Corona – Part III: What Will be Different
| Here is the third of my three sermons for the High Holidays. The first two dealt with the Coronavirus crisis and a Jewish response to it. I concluded the series with this one about how our world and we will and should be different going forward. In homiletics class in Rabbinical School we were taught the art of the three-point sermon. Without going into too much detail, the basic premise is that to keep the congregation’s attention a sermon should have three distinct parts. There are different styles and ways to do it. One early 20th century preacher described his style of oratory as – “First I tell him what I’m gonna tell ‘em; then I tell ‘em, and then I tell ‘em what I told ‘em.” Although I don’t always use the three point framework to structure my sermons, I frequently employ the technique, especially for the High Holidays, as I did this year – only a little differently – by dividing one sermon into three parts and spreading it out over three separate days. On Rosh Hashana I acknowledged how the pandemic has disrupted and uprooted our lives, lamented what we have lost, and how Judaism’s response throughout the millennia in similar circumstances has been motivated and guided by the imperative to preserve life. The second day I considered our situation from a theological perspective and asked if it was possible that God was sending the world a message. In rejecting the notion that the pandemic affecting our entire planet is some kind of divine punishment, I suggested that we should still nevertheless, learn from it, and that Judaism’s three-fold approach to crises throughout the ages can provide guidance to navigate these trying times. A byproduct of the commandment to embrace and preserve life, the threefold response is: to pray, seek medical remedies, and examine our ways to analyze our shortcomings and thereby consider how our actions may have contributed to the predicament. In other words, as we have done throughout our history, not to mire in our misery, but to take responsibility, be resilient and to seek solutions. During the devastating bubonic plague of the Middle Ages, which wiped out almost 60% of the European population, Jews were accused of poisoning wells, killing Christian children for ritual purposes, and were blamed for spreading the disease. Unfortunately, a vaccine against the world’s oldest and most persistent disease – anti-Semitism has not yet been developed. As a result, this pandemic is not immune to the irrational pathology and preposterous conspiratorial accusations about Jews. Now as then, we refused to let the negative images of our detractors who hate us and who seek our demise define us. Indeed, one of the characteristics anti-Semites have in common, and which is why the hatred is not confined to the right or the left, is to blame the Jews as the source of whatever ills they or society may have — the very antithesis of what Judaism teaches. We Jews do not look to find fault or blame others when something goes wrong, but look inward at ourselves. The High Holidays, especially Yom Kippur is a time to reflect upon and evaluate what is important and what truly matters. This year, perhaps more than any other we should pause and assess what we treasure and what is enduring. While I do not subscribe to the notion that the coronavirus is a message from God, I do believe that the Almighty would want us to support and help each other, and to learn and grow from the experience. Today I seek to address – what, if anything, is there from this period that we may wish to preserve and retain when life returns to some semblance of normal, and what should we cast off? What will be different going forward? What changes should we make in our lives? These after all, are the fundamental questions we raise on Yom Kippur. We can begin by reflecting on why we herald the New Year, proclaim God as Creator and celebrate the birthday of the universe with a single ram’s horn, and not an entire orchestra. The sound of the single shofar calls to each of us to do our part to make the world a better place, which requires us to begin with ourselves. The shofar pierces to the inner depths of our souls, calling on us to heed the message of the Yamim HaNoraim. A midrash tells of a man in a rowboat who was quietly drilling a hole under his seat. One of the other people in the boat saw what he was doing, and asked him to stop. The guy kept drilling and said, “Why should you care or be worried? I am just drilling under my seat.” To which the other passenger replied, “Are you crazy? Don’t you realize we are all in the same boat and that what you do has an impact on all of us?!” How true. Indeed, we are all in the same boat, or as Adlai Stevenson said so eloquently in a speech at the United Nations in 1965, we are all passengers on the spaceship called earth. If there is any one thing we have learned from the last few months, it is how interdependent and connected we are, for the whole world is dealing simultaneously with the same phenomenon. Edward Lorenz in the 1960’s postulated what came to be known as the “butterfly effect,” the well-known theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can cause the unleashing of a storm in Europe. Well, I have my doubts that the flapping of the wings of a butterfly halfway around the world affects the weather in Ohio, but we do know now that what happens in an open-air market in Wuhan, China affects the entire world. How ironic that being a global community is precisely what led to our having to be in a quarantine, isolated from one another. Compounding the irony, due to modern technology, we weren’t totally cut off from each other, even during the height of the lockdown. Yet despite all the various means of communication through the miracle