one another far more than we’d assumed. It was just that before the virus, apparently, we hadn’t had the time to show it”. (Oliver Burkeman, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, 2021)

Do you remember the Great Pause, and the bittersweetness it brought with it? On the one hand the stress and anxiety, the chaotic homeschooling, the sense of being trapped? On the other hand the (sometimes guilty) admission of how wonderful it was to eat lunch with the family every day, the discovery that woodland walks could happen more than during the weekend, the therapy of home baking and cooking from scratch, and the sense of power growing a tomato gave us. 

And now we’re back in the Great (neverending) Hurry and unsurprisingly our mental health is suffering, anxiousness is on the rise, teenagers and children acting/reacting out, and we’re finding it harder and harder to get on with things. January blues is an annual experience which is why Mental Health Awareness Shabbat this week is so important. But even more so this year, when time has sped up again despite the fact that we have barely recovered from the past two years.  The lessons of lockdown seem like a lifetime away already, and we are once again on the treadmill, running towards an elusive goal. Can you remember what it was that you discovered that mattered to you during the Great Pause? 

The joy of talking to friends and acquaintances on doorsteps, or woodland walks, or even on zoom. We reached out and shared, and there was a real sense that the physical and virtual walls we lived behind were broken down.

Helping others we discovered was fundamental to our own wellbeing - from adding their shopping to our online order because we were lucky enough to have a slot, volunteering with foodbanks and soup kitchens or delivering Purim or Pesach bags to members of the Chavurah.

Growing plants and flowers and even trees, whether on the windowsill or in your garden, the joy and power it gave us to watch a simple tomato plant grow into fruit.

The Great Pause gave us time and a perspective on what actually matters. Now is the time to remember that and to give ourselves the gift of time, conversation and being together.