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It’s been said that reality is based on perception. Or, said differently, we don’t live in a world of reality; we live in a world of perceptions. What I perceive I am experiencing – what I perceive that I see and hear – becomes my reality, whether I have misread the situation or not.

This week, fans of the New York Yankees are mourning the death of legendary broadcaster John Sterling. Sterling began calling games for the Yankees in 1989 and continued for more than three decades, calling 5,631 Yankees games and five World Series championships. His death at the age of 85 marked the end of an era for Yankees fans.

In 1931, Ray Henderson produced a popular song that included the words, “Life is just a bowl of cherries. So live and laugh at it all.” The words were meant to suggest a carefree, wonderful life.

It’s not often that an obituary appears in the religious newsfeeds and magazines, as well as in the secular newsfeeds and newspapers. Normally, obituaries printed on YeshivaWorld.com or Ami Magazine are not also printed in Maariv or Yediot Achronot. The latter newspapers certainly don’t usually note the passing of the rebbetzin of a great Torah leader. Yet, a few days ago that’s exactly what happened.

During my teenage years, I often accompanied my father to a local Friday night Chumash shiur. Given by Rabbi Baruch Twerski, who had been my seventh-grade rebbi, the shiur was based on the thoughts of the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh. Rabbi Twerski would have a pile of s’farim open, one on top of the other, and he would weave many different ideas together during the shiur. When the shiur ended, piping hot kugel and cold seltzer would be served. Back then, I did not appreciate seltzer much, preferring a cup of soda any day. But after that shiur, along with the hot kugel, that seltzer tasted divine.

There is hardly anything more unstable and unpredictable than the weather in New York during March, April, and May.