Normal.  Such a simple word.  I remember when we argued about the meaning.  I remember when it was considered offensive because what was normal to me might not be normal for you and vice versa.  Over the last few years, it seems that distinction has fallen away as nobody has felt ‘normal’.  I was thinking today, “When was the last time we felt normal?”

In January 2017, a few months after I started at The Roth Family JCC, we received our first bomb threat in a series of threats that would terrorize JCCs for 6 months.  We received the very first one.  A few days later, we got a second one.  We got our third in two weeks before our security director guessed that these were robo-dialed calls and not only blocked robo calls but also put in other steps that stopped us from getting any more.  The bomb threats cost us huge revenue.  As they continued for five more months, security became a priority and an additional expense.  Revenue was down.  Expenses were up.  Morale was down from staff and members.  It created an economic hole that took a few years to dig out of.

Just as we began to recover from the bomb threats and everything that created, there was a new virus that was beginning to go around at that time.  We were concerned a little bit about what it could mean but we had other scares like SARS and Bird Flu and H1N1. We were conditioned that this would be another thing that was no big deal. March 13, 2020, we closed the JCC for two weeks to ‘slow the curve’ and the spread of the virus.  A week later we laid off 136 of our 139 employees as we shut down for an undetermined amount of time.  While we began the reopening process in early May and rehired most employees (some didn’t want to come back because of Covid), nothing was normal again.

Covid, while better in Florida than most of the rest of the country, was filled with stress.  Running a nonprofit, trying to deal with a new business model, keeping people as safe as we could with changing protocols and knowledge, was incredibly difficult and challenging.  For over two years it was a different reality.  As we came out of Covid, we now had to deal with the employment crisis, people not wanting to work, the rising cost of labor, inflation and the rising cost of everything, and nationwide inflation.  This year plus was challenging in an entirely different.  Staffing was at a crisis level.  Everybody wanted more money.  Managing through yet another crisis was exhausting.

Then it was October 7^th.  The world changed.  My world changed.  For each of the prior crises they were business related and there was a way to manage through them.  While there were personal impacts of each, they felt temporary.  All three together had taken a huge toll.  October 7^th was different.  It ripped to my core.  8 months later it’s still an open wound.  It’s still stressful with no end in sight.  I still worry about my friends and family and their children who are serving in the IDF. 

It’s been 7 ½ years of stress.  Not many breaks.  Not much time to rest and recover.  One thing after another.  I’ve had the good fortune to get to go to Israel five times during these 7 ½ years.  It was the spiritual salve I needed to survive.  This last trip in May was not only incredibly needed after October 7^th, it also gave me the opportunity to really take a deep look into who I am, what matters to me, and what I am going to prioritize.  As Saul Blinkoff, our trip leader said to us, “What you will die for determines what you will live for.”

In the past few weeks since I have been back from Israel, this has resonated greatly for me.  There are some easy answers.  I’d die for my family.  I’d die to save the world.  There are also some clear other things.  I would not die for any material item.  If money got it or can replace it, it is not worth dying for.  But what about ideas and ideals?  What about values?  Would I die for freedom of speech?  For freedom of religion?  If I saw a bunch of people being attacked, would I jump in to save them and risk my life?  What if they weren’t strangers and were people that I knew?  What if they were clearly Jewish people being attacked because they were Jewish?  These are all real questions now.

While I’d like to say I would jump in regardless of who they are, I am not sure that I would.  If they were people that I knew, I think that I would.  What about if they were a group of Jews being attacked because they were Jewish?  Prior to October 7^th, I probably would have called the police and not jumped in.  Today I would jump in.  I would risk my life to save a group of Jews.  It’s amazing how that has changed for me.  As a Jew, post October 7^th, I do feel it is my responsibility and obligation to save other Jews.  While I don’t like the fact that I probably would only call the police if they weren’t people I knew or weren’t obviously Jews, that is also my post October 7^th reality.  I have seen as the world has been silent when it comes to Jews.  My obligation, as a Jew, is greater when it comes to Jews because I don’t believe others will protect or save us. 

