CHOCHMAS NASHIM: HAAZINU:
VAXING AND VAINING
BLACK AND WHITE EREV YOM KIPPUR NIGHT
By: Suri Davis
Hearken heaven and I will talk, listen earth to the words of my mouth. There are some truths that are core from the days the world was created. We are not in control, G-d is. We see it day after day, month after month, year after year. As we prayed last Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the thought of a worldwide pandemic was that of sci-fi movies, as remote as seeing a dinosaur walking down the street. G-d had His plan, and we are working through it. Man is the great disrupter, for he is made up of his nature and nurture, which affects those around him, and together the world.
The Jewish holy temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of baseless hatred, which is one of the sins for which we ask forgiveness from G-d. It is a sin between man and his fellow man, and for those sins between man, Yom Kippur does not forgive unless we ask forgiveness from he who we have wronged.
The artscroll siddur expounds on the concept of baseless hatred, stating:
We have hated people on a personal level instead of disagreeing on issues. Today in the Five Towns we saw a personal attack on a doctor who has taken the leadership role in guiding the community through the science and consciousness of the epidemic, as the numbers of those testing positive for the coronavirus increase, he takes time from his very busy schedule to update the community on his thoughts on how to best prevent what is going on Israel (7,000 new coronavirus cases a day) and elsewhere in the world. The coronavirus is an unknown. The last pandemic, the Spanish Flu, killed 50,000,000 people worldwide, doctors want to ensure, as leaders in this pandemic fight, that the death toll from this virus does not follow the same course.
ReopenFTschools@gmail.com wrote a scathing commentary personally attacking this doctor/leader, and other doctors who came together to set forth its very conservative approach to containing the virus, simply, donning masks and social distancing. He/she/they who have not revealed themselves are cowards. If you want to be leaders, then lead. Hiding behind an email account discredits anything meaningful they want to want to disseminate to the community. Personally attacking the doctor and those who want to take a leadership role in the community is vile and childish rabble rousing.
Leaders have a responsibility to be conservative with other people’s lives, for we look to them to preserve life. Reopeners are like Korach, they want to be leaders, but no one respects them enough to make them leaders, and they are afraid to reveal themselves and offer another leadership choice, and let the people chose which side they want. The Reopeners offer no evidence that masks and social distancing fail to help, for if they did, and the evidence was real, then we would all really be in trouble, we would have to remain at home. Period.
The anti-vaxxers are frustrated that those who believe in vaccination control the rules with regard to admission to schools. For decades, there were exceptions and exemptions for religious belief, and other beliefs which permitted anti-vaxxers their opinions and permitted their children to enter school…until the experiment failed, and there was an uptick in measle cases which endangered entire communities and state health, and the exemptions were discarded because it put too many at risk of serious injury or death. The measle lesson came to us exactly a year before the pandemic outbreak. Government officials were not taking a risk with this unknown virus.
Reopeners will point to the lower infection, hospitalization and death rate to state, the worst is over, let us be free, but it is silly, for we might have gone through a point in the season of the virus where it becomes less virulent, and like the flu, restarts at some other point in the year, we just don’t know enough at this point to say all clear, and no leader wants to let his guard down, and be the one who permitted children to infect each other and their families to whom the return in each night.
There was camps this summer, which suffered no outbreak, and there were some who did. There were some weddings which suffered no outbreaks, and some which were superspreaders. What is your risk tolerance as an individual, what is your risk tolerance when you are a leader.
Think about those in Europe during World War II. No one believed that Hitler would follow through on his plan to exterminate millions of Jews worldwide, surely it was hyperbole, and our friends would not permit said extermination to occur and remain silent. Did those who went into hiding ask themselves the impact on their children and those around them, the psychological hardship of those who were saving themselves from death. They did what they had to do to survive.
Those who thought going into hiding was extreme, because nothing would happen to them on the train ride, took that risk, and learned the hard way. Most guffawed at those who left their wealth to escape Europe to a foreign land, the majority who stayed, rued their decision for the rest of their lives.
Everyone decides if they will quaranting, how they will quarantine, when they will go out, if they will attend family gatherings, public occasions. No one should scoff at others decisions…yet we see public judgment of people on both sides of the quarantine equation.
