Along with the prayers for those ill with coronavirus, I would like to express my pain as a person who is, thank G-d, healthy.
The Passover holiday has passed, without communal prayers, and soon another Shabbat (Sabbath) will pass without the community singing the "Lecha Dodi" prayer together.
I have uploaded to YouTube and Facebook the first part of the story. The well-known composer Abie Rotenberg composed, years ago, a song about a lonely Torah scroll hidden safely away from the Jewish People's enemies.
And now for the second part.
Another well-known composer, Baruch Levine, turned to Abie Rotenberg and suggested he update the old song so that it reflects the renewed longing the Torah scroll has for the Jewish People, except that this time, the Jewish People are the ones who do not attend synagogue, there are no sounds of Lecha Dodi, and no one is reading the Torah scroll.
Abie Rotenberg took up the challenge, and together with Baruch Levine, they are updating the old song of longing. In the attached video, the two can performing the new song together via Zoom. At the beginning of the video, I inserted a Shabbat sermon from a well-known Torah scholar in the US, Rabbi Eytan Feiner, the rabbi of the Kneseth Israel synagogue in Far Rockaway, New York.
In his sermon, he speaks about this song, and expresses hope that before Passover, we will return to the synagogues. Hopefully, that will happen soon.
May we soon merit G-d's healing of both body and soul.