You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that Purim this year is going to be very different than usual. Normally, it’s tough to deal with the shortened day when Purim falls out on a Friday, but things are already a far cry from the status quo this year. The usual groups of dancing yeshiva boys in colorful costumes won’t be going door to door spreading simcha as they collect money for the institutions of higher learning in most communities. Large Purim mesibas, some of which have a history going back multiple decades have been canceled and the simple act of giving mishloach manos has become a complicated matter for those who are still socially isolated because of COVID. The contrast between this Purim and last couldn’t be more pronounced. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a full year since the pandemic hit. Many of us are marking our first anniversary of having come down with COVID and worse yet, far too many people will be observing the yahrtzeits of loved ones whose lives were lost to an unseen enemy. For just about all of us, Purim 2020 was that line in the sand, that last hurrah between life as we knew it and having our world turned completely upside down and as I scroll through the pictures on my phone, those costumed photos of my kids are the last ones I took before life as we knew it ceased to exist. Remember when the first quarantines were imposed, how unthinkable it was that there were people who would have to stay home from megila and kids whose Purims were about to be completely torpedoed? Having experienced every single yom tov pandemic-style, that idea seems almost laughable. We’ve had a year of solo Pesach sedarim, driveway weddings and a never-ending barrage of schools, shuls and businesses opening and closing at the drop of the hat. It’s a new normal, and I daresay it’s a normal that none of us want. Purim may be all about simcha, but happiness may be elusive for a lot of us this year. Dealing as we do in mental health, addiction, and abuse, we have seen firsthand at Amudim just how incredibly difficult things have been since the pandemic hit. We opened up a total of 2,652 new cases from Purim 2020 through today, almost exactly double the number of cases we opened over the same time period one year earlier. But despite those daunting statistics, we’ve all learned a lot over the past twelve months, giving all of us an opportunity to walk a few miles in the shoes of those who struggle with mental health issues. We have all faced anxiety, insecurity, isolation, and very real fears about our wellbeing on multiple levels and are seeing for ourselves just how daunting life can be when the unthinkable happens. With obstacles and restrictions thrown in our way, we have had to reimagine so many aspects of our lives that we used to take for granted so that we can keep going day by day. It’s been tough. But we’ve been doing it and we’re going to keep going for as long as it takes. That resilience is something that we see on a daily basis on Amudim, as we watch people […]

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