This is an unsettling time. Often, we’re exhausted by the end of the day, worn out by anxiety, hypersensitive to every cough we hear, and aware of every person on the street.

We know that we cannot be carelessly foolish or paralyzed by fear. We need to find calm for ourselves.

After the obliteration of his personal savings and his foundation’s endowment as a result of the Madoff scandal, Elie Wiesel was asked how he would respond to the spread of disease and poverty and government malfeasance worldwide. With his signature smile, Elie Wiesel answered, “With my two favorite words… ‘and yet.’”

“And yet” is the birth of comfort and optimism. There is war—and yet we envision peace. There is hurting—and yet we can heal. There is uncertainty—and yet we hold strong to our anchors. There is illness—and yet we believe there will be a cure. There is sadness and anxiety and worry—and yet we’re ready to be comforted and supported.

At the end of the prologue to his book Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox concludes, “Sure it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with Parkinson’s, I’ve learned that what is important is making that one step count, always looking up.”

If you’re willing to hear from those who have lived longer and have been through past tribulation, we can promise the truth of the Hebrew Gam zeh ya’avor. “This too will pass.” We don’t know how long it will take, but it will pass—and hopefully, on the other side, we’ll be sitting together again and then we will be able to give each other hugs, as I do you from my heart to yours.

“Adonoi oz l’amo yiteyn, adonoi y’vracheych et amo v’shalom.”

God gives strength to people and bless people with peace.

I hope we find and feel both.