Rabbi’s Musings & Amusings

One of the positives about this very difficult period of anxiety and isolation was that I was able to take care of some of those things that “I’ll get to one day.”

Last week, I saw that a new sefer on Megillas Rus had been published. I was excited by the publication and very much wanted to have it before Shavuos, so I immediately ordered it.

Marty wasn’t very adept at using computers. It took him a long time to familiarize himself with new technology, and he always seemed to be a few steps behind. When he finally downloaded programs and apps he required, he constantly needed to be reminded how to use them.

Those who live in Eretz Yisrael (and Sefardim even outside of Eretz Yisrael) have the good fortune of being blessed by the kohanim every day. But for Ashkenazim outside of Eretz Yisrael, it is a merit we only have on the mornings of the Yamim Tovim.

Our family custom is to have a dairy meal during the nights of Shavuos. My wife prepares every one of my favorite dairy delicacies for those meals. Each one of those dishes could easily be a main course for dinner on any given night.

So since the pandemic began, every morning I head down to my basement office (the one my wife calls my man-cave) to deliver shiur to my students on Zoom. When we first began doing so a couple of months ago, it was suggested that we use our phones for audio. This way, if the Internet connection in our homes is weak, we can continue saying shiur even if our video is frozen. That was sage advice, especially because I found myself often getting kicked off the Internet completely in the middle of shiur. When Chani called a technician to ask about what we could do to improve our Internet service, he explained that our current service was inadequate. With the added demand in our home, which had become the base for nine different classrooms in seven different schools, our Internet wasn’t strong enough. That, coupled with the fact that our modem was in the living room, and my office is a floor beneath it, made the connection even iffier. The technician compared it to a traffic jam. Everyone is trying to go the same way, but there is limited availability. Every device in our home was trying to grab the same limited connectivity.