Throwback to Birchas Ilanos During the Covid Lockdown

By Y.M. Lowy

Six years ago, as lockdown restrictions kept families indoors, a creative solution made its way through Boro Park. A truck carrying a blossoming tree drove slowly through the streets, giving people the rare chance to recite Birchas Ilanos without stepping outside.

Finding a way to say the brachah became difficult that year with the full lockdown restrictions. So instead, the orchard came to them. From windows, porches, and doorways, people watched as the truck passed, some saying the brachah aloud.

This gallery revisits that striking scene of a truck and hundreds of families holding onto a mitzvah in the middle of uncertainty.