This year in Jerusalem, but not for everyone

There sure has been a VeNehafoch Hu since Purim. . . the world that we are living seems to be totally changed and turned over – but it is hard to see how it is for the better.  Coronavirus has had a devastating worldwide impact, and according to many scientists and epidemiologists, we ain't see nothing yet. Some have dire predictions of millions dying, industries collapsing, and health care systems being overwhelmed with no end in sight – and there are reminders of the devastation that the Spanish flu caused just about a century ago.  Just about everyone knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone – חברא דחברא) who has tested positive for the virus, which so far has no vaccine, although the mortality rate is "only" about 3-4 percent.  It is hard to remember that we are still in the month of Adar.

For me personally, Baruch Hashem, no one in my family or immediate circle of friends has become ill.  But my investments have been devastated, many of my neighbors are in full quarantine and the whole country is required to stay home unless absolutely necessary to leave – I have not left the house for four days now. My son's plan for visiting Israel for Pesach has been canceled along with the plans of countless thousands of others who are unable to travel.  Much of my work has been canceled, most of my plans for activities in the immediate future are tenuous at best, and life feels quite unsettled.

In Israel, in general, the government has acted very aggressively.  All non-vital businesses are closed, all schools shuttered, no wedding parties allowed, restaurants and public entertainment closed, no more than ten people may congregate (I assume that someone insisted that we still be allowed to have bare minyanim, although most shuls are closed). As of this writing public transportation is still running, but everyone must sit six feet apart – no one may sit near the driver.   Ben Gurion Airport is virtually shut down, no non-citizens may enter.  Given that I am finishing a course to become a licensed tour guide in Israel, my dear friend and well-known tour guide Rabbi Ephraim Schwartz (whose business has ground to a halt) quipped to me, "You know how Ibn Ezra said if he became a gravedigger people would stop dying... here's a new one -- if Rabbi Oppenheimer becomes a tour guide people will stop touring... thanks a lot for all of this..."

There is undoubtedly plenty of doom and gloom.  But as we are looking at this time of Adar as a time of joy, and moreover, we are looking forward to Pesach as a time of freedom and escape from terrors past, it is important to find the positive in this crisis for humanity throughout the world.  One beautiful perspective that I saw in Hebrew several times (but not in English) was circulated by the well-known Torah teacher and journalist Sivan Rahav-Meir, quoting Hani Lifshitz, a Chabad emissary in Kathmandu, Nepal:

"All of a sudden, we are required to think deep and hard: where were we? What route did we take? Who are the people who have been in our area? Were we in contact with them? How long were we next to those people? Do we remember other people who were near us, with whom we might have had even a trifling contact and where that was?  Did we shake their hand? Embrace?  Did we sit in close proximity with them??

With a hand on our heart, how many of us stop to think about these things when there is no Coronavirus? The days rush by, but suddenly, we must stop. We have to think of how critical it is to remember every detail of our interactions with the people who pass through our lives – how important each encounter is and how nothing is random. How each of those encounters can really affect our lives, with potential real long-term significant effects. Let us not for a moment think that the encounter with those who came our way is unimportant and fleeting. In fact, those brief encounters can penetrate deep into the soul, take root in the soul, and can change our lives from one end to the other, for better or worse. And that effect can infect, the next person, who in turn can affect a third, and their circle of people, and so on, for better, on [heaven forfend] for worse.

That is how this world works; we are interdependent. The impact of every action rolls from one end of the world to the other.

Furthermore, some will need isolation – time to be with themselves, shut out from the rest of the world – a time for introspection, for thought, far from all others. I am sure that when one emerges from there, they will have a new perspective on the potential energy there is in encounters between two people.

Another perspective that has been much shared is from Rabbi Moss of Australia, who challenged us not to be afraid of the uncertainty that we are faced with, but rather, to embrace it.  As he put it:

What will happen next? We don't know. Our experts don't know. Our leaders don't know. Only G-d knows. And that is the point. Only G-d knows.

Close your eyes and feel the uncertainty, make peace with it, let yourself be taken by it. Embrace your cluelessness. Because in all the confusion there is one thing you know for sure. You are in G-d's hands. Keep calm. Panic and fear are also contagious. Take every precaution as advised by health authorities. Wash your hands well. And every time you do, remember whose hands you are in.

Many other perspectives abound – one of them that speaks to me deeply is that for so many this year, “Next Year in Jerusalem” seems to be taking on a whole new dose of reality.  With many privileged people forced to make Pesach at home, perhaps for the first time in their lives, and with the doors to Eretz Yisrael closed for those who have not already moved here, perhaps more thought will be devoted to the illusory nature of our comfortable lives in the Diaspora, and whether we have reacted properly to Hashem’s incredible gift to us – up until now – of the welcome opportunity to live in Eretz Yisrael.

Ultimately, as we had ample opportunity to reflect during the Torah reading of this past Shabbat Ki Tisa, we have to recognize human limits.  Even the greatest of humans, Moshe Rabbeinu, was told that Man is not privy to G-d’s plans, and we have to learn to trust that He knows – far better than we could imagine – why that which we experience as painful is, in fact, for the ultimate good. 

Let us resolve that going through this experience will end up sobering us (important after Purim) to the reality of how little is in our control, how much we depend on each other, and how fragile our existence is.  Perhaps this is the harbinger of the Geula, some have pointed out that the Gematria of קרונה is 361, which is the gematria of משיח בא. We look forward to Pesach with deep prayer that Hashem once again save us from plagues and natural disasters, and that the gates of Eretz Yisrael will swing wide open for all of us to come home in good physical, spiritual and financial health, speedily on our days.

Appeared in the Jewish Press March 20, 2020