In his extraordinary, and now iconic, poem “Life is a Journey” Rabbi Alvin Fine (z”l) wrote:

I’ve suggested previously in these columns that this period of “lockdown” and “self-isolation” has provided unexpected opportunities for self-reflection. As a result, I've been considering that, before I was told by doctors that I needed to stop running, long-distance running was more than exercise for me. It was an obsession beginning at age 13. Throughout my high school and college years I competed on my schools’ cross-country and track teams specializing in long distance events, even running the Boston Marathon twice before the New York City Marathon existed.

Almost all college cross-country courses had at least one “killer” hill dreaded by runners either because of its length or its “insane” percentage incline. On my college campus, Memorial Hill was the “killer” hill at mile four of the five-mile course.

Typically, Memorial Hill occupied me in preparing for and running most races. I planned how far back I could trail the lead pack in order to conserve energy, catch them on the hill and have enough reserve to sprint the last mile. Memorial Hill was a fixation until I realized that I wasn’t paying enough attention to the rest of the race. With that realization, I determined that it was far better to pay attention to every step and concentrate on making every stride count by making it the best I could. That became a metaphor in my life.

Rabbi Tarfon, a first century CE sage who lived through the devastating destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 CE, taught: “It is not incumbent on you to finish the task, but neither are you at liberty to absolve yourself from it.” Or to put it another way: “It is not up to you to finish the work of perfecting the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.” His instruction was to make every step count! The best we can do is to do our best every day.

We are all yearning to get back to a modicum of normalcy, even though we suspect there will be a “new normal” in our city and nation. Hopefully we will take with us some of the lessons we have learned during this troublesome pandemic shutdown. Our new normal might include enhanced gratitude, inclusive empathy, and a new sense of national unity. We realize that, despite differing political ideologies, we were all together in the battle against a marauding COVID-19 plague.

In a recent column, Peggy Noonan wrote: “We will all need to achieve much out of the ordinary in the next few years … Love of our country is the only place to start.”

And that’s where we come in. By making every step count we can best rebuild our country by putting patriotism above partisanship. The unity of our country will depend on civil conversations even with those with whom we disagree. If our politicians can’t do it then let us take the lead in bringing this country back to civil discourse even in the midst of civil disagreement.

Let us make that our mission and along the way I hope we understand: