WordPress Database Error

[Moderator Note: Topic title amended. Your problem is no more urgent than anyone else’s.]

Hi,

Today all of a sudden bunch of widgets are not loading on my homepage http://community.mis.temple.edu/ This is a live University site hence need to get it back up soon.

Looks like I figured out why its causing it, not sure how to fix it.
PHP log file is giving me an error
“WordPress database error MySQL server has gone away for query SELECT …”
for all the associated widgets.

But the same widget loads on all the sub pages. so basically the error is only on the front page. How can I fix this.

Thanks
Manoj