Snow "State of Emergency" Best Thing to Happen

Its official.  At this point, this winter season has broken the record as Maryland's snowiest winter ever.

Its like Jadis, the White Witch, has come from Narnia and made it "always winter" here.  We received 3 feet of snow (yes, thats right, 3 whole feet) over Shabbos and only a few days later, another foot and a half of white fluff is being deposited on my steps as I write this blog post.  The Baltimore Sun is now reporting that two more snow storms are on its way for the following week.

Surprisingly, the result of all this snow in our lives has been positive.  Sure, there has been some hysteria (my mother calls every few hours to make sure I'm okay) and rumors of unfortunate events have spread, where purportedly emergency personnel were unable to make it to a "scene" quickly enough to save a life.  And in a more trivial matter, my wife had to wait over an hour to check out at the local supermarket yesterday before the beginning of the storm.

THE POSITIVE EFFECTS OF A SNOW STORM

However, the real effect of these snow storms and self-proclaimed "state of emergency" has been positive.  Mainly, the Jewish community here in Baltimore has come together like never before.  Usually, with our houses spread out from each other, with having to drive to get anywhere, and with over 10 shuls within a convenient walking distance, I don't see my neighborhoods.  Its not exaggerating to say that I only see my immediate next neighbor only several times a year.

This current snow storm has blocked the roads, making it treacherous to drive anywhere.  So for the first time in a long-time, people are actually outside, walking places, and playing in the snow.  While shoveling the snow in front of my house for over 2 hours, I was able to speak to BOTH neighbors and have real, meaningful conversations with them.

A COMMUNITY COMING TOGETHER

More importantly, the community at large has come together to help each other.  Baltimore is a big place.  There are many neighborhoods with different demographics.  On one end of Baltimore's frum community in the Park Heighs neighborhood, you have the old-time Ner Israel famlies, who remember when Rav Ruderman was Rosh Hayeshiva.  In my neighborhood, its more young and modern, with fancier houses and cool L.A. guys.  The separate communities usually don't interact with each other.

But now, we actually need each other.  In one pre-recorded phone call that everyone in Baltimore's fum community received, the Chesed Fund is organizing to privately plow streets that the county was unable to get to.   Another call offered to pick you up in a 4-wheel drive SUV if you needed to get somewhere but couldn't.  And my wife went across the street to speak to old Mrs. Goldman, whom we have only spoke to once since we arrived here 5 years ago, to ask her if she needed us to pick up anything for her from the local grocery store.

The result of all of the above is that we are now closer to each other as a community that we have ever felt.


IN ISRAEL, ITS LIKE BEING PART OF ONE BIG FAMILY

It is reported that in Israel, its like living with one big family.  That was my experience when I lived there and in a recent article that I wrote that will be published in next month's "Where, What, and When" magazine (about the trend of Rabbis making aliyah this year), several of the interviewees mentioned that they were looking forward to feeling that automatic sense of community in Israel.  As Rabbi Breitowitz put it, "a child on a bus in Israel is everyone's child."  In a previous post, I copied a story from "Aliyah Blog" called "Israelis stick together" about many people rushing to help one passerby whose bag broke in the Machane Yehuda marketplace.  This is a commonplace type of occurrence there.

As you know, I am making aliyah this year, bezrat Hashem, and I look forward to being part of  this "one" community again in Israel.