Dear Shofar readers,

 

The Jewish calendar I consult in preparation for the Events Page that heads each month’s issue of The Shofar lists the February dates for Rosh Chodesh (Feb. 9), Purim Katan (Feb. 23), the required readings for each Shabbat and, as a nod to the Gregorian calendar, Presidents’ Day (Feb. 19). Nowhere on the February page is there a mention of Valentine’s Day which, unless here in America you have chosen to live off the grid, you cannot avoid, given the commercial push for flowers, chocolates, and mushy greeting cards for The One in your life.

Well, we Jews have our own day of love, right? Tu B’Av (August 18, in case need a head start on plans). And yet, to my surprise, peeking ahead, I found not a single mention of Tu B’Av on the August page of the lunar calendar. Hello, fellow Jews…where is the love?

In fact, I’ve been thinking a lot about love lately, especially since Oct. 7. In the current vernacular, love seems to be what everybody is feeling about everybody else and everything. People don’t like anymore. They don’t regard. They aren’t fond of. They don’t care for. They just love — lovc her, love him, love that, love when that happens. We love what people are wearing, love where they’re going and how they’re going to get there. We love rich chocolate, fast cars, and novels about sticky relationships. We “heart” New York and the breeds of our dogs, and we paste stickers on the rear windows of our cars so that perfect strangers in passing vehicles can know the canines we harbor. So what do we really mean when we profess all this love? We seem to be tossing out feelings willy-nilly with about as much sincerity as “We should do lunch.”

I grew up in a loving family. My parents loved each other, and I was sure they loved me and my brother equally, although he said I was the favorite because I was a girl. Actually, I remember the day he ventured out on the Delaware in a rowboat and coasted with the tide for miles. They had to send the river patrol to fetch him. I don’t think he was well loved at that moment. But he was their son, and forgiven, and he was a great brother to me.

Growing up, a peck on my parents’ cheeks at bedtime was more routine than heartfelt, but I did love them. There were those few awkward teenage years when I might not have, but as I got older, I appreciated them even more. But I can’t remember saying “I love you” to either of them until I held my father’s hand and kissed him goodbye on his last day.

I don’t remember any of my friends throwing around “I love you’s” or a lot of hugging and kissing either, except at teen parties in my friend Lorelei’s finished basement. My father always kissed my mother goodbye when he left the house for work in the morning, and kissed her again when he returned in the evening. And my husband and I kissed and re-kissed at the Metro-North Railroad Station when he commuted daily from Westchester County to New York City. When the children were in the car for drop-off or pick-up, they thought it great sport to watch out the window to see who else got kissed — and who didn’t.

So you see, little in my past experience explains what to make of this huge love-in I’ve been observing. Except for two events, exactly 11 years apart — Hurricane Sandy in October 2012 and the current Israel-Hamas War in 2023. Different, yes, yet both vicious and shattering.

A devastatingly destructive storm, Sandy knocked out power to most of the Northeast, sent coastal floodwaters roaring through towns and outlying villages, and virtually shut down New York City. There was considerable loss of life all along the east coast. Here on Long Island, the storm uprooted huge trees and brought down utility wiring. In all, a million homes here were dark, many of them flooded in the coastal surge, some ruined beyond repair.

At our house in Southold, the only means of communication was a small kitchen radio — no television, no Internet and, for a while, no telephone. The fancy wireless models were dead. Cell phones wouldn’t connect. Then Bruce remembered an old phone he used at his workbench in the basement. He brought it upstairs, apologized for its paint-spattered shell and especially the duct tape holding it together, and plugged it into the phone jack in the kitchen. To us, the sound of the dial tone resonated as powerfully as a performance of Beethoven’s “Ninth.”

While still in the throes of ecstasy over the dial tone, the thing rang. News of the storm having been reported all over the country, visions of the Bloom family afloat in Southold Bay stirred immediate responses. First, the daughters checking in anxiously on their aging parents. Then relatives and friends in California, Ohio, both Carolinas, upstate New York, Washington, Arizona, Florida — all calling to see if we were safe.

In all that time, no one said “I love you.” They didn’t have to. I felt that love in a way I had never experienced love before.

Eleven years later, on Oct. 5, 2024, Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented and unprovoked surprise attack on Israel. Hundreds were taken hostage, and in the aftermath, thousands of Israelis and Palestinians have died. Living alone now, without the comforting support of my spouse, I feared for the survival of the hostages, feared for Israel itself, and feared that I and my own Jewish community might become targets.

Again, the phone rang. Family and friends, some with relatives living in Israel, others with family serving in the IDF, all in shock, fearful. In the days following, more phone calls, this time, though, from friends and acquaintances not Jewish, with no connections to Israel, calling to check not on my safety, but to check on my wellbeing — how I was coping with fellow Jews and the homeland in jeopardy. Love unspoken, but understood.

Yes, the onset of February turns my thoughts to love. And these days, I think about it in a way different from how I thought about it 11 years ago, and even a few days ago. I know there are many levels of love — romantic love, sexual love, familial love, the love of good friends, and the love of those struggling against the prevailing human condition.

People can express love in many ways — some through deeds and favors, others more vocal about their sentimentalities. Now I say, if you love it, or him, or her, or that, let it be known. Love, in all its magical forms truly is a welcome thing — on Feb. 14, on August 18, any day.

Love, Sara