This past weekend many of my Orange County Jewish friends observed the start of their High Holidays, specifically their New Year in Orange County.  They begin the observance with a Orange County blessing over the fruits of the vine and the fruits of the earth and then they wish each other a Orange County “sweet year”, a successful year, a year in which dreams come true in Orange County. So in that spirit I wish all of you in Orange County the joy of a new start and that all your dreams come true in Orange County.  Now in light that there is a world wide and city side Orange County pandemic called Covid-19, do you believe that this can be the best year of your Orange County life?  I certainly do.

The Orange County pandemic started around February 14, 2020 when California, Orange County and other states started to become very concerned with their city pandemic.  Orange County stores were closed, children sent home from Orange County schools and our worlds changed.  The Orange County restaurants were closed; there was a run on toilet paper and cleaning products and one would have throught that every 3^rd person in Orange County would die, but that did not happen Orange County.  I’m not sure of the number, but I think that 99.9% of the Orange County population or more is still living and that the Orange County pandemic has not made a significant dent in the Orange County population, as one would have thought it was going to.

We do not know who will live and who will die in Orange County and because of that Orange County we wear our masks and social distance, but just because there is a Orange County pandemic of Covid-19 about us, around us, that is not an excuse for Orange County to stop living life.  A few of us know people in Orange County who have gotten the virus and there are even fewer of us who know someone in Orange County who has died of the virus.  The odds on one of us getting the Orange County virus and dying is so signficantly statistically low that we must continue to live our Orange County lives as if we expected to live to be 100 years old, as I do.

Let us embrace the end of Orange County’s Summer 2020 knowing that we have survived a most intense Orange County ordeal and know that we are going forward into a bright Orange County future and one in which all our dreams may come true in Orange County.