Some thoughts—some Torah—on this in-between time, this liminal period in which we find ourselves.

On the wilderness, on fear, on possibility.

1/x thread.

So where we (Jews) are in our story is that Passover has happened, we have left Egypt, passed through the Red Sea into freedom, and we are winding our way to the base of mount Sinai where, seven weeks after Passover, we will receive the Torah, marked by the holiday of Shavuot.

We are in the desert now, no longer enslaved, but not yet with the covenantal roadmap—Torah—that will show us where to go and what to do from there. We’re walking through the desert, a bit at loose ends.

Agriculturally, these 7 weeks are the time between the barley harvest and the wheat harvest.

So ritually, we count every night of these 7 weeks, called counting the Omer—Omer means “sheaf”, referring to the harvest stuff. We count the days until we can get there.

William Bridges wrote a book about transitions, talking about how every transition has three parts—ending, neutral zone, and beginning.

In the Passover story, crossing the Red Sea was the ending. We let go of that chapter (mostly), quit that job, severed those ties. Got free.

Getting Torah in our story is the beginning—a new life in covenant, obligation, commandment, relationship with the divine.

The neutral zone? That’s a time of unknowns. A time of possibility. A time when you’ve left the one thing and you don’t know what will happen next. A time of terror, of possibility, of creativity, of openness, of uncertainty. Of wilderness.

We know that it’s not this job, this relationship, this whatever that we are leaving behind, but we don’t know what the new chapter will look like and whether it will be any good.

That’s terrifying. And can also be so potent, powerful. Ripe. No doors have been closed yet.

So we’re not quite at the ending of this pandemic. People are still getting sick. People are still at risk, dying.

But we’re starting to see what this neutral zone might look like.

More people are getting vaccinated. We can be outside more, and there’s a year’s additional research to help us understand what it means to interact safely.

We’re thinking about gathering together in new ways, what that could look like—vax passes?—and trying to figure it out.

We don’t yet know what a new, post-pandemic chapter could look like. And there is, rightfully, a lot of anxiety about how to do this, how to do it right and well and safety.

But this is also a time of possibility. A time of ripeness. A time when a lot of doors are open.

We have some opportunities to create some new social structures, some new ways of being. We don’t have to accept what has been before. That chance doesn’t come around very often. This is a moment when creativity and new thinking can help serve us, make the new chapter better.

How can we use the pandemic neutral zone as a chance to create more justice, more equity, more wholeness, more hope, more truth, in our society?

Things will be different.

How can we get out of the wilderness with them not just different, but better?

When the Israelites received Torah, they got a beginning that demanded that they set up systems of economic justice, that commanded caring for those who were strangers and other socially marginalized groups, that said, in so many ways, https://twitter.com/theradr/status/937359922978852864

The paradigm of oppression and exploitation that characterized the chapter you ended does not have to define this new beginning. Here, you can create a world that centers care and concern for one another, most especially those who are most marginalized and/or vulnerable.

In this neutral zone now, in this potent, liminal space, we can consider the possibility of a post-pandemic beginning with more wholeness for everyone.

And we can work to bring it into being. Day by day.