Chutzpah!

Americans are experiencing the greatest challenge since WW II. If my mother were still alive, bless her, she would say our pain was no doubt equal to the Great Depression and the war that followed. Yet because my family and I have not succumbed to the Covid-19 coronavirus and pray we do not, the most difficult burden for us has actually been fear and isolation as we remain quarantined. The enemy, invisible to the naked eye, ravages the bodies of our families and friends while wreaking havoc on our psyche.

Like the leaders and soldiers past and present that stood on the literal and political front lines for the safety and recovery of our nation, there is one group of people that continues to demonstrate the kind of grit and sinew, the incredible guts and fortitude that guiding a nation out of a monstrous disaster requires: our overwhelmed health care workers and all the people who continue to provide services that help us keep our heads and hearts together. I'll add postal and grocery workers, farmers and truck drivers, all of our essential workers to that list as well.

In the late nineteenth century, Yiddish-speaking immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe introduced into American English a Hebrew (Aramaic) word that expresses a kind of audacious moxie that no other word can claim: chutzpah, pronounced hutspa. According to Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis, chutzpah implies not only insolence or cheek in its temerity. It is spiritual audacity that finds a place of honor in Jewish religious thought. And yet people who are not Jewish have come to appreciate the word's unique strength of character as well. Oprah Winfrey's Chutzpah Awards are presented to women whose boldness has enabled them to perform amazing feats. Americans may not use it or spell it correctly, but the word chutzpah has taken its place in our vernacular when we are in dire need of a word with unequivocal meaning. And we are indeed in dire need.

How could we describe the people who go to work every day to save our lives, putting their own lives in jeopardy in this pandemic, with more precision than by crowning them with chutzpah.

It's an interesting word. The Jews believe the word chutzpah can connote a status of good or bad--acting out chutzpah to do something shameful or exhibiting chutzpah to do the right thing to avoid being shameful.

I have no doubt our healthcare workers demonstrate good chutzpah--the fierce-as-a-leopard kind. Still tired, they leave their homes and families, don gloves, masks, shields, and hazmat suits, and enter the hospital rooms of the critically ill and dying. It's a dangerous but also heart-wrenching job that often results in entering a room one morning to find their patient coded, doctors rushing to the room to begin immediate resuscitative efforts. Exhausted, face bruised from hours of wearing face gear, devastated as they watch a once healthy 32 year old man breathe his last alone, no family or friends at his bedside. I'm tearing up even as I write this. Are there really any words to describe how nurses, doctors, EMTs, and frankly anyone working in a hospital can face these challenges? I think I know one.

A dear friend is on his hospital's intubation team, and when he leaves the hospital after a long and exhausting shift, he showers, changes clothes, and returns to his family with anxiety, fearing he may spread the virus to his loved ones. He's not alone. This is the story of everyone in the field from service workers to doctors and nurses. Grit and sinew? Chutzpah.

Actually, if you think about the opposite (bad, some say) chutzpah that covers acts that are brazen, impudent, arrogant or insolent, then I would have to say yes, even this kind of chutzpah describes the ferocity with which these weary superheroes seem to tackle the beast.

People like me, who stay at home, order groceries, engage in FaceTime, WhatsApp and Zoom, bike or take solitary walks, bake far too many cookies, binge on movies and rekindle old hobbies or develop new ones, will be just fine in this age of new normal. Despite the fact that we will not witness the life we once knew any time soon, if ever, we will not only cope; we will endure. One recent study reported a return to "business as usual" as far away as 2022, but the experts generally agree that social distancing will continue for months to come and the traditional hand shake may become a tradition of the past. No matter the outcome, it is my hope that we will reflect on and cling to our common values. As Anne Frank wrote in her journal in her secluded hiding place, "In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart." Let us assume the chutzpah of Anne Frank, of our health care and service workers, and face the future with tenacity and good will and love for life and each other.