While Standing (Six Feet Apart) on One Foot
Torah for a Viral Epidemic
March 21 – Shabbat 2 in Lockdown
In the past couple of weeks we have been learning a lot and not just about the virus and the governments’ responses or even about the economic impact. We have also been learning how our computers work…and how they don’t! We have learned how to live in close proximity with our children and our significant others. And, from what I am hearing, we are all doing a pretty good job of it! I am also seeing that more and more people are doing Jewish things, too. Judging by the number of people ‘coming to services’ online, I’d say that we are sharing a common Jewish moment. Yasher koachachem to you all!
Finally, we have been learning about how utterly dependent we are on others. There are so many people who are invisible to us or who we believe are simply there to serve us. After this crisis I will never underestimate the importance of the clerk at Quik Check, the UPS guy, the woman who delivers the mail, the schoolteacher who labors at home to teach in ways they were never trained in, the maintenance people who risk their lives cleaning the floors of hospitals and the thousands of other ‘invisible people’ who never get acknowledged. I read the other day that, when this is over, every community in America needs to have a parade with the janitors, clerks and delivery people in the front with full honors! I agree.
We have also been given a gift, of sorts. We have time now to reconnect with those we love, especially if we are to be together for an extended period of time. This may be the epitome of making lemonade when all we seem to have are lemons.
This notion is reflected in a beautiful prayer, aptly entitled ‘Pandemic’ – take a look:
Pandemic
Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath –the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing.
Pray.
Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love–for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
The tzoris we are all facing together has changed us. We are connected in ways we have never thought about. Differences seem irrelevant in light of the fact that each of us can get sick. Respect and honor and love seems to be flowing in our community. That is a good thing. In this crisis, let us continue to reach with our hearts, if we can’t with our hands, reach with our words if we can’t with our bodies, and always reach out to one another with the tendrils of compassion that, like the invisible people we all have suddenly become aware of, move in ways that that change lives for the better.
