The first time I went skiing - I mean really skiing - I remember the next day I was sore all throughout my legs. Turns out I had used muscles I have never used before. Muscles that were weak suddenly got a workout.
I liken the last three months to a similar experience. Mental muscles that perhaps I never got to exercise before suddenly were being used in earnest. However, as any good fitness expert will tell you, you need to give your muscles a chance to rest, a chance to breathe, in order for them to grow and gain as much strength as possible.
With that in mind, TBD will be taking a break from Zoom meetings starting Monday (we will still have services on Friday night and Torah study on Saturday). This week we are going to give our muscles that we've been exercising since March a rest. Let us all use this week to exercise those mental muscles that we haven't had an opportunity to work out in a long time. While we go dark and take a break from breakfasts, lunch and learn, happy hour, and other Temple events, we're going to give ourselves an opportunity to brainstorm, create, and innovate over the next week. I invite all of us to stop exercising those muscles of survival that we have been utilizing since March and exercise the muscles of thriving.
Survival is about the moment, thriving is about the future. Give yourselves a break this week to stop surviving - stop living in the moment - and provide yourselves an opportunity to look to the future. While we strengthen the muscles of creativity over the next week, we will give the muscles that we've been using over the last few months a chance to breathe. In the end, this is all just another workout. By taking a break from one type of mental activity and focusing on another, we will come out of this more fit and well rounded to embrace the present and look to the future.
Shabbat shalom