What about a mass shooter or a terrorist?  Would I risk my life to save people in that situation?  Before October 7^th, I probably would have said something like, “I like to think that I would but I’d probably hide and hope.”   After October 7^th, I would fight.  I would risk my life.  I have watched my brothers and sisters in the IDF risk their lives.  I have seen those who have lost their lives.  Their bravery inspires me to do more.  I couldn’t live with myself if I stood by or hid and let terror win.

Would I die for the United States?  There was a time I would have said yes.  Not today.  Not with the rise of antisemitism and the weak responses to it.  This is not the country I grew up in nor do we follow the beliefs that I grew up with.  Equality of opportunity is false.  A country accepting of our differences is false.  I’m not saying I don’t love America or don’t want to live here.  I am saying I wouldn’t die for America because I don’t believe America wants to live for me.  As a Jew in America, I don’t think America cares about me.  America is an idea and an ideal.  Both are failing today.  I have always wondered how the Roman Empire, one of the greatest countries/empires ever, fell.  I see it in America.  I understand how the Roman Empire fell. I wouldn’t sacrifice my life for the fall of America.

This is a theme that I will continue to think about.  The stress and lack of normalcy in the past nearly 8 years have had a huge impact on me.  I’m not sure I really understood the impact until after October 7^th.  This last trip to Israel has begun to clear things up for me.

We live in a world where things are valued.  Where hate is an acceptable way to deal with stress.  People don’t live with values, morals or ethics.  It becomes, “How do I get away with doing the wrong thing?” because it is financially beneficial or makes me feel better instead of asking, “How do I do the right thing” regardless of the benefit.   We trade time for money when money can be replaced but time cannot.  We miss out on our families because we value our title at work more than our families until we lose or the other.

My dad always taught us that family came first.  I believed it.  I preached it at every organization that I ran.  By the end, I found myself enforcing that for everybody in the organization instead of myself.  What a mistake.  As I experienced October 7^th and learned of family of friends who were hostages or who were murdered, it made me value my family even more.  The combination of my father’s death and October 7^th made me value time highest of all.  It made health just behind time.  It changed my choices and what I value.  There is no employment position that is ever worth dying for.  If that’s the case, that means there is never an employment position that is worth living for. 

I love what I do today because I get to make an impact, work with people I like, on projects that are exciting, and we do things the right way.  I have the ability to take on projects that excite me and decline ones that don’t.  I can balance my time.  I’ve spent more time both working and being present than ever before.  It’s really cool.  I also have realized how unique it is.  That part makes me sad.

After Covid I saw people beginning to ask different questions about work.  I didn’t quite get it.  After October 7^th I did.  I grew up in a generation that valued hard work.  That valued titles and money.  Gordon Gecko’s ‘Greed is Good’ speech was a rally call to my generation.

I was in college when Michael Douglas gave that speech as Gordon Gecko and it defined what we all wanted to be.  More was better.  Less not so good.  A big house was good.  A bigger house was better.  Two bigger houses was even better.  More, more, more.  And we only got that by sacrificing time.  October 7^th reminded me that time is what is precious.  That if I am going to be greedy, I want it to be with my time.  I want the way I use my time to be meaningful and impactful.  The great Rabbi, Jim Valvano, in his farewell speech at the ESPYs in 1993 talked about the three things you should do every day. Laugh.  Think.  Cry. 

That’s how I want to spend my days.  Days of meaning.  Days of fulfillment.  Days of joy. 

The great thing about life is that as long as we are breathing, we have the ability to do whatever we want.  We can make the changes that we want.  We can be the people we want to be.  If you want to be inspired to be better, to do better, watch the entirety of “Rabbi” Jim Valvano’s (z’l) final speech.  It never gets old for me.  It always inspires me.  And now it teaches me about the person I want to be in this lifetime.