Here’s an urban legend I have never been able to verify. Fact of fiction, it remains instructive. The story goes that in the early days of radio, an open microphone was stationed in the Times Square neighborhood. People could line up and await their turn at the microphone, where their message would be broadcast on a local station.*

While we magically connect over Zoom and FaceTime, we’ve lost – at least temporarily – the miracles of human connection and of voices coming together in song. At the same time, it’s the “magic” of science that makes us optimistic for the future. In Parshat Vaera this week, magic and miracles are on opposing sides, but let’s envision and create a world in which they, like us, are hand-in-hand once again.