As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge us, people find themselves expressing the need to seek balance in this new way we are living our lives. As individuals, a community, and a nation, it wasn't necessarily easy to find balance before, and the challenges from the virus only increase the difficulty. We think about being "productive" while we are experiencing a historic time of a public health pandemic, along with deep racial pain, the accompanying social justice efforts for change, an economic crisis, loss and grief, and profound uncertainty. How do we prioritize our health - physical and emotional - and the need for rest and relaxation?

For those working remotely from their home, perhaps for the first time, the natural separation of work and home is blurred. For those who are "essential" workers and those who have continued to work in difficult circumstances, there is an increase in intensity, often accompanied by fear, sorrow, and exhaustion. For those who have been laid off or furloughed, this is a frightening, devastating, and deeply insecure time.

In these challenging times, our health is of the utmost importance and can easily be pushed to the back burner. I urge you to find ways to focus on what you need to maintain your health in all the ways available and helpful to you - whether it is adequate sleep, healthy nutrition, regular exercise, listening to music, dancing, cooking connecting virtually or socially distanced with friends and family, laughing more, speaking out against injustice, supporting community, reaching out to resources, communing with nature, sharing in virtual worship with the Downtown Synagogue. You can also give yourself permission to acknowledge your feelings and not do anything - and that is also taking care of yourself.

We can acknowledge both the difficult times in which we find ourselves and the need to take care of ourselves. Me? I'm going to do much of what I mention above...and I'm going to eat ice cream, lots of ice cream. Gut Shabbes and blaybt gezunt un shtark.