Category: Coronavirus

Holy moly! It’s Adar Bet.

Image: A woman lifts her hands and grimaces in surprise. By Engin Akyurt / Pixabay

It’s March 1, and Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet. If the latter term is unfamiliar, read Why Two Months of Adar?

In leap years, when we have an Adar Aleph, I tend to zone out for that month. There are no holidays, and not much happening. I reassure myself that it is a l-o-n-g way to Passover. Then come, Rosh Chodesh, I panic: what have I done about Purim preparations? Do I know where my grogger is? Have I decided to whom to send mishloach manot? When will I start the dreaded Passover preparation?

March is my birthday month, as is Adar. Now it is also the anniversary of the original Covid lockdown here in California. That means that those feelings get mixed in with everything else on Rosh Chodesh Adar Bet.

מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה

“When Adar enters, joy increases” – BT Ta’anit 29a

It seems cruel to dangle that tradition before our eyes, when Adar contains anniversaries of death and destruction. However, as with many things in the Talmud, context helps:

מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אָב מְמַעֲטִין בְּשִׂמְחָה וְכוּ׳. אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה בְּרֵיהּ דְּרַב שְׁמוּאֵל בַּר שִׁילַת מִשְּׁמֵיהּ דְּרַב: כְּשֵׁם שֶׁמִּשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אָב מְמַעֲטִין בְּשִׂמְחָה — כָּךְ מִשֶּׁנִּכְנַס אֲדָר מַרְבִּין בְּשִׂמְחָה.

§ The mishnah teaches that from when the month of Av begins, one decreases acts of rejoicing. Rav Yehuda, son of Rav Shmuel bar Sheilat, said in the name of Rav: Just as when Av begins one decreases rejoicing, so too when the month of Adar begins, one increases rejoicing.

First, Adar’s rejoicing comes up as a contrast in a much longer discussion of the month of Av, the traditional month for sadness and sad anniversaries. When Av begins, we curtail our acts of rejoicing because we are preparing ourselves to remember the destruction of the Temple and other disasters. In contrast, when Adar begins, we prepare ourselves to celebrate Purim.

In both cases, we are the actors. It is not, as some translations suggest, that joy gets sucked out of the world in Av, or that joy is pumped into the world in Adar. We have the power to choose how we will react to events.

Mitzvot — commandments — are given to sanctify us, to make us holy. We fulfill mitzvot in order to transform ourselves slowly over time. I cannot choose events, but I can choose how I respond to events. I cannot choose emotions, but I can choose how I will express those emotions.

This Adar Aleph, Russia invaded Ukraine. In Adar 5780, coronavirus shut down the world, and it has been sickening and killing people ever since. In other Adars, other terrible things happened. Still the Jewish People chose to do acts of rejoicing: we’ve had Purim over Zoom twice. This year I will send some of my mishloach manot budget to HIAS and the WUPJ, to feed and comfort those in the war zone.

I do not kid myself that my little donations will make for a happy Purim in Kyiv. I am not so grandiose as to think that it will make a big difference. The little difference I make in the situation will be multiplied by all the other people sending money to help. The big difference will be in me: I will not succumb to despair. I will teach myself, again, that what matters is how I react. What matters is that I will bring a tiny bit of joy into this world by an act of will.

Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who blesses us with mitzvot, to transform our hearts.

The Lesson of COVID-19

Image: The world pictured as a giant coronavirus. By Miroslava Chrienova from Pixabay

COVID-19 is teaching us a lesson: every one of us is interconnected. Within a species, we are intimately connected: we have the same vulnerabilities and we breathe the same air. We are not separate beings, not really, and what happens to one has a potential effect on everyone else.

I got a powerful lesson about this last Sunday morning. I’ve spent my week recovering from a fall on my patio last Sunday about noon. I tripped and fell, unable to keep my forehead from hitting the concrete. I’m on blood thinners, so this is potentially very serious: it could start a hemorrhage inside my skull and kill me.

