There have been so many terrible losses during this pandemic. Most awfully, more than 238,000 Americans have died and more than 1.2 million world-wide. Businesses have closed and hundreds of millions of people are suffering economically. Our lives have been disrupted in so many ways.
Loss is hard. It’s not always easy to make sense of it or, as we’ve seen of late, to accept it.
This morning one of my favorite songs came on my playlist that reminded me how to respond. It was composed by the late John Prine who died of complications from COVID-19 in April.
It’s called “That’s the Way That the World Goes Round” and here’s the chorus:
That’s the way that the world goes ’round
You’re up one day, the next, you’re down
It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown
That’s the way that the world goes ’round
The midrash, fifteen hundred years or so ago, described our fortunes in the same way, as a wheel that spins. Sometimes we’re up and sometimes we’re down. Sometimes we lose and sometimes we win. We demonstrate our character in each moment. So let’s be magnanimous in victory and gracious in defeat. Let’s support each other through moments of loss, remembering that the wheel of fortune will keep on spinning for us all.
— Rabbi Yoshi Zweiback
