According to urban legend, Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” For 13+ years, Smith Magazine has been collecting 6 word memoirs—on pain, loss, hope, fear, joy, and more. Over 1 million submissions have been collected, offering pithy—and sometimes profound—reflections on life, love, and current events. A couple of recent ones speak to the current climate: Feeling lost in my own house. SocialDistancing: taking the road less traveled. Lots of wine glasses in dishwasher. What might yours read? While usually clocking in at more than 6 words, our tradition has a version to offer as well. Pirke Avot, the Sayings of our Ancestors, are also pithy—and often profound—reflections on life, learning, values, hope, and more. It is customary to study this text during the days between Passover and Shavuot; 6 chapters to mark the 6 Shabbatot that [...]

Early on in this time of social distancing, or whatever we are currently calling it, someone sent me a video of a colleague teaching about counting the days of isolation as we count the days of the Omer—the time between Passover and Shavuot, 49 days. My initial reactive was negative; how can we count this time when we do not know when, or how, it will end? We count the Omer, I thought, only to guide us to Shavuot, to the moment we stood at Sinai and received Torah. What does it mean to count towards an unknown end? And yet—here we are. This strange time now coincides with the Omer, and like it or not, I am counting. We are counting. Rabbi Arthur Waskow—a longtime eco-activist—reminds us that the Omer, in its origins, is agricultural, it is tied to our world and to the land. Our Biblical ancestors, wandering in [...]