of modern technology, we now recognize that nothing can replace genuine human contact, interaction, human touch. There is no comparison between a virtual hug, and the real thing. Research links isolation and being cut off from others to loneliness, which can lead to adverse consequences, including chronic stress, poor sleep, and even premature death. For us Jews social distancing is especially challenging because so much of what we do is as members of a community. Like most religions, Judaism teaches the importance of being a good person, but the Torah says that holiness is found by being part of a community. We can pray alone, but synagogues and community, are central to our religious experience and how we encounter God. When someone dies we pay our respects during the seven day period known as shiva. We do this to ensure that mourners not confront their sorrow alone, and so they can say Kaddish, which must be recited in a minyan, as part of a community. Our time in quarantine has helped us realize how much we miss and how much we crave community and human interaction; how much we need and appreciate being connected to something larger than ourselves. We, like many synagogues adapted, and held services virtually, trying to make lemonade out of lemons. Being able to adapt, while maintaining our traditions and customs; bending, but not abandoning our fundamentals has helped us survive for 3,000 years.But let us not forget that what we do is a response, a temporary response, to the Coronavirus crisis. We are applying the age old Talmudic principle of sha’at ha’dahak, permission granted in a time of emergency to suspend certain restrictions and make temporary adjustments and adaptations so that we can reach the time when things return to normal and our standards can apply again. Since we cannot fully partake of our synagogue community at this time, let us fortify our homes and make them the sanctuary they are supposed to be. The Jewish home is known as a mikdash m’at, a place of holiness, for this is where we teach, practice and perpetuate our traditions, observe our rituals and holidays, and convey and create Jewish memories. The late Rabbi Morris Adler of Detroit, put it this way, “Judaism begins at home. It doesn’t begin at a meeting or a conference or at a philanthropic campaign. It begins in homes where Judaism lives in the atmosphere and is integrated in the normal pattern of daily life. It begins in homes where the Jewish words echo, where the Jewish book is honored and the Jewish song is heard. It begins where the child sees and participates in symbols and rites that link him to a people and a culture.” Even if you have never done much at home before, now is the time to deepen and enrich and add to your observance of Judaism in your home. The isolation and time at home has also helped us appreciate how important family is. In an interview in last Sunday’s New York Times, comedian Chris Rock observed, “The other day I realized I’ve never met an elderly person that was cared for by their friends. Every elderly person I know that’s got any trouble is cared for by a spouse or a child. Where are your friends? Your friends are probably not going to be there when it really counts. When my dad was dying in the hospital, where were his friends? My grandmother, where were her friends? Don’t get me wrong, you get sick in your 20s, your friends will come to the hospital. It’s an adventure. You get sick in your 60s, they farm it out. ‘You go Wednesday and I’ll go Sunday.’ Enjoy them while you have them. But if you think your friends are your long-term solution to loneliness, you’re an idiot.” In one of his press briefings in the early stage of the lockdown, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke about being in quarantine with his daughter. He said, “To tell you the truth, I had some of the best conversations with her that I’ve ever had. We talked about things in depth that we didn’t have time to talk about in the past, or we didn’t have the courage or the strength to talk about in the past – feelings I had, about mistakes I had made along the way that I wanted to express my regret and talk through with her.” The High Holidays are a time to turn to our loved ones, to have tough conversations, and the coronavirus reminds us to reaffirm and reinforce the ties that bind us together. The tedious repetitiveness has resulted in many not knowing what day it is. A TV station in Cleveland broadcast a shtick they called with gameshow graphics, “What Day is It?” Dean Buonomano, a professor of behavioral neuroscience at UCLA said, “We’ve lost our mental landmarks or temporal boundaries for days. Tech world journalist Nellie Bowles recently wrote, “In a workday spent at home, in front of a computer while meetings come and go, projects are received and filed, there is no differentiation. Every activity is physically the same,” which is why she says, she is “hungry for ritual.” To those unsure what day it is, I have a simple solution. Try this — set aside one day a week, when you don’t do any work. Let it be a day of rest. Spend time with your family. Don’t pay bills, or run around doing errands or engaging in commerce. Make it a day when you don’t schedule any business zoom calls, check emails or worry about — Oh, wait a minute, I just realized we already have such a day. In fact, we invented it – it’s called Shabbat! Setting aside this one day helps draw a line, makes a distinction, and creates a boundary between our personal lives and the work lives that occupy us all week long. it is important to step away from our computers for a day. Being available for work 24/6 instead of 24/7 helps to maintain our sanity and the feeling that we are in control of our lives. Shabbat liberates us from being slaves to our work and allows us