Reopeners are frustrated at their failure to be leaders and control the decisions of the schools to close or learn remotely. They talk about the impact of quarantine on their children and themselves, then let them band together and get together without masks and social distancing so their children can have the socialization the parents feel they need. Let them organize group zooming of classes, rotating different parent homes to permit parents to resume their work. Let them band together to hire an adult to watch these children zoom, or to teach the children in one group space, so that all parents may go to work. Let them start their own bandwagon, like the World War II cattle cars, some will die, and others will live, and it is all up to G-d anyway. They believe that Emunah/Faith in G-d dictates living as though there is no enemy. Walk outside during WWII Europe with a proud yellow star. If you get picked up, that is G-d’s hand, and if you don’t get picked up by the Nazis, that too is G-d’s hand. It is the age old question of hishtadlut v. Yad Hashem, our own input into our life outcomes v. G-d’s plans for us.
Anne Frank’s family went into hiding. The diary shows clearly the emotional impact on the teenager. Ultimately, G-d’s plan was for them to be discovered and taken away to a concentration camp, where Anne and her family dies, survived only by her father Otto Frank.
Individual choices are not easy. Every choice hs pros and cons. We pray for the wisdom to make the correct choices for ourselves and our families. There are local schools which did not open their day camps, and look back to see that the day camps were fine this summer. So they opened their schools, and now their schools are shuttered within days of opening because of the coronavirus. Parents tend to send to schools whose leadership is in line with their philosophy. They look to the leadership for guidance and to ensure the safety of their children. Two schools which closed this week were Darchei Torah and T.A.G. They have loving and concerned leaders, Rabbi Bender and Rabbi Weitman, who understand that bitul zman torah/wasting precious torah learning time should not be taken lightly. T.A.G. was forced to close its school even though it followed all rules because of the uptick of Covid cases in Far Rockaway, not because of any error or omission on its part. I don’t envy the decisions principals around the world had to make before schools opened as to how to open safely, live or via zoom.
They have to weigh these factors with the jump of coronavirus cases to 3.5%. If one child gets the virus, it could spread to his parents, siblings and any other person in contact with the large family members. These schools have large student enrollments, which increases, compounds the chances that if one child has the virus, that others will follow quickly and exponentially.
Months ago, youngsters didn’t appear to be vulnerable to the coronavirus, only the elderly and immunocompromised. Now, as an example, SUNY Oneonta opened its doors to live classes, within ten days, there were three hundred cases, then eight hundred cases, and the college shut down. These were not merely faculty, these were student cases. Were there increased hospitalizations or deaths, not really, but that doesn’t mean as the coronavirus enters its season, that it wont become deadly again. We just don’t know.
Black and white is unknown v. known. We know very little at this point about how the virus will continue its path.
Black and white are the opposite opinions about masks and quarantines. Those who believe in quarantine will upset those who believe schools and business should open. Those who walk outside without a mask and don’t social distance will prevent those who believe in masks and social distancing from going to shul, grocery stores or even for a walk in the park. Yes, we impact each other, but rather than butt heads, we will have to learn how to peacefully co-exist. This is our task in any case, because to bring redemption we start with tolerance and the removal of baseless hatred from our hearts and our community. We can disagree with approaches and opinions and Presidential candidates, but we cannot denigrate and disrespect our fellow man.
Black and white is hishtadlut v. Yad Hashem, our own efforts to control our decisions and destiny v. what G-d wants for us.
Black and white: Vaxing v. No vaxing, Vaining/permitting your vanity and ego to take precedence v. communal good.
As we approach Yom Kippur, a day of individual introspection, we have it in our power to bring communal redemption, by having each one of us ROUTE OUT the baseless hatred we have for those with differing opinions and appearances and ways of life. To bring peace, we have to resolve and reconcile black v. white with black and white, ying and yang need to peacefully co-exist within ourselves first, so that it may extend externally to the way we treat all people with gratuitous love so that we may merit the coming of Moshiach speedily in our days.
If I have written something that has hurt you at any time this year or in the past, I hope you forgive me.
Gmar Chasimah Tovah.
-Suri