to bring holiness to our homes and spirituality to our lives on a regular basis. It is never too late to introduce this practice into your lives. One of the compelling lines and the title of a song from the play Hamilton, is when the revolutionary heroes ask, “Who will tell our story?” It is a question that we Jews have asked and obsessed over throughout the ages. How will we tell our story when we look back on this time, when it is all behind us? What is the story of this past year that we will tell? More importantly, what is the story that you will tell with your life and actions in the coming year? The rabbis recognized that all of us are allotted our share of difficulties andthat suffering is an inevitable part of life. Masechet Arachin (16b) put it this way, “Anyone who lives forty days without experiencing any suffering is considered to have experienced what life is like in the heavenly realm. Any form of discomfort is regarded as suffering, including such minor irritations and inconveniences as uncomfortable clothing.” They are telling us that no life is devoid of challenges and discomfort. Suffering and hardship are part of living. How we react and respond though – that is a choice each individual makes. What is a minor distraction to most people could be traumatic for some. Ultimately, each individual determines what to make of the experiences they have. An appropriate metaphor is the midrash that says that when the Israelites wandered in the desert they carried the shattered fragments of the tablets in the ark with them. Now that we have learned that we can live without some of the activities and luxuries we had mistakenly assumed were essential necessities, perhaps we will come away with a new attitude towards materialism and consumerism and greater appreciation of the simpler, more basic things in life. There may be benefits to a slower pace, reduced activity and less running around and chasing whatever we are after that eludes us. I find, for example, I am getting better gas mileage. I am now getting one month to the gallon. The satellite images at the outset of the international lockdown showed another benefit — the dramatic improvement in air quality as a result of the downturn in driving and industrial output. Pollution, along with the recent devastating fires and hurricanes is a wakeup call for us to stop postponing and to address and pay attention to what we are doing to the environment and how we are harming our planet. Speaking of those early days when we were confined to our homes, do you remember the inspiring scenes of people each afternoon, first in Tel Aviv, and then in Manhattan and other cities when at a set time they applauded the dedicated health care workers? It seems like ages ago, but let us not forget how important it is to express and show gratitude. Crises like this can bring out the best in humanity, as in the touching scene at a nursing home in Haifa where an Arab nurse sang Mah nishtana, for the elderly Jewish residents, so they could hear the Four Questions at their seder. Another image I will always cherish is of the two medics praying next to their ambulance in Israel. One was kneeling on a prayer rug facing south towards Mecca, and the other stood facing north with a tallit over his shoulders towards Jerusalem, giving us a glimpse of how faith and our differences need not be divisive, but can be a source of harmony, respect and decency. The first two recorded quarantines in history were when the Jews had to stay in their homes until midnight prior to their departure from Egypt, and before they received the Ten Commandments at Mt. Sinai. Just as the ancient Hebrews emerged from their isolation and came to receive the Torah at Mt. Sinai, so too will we emerge from this arduous isolation as better people. On this Yom Kippur, know that we matter to God. We matter to each other. My hope for the New Year is that we will look for and find the good in others, and be inspired to bring it out in ourselves; that we will remember how much we missed community, human touch and contact — so that we will reach out to others. Let us take with us in the new year, the promise to be a little more tolerant, a little kinder, a little gentler, a little more patient, a little more compassionate. One of my favorite stories seems especially appropro this year. It is about a shtetl that was about to be destroyed by decree of the king. The rabbi went and appealed to the king to delay the order for a year. The Jews in the town were relieved and happy to hear the news. They crowded around and asked the rabbi what he said to convince the king to reconsider and not wipe out the town. The rabbi explained, “I know that the king has a horse, and that he loves his horse very much. So I told him to give me a year and I would teach his horse to talk.” As you can imagine, the townspeople berated the rabbi and criticized him for being so stupid and naïve. All he had done was to merely delay the inevitable pogrom, and perhaps arouse even greater ire and anger of the king. But the wise rabbi quieted them and replied, “My friends, you are the ones who do not understand. You see, a lot can happen in a year. The king might change his mind. The king might die. The horse might die. And who knows, maybe the horse will learn to talk.” My friends, a lot can happen in a year. Let us never lose hope. Let us pray for peace and health and hope that next year at this time, a cure will be found for this dreadful disease, that all of our worthy prayers for our families, our nation, our people, and our world will be fulfilled. Let us say — L’shana ha ba’ah be’B’nai Tzedek – Next year at B’nai Tzedek! Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt Congregtion B’nai Tzedek Potomac, MD potomacrebbe@bnaitzedek.org September 28, 2020 |