I was able to get up unassisted, and I never lost consciousness: good signs both. Still, I had instructions from my doctor to go to the emergency room if I hit my head. Linda and I immediately went for help. I could tell that the hospital triage folk deemed it serious; they swept me into a treatment room and got an IV started immediately. A doctor came in quickly to look me over, order tests and a CAT scan.

As it turned out, I was lucky: no brain bleed. I have a nasty black eye, a bruised nose, and assorted scrapes, but I am alive.

I was even luckier to be living in Alameda County, California, where we have a relatively low COVID-19 transmission rate. I needed an emergency room and skilled docs and nurses and I got them. I needed a CAT scan, and I needed to sit for 12 hours so they could watch me to see if I was going to have a problem.

In Alaska and in Idaho, I’d have had a very different Sunday afternoon. There entire hospitals are overwhelmed and they cannot do much for aging ladies who trip over their own feet, even if they might die.

COVID-19 is teaching us a lesson: every creature on earth is interconnected. Within our species of homo sapiens, we have the same vulnerabilities, we breathe the same air, we need the same resources. We may like to talk about being “free” but a virus knows and cares nothing about “freedom.” The virus crossed over from the animal kingdom, and it is chewing its way through humanity as I type this. We have the means to slow it down — vaccination — and to some of us, getting vaccinated seems like the smart thing to do.

For other people, it is a harder decision. They’ve heard rumors about reactions to the shots. They’ve heard misinformation from the Internet and from sources they thought reliable. For some people, it’s about not wanting to be told what to do by a bunch of people they experience as smug and annoying.

I can understand all that. But I also understand that in Alaska and Idaho they are unable to take care of people with heart attacks and possible brain bleeds, because they have had to move to “crisis standards of care” also known as rationed care. If one individual chooses not to get vaccinated, other people may lose their chances at life.

The ER was pretty busy Sunday. There was a person with chest pains, and another who had had a gnarly commercial kitchen accident. There were others I don’t know anything about, they just came and went during my 12 hour vigil. Care was available for us. That was because outside the hospital (and inside it too!) people are wearing masks, 77% of residents are fully vaccinated and 90.4% of residents have had at least one vaccination.

I am grateful that my fellow Alameda County residents are looking out for me. I’ll do my best to look out for them. When we thought COVID was “over” in July, and we ditched our masks, it came roaring back at us. Luckily for us, the mask mandates and high vax rate has brought all that back under control. Because it is under control, there was room for me in the ER.

A portion of the Book of Leviticus is known to scholars as “The Holiness Code.” A chunk of it addresses this interconnection of people, our responsibilities to take care of one another. I think it’s worth pondering in this context:

When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.

You shall not pick your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen fruit of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am Adonai your God.

You shall not steal; you shall not deal deceitfully or falsely with one another.

You shall not swear falsely by My name, profaning the name of your God: I am Adonai.

You shall not defraud your fellow. You shall not commit robbery. The wages of a laborer shall not remain with you until morning.

You shall not insult the deaf, or place a stumbling block before the blind. You shall fear your God: I am Adonai.

You shall not render an unfair decision: do not favor the poor or show deference to the rich; judge your kinsman fairly.

Do not go about as a talebearer among others; deal basely with your countrymen. Do not profit by the blood of your fellow: I am Adonai.

You shall not hate your kinsfolk in your heart. Reprove your kin but incur no guilt because of them.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against your countrymen. Love your fellow as yourself: I am Adonai.

Leviticus 19: 8-19.

We Jews are commanded to pay attention to our connections with others. We are commanded to take the needs of strangers seriously, to treat the rich and poor equally, to love our fellow as ourselves. There’s nothing there about “the deserving poor” or the “innocent victim” or any other such loophole that will allow us to exclude someone. There’s nothing about an exemption for wishing evil on people with whom we disagree. Just “love your fellow as yourself.”

We are all part of the web of connection: the healthy and the sick, the wealthy and the poor, the clever and the simple, heck, even Democrats and Republicans. Like it or not, we’re in this together.

Thoughts for the 1st Night

Image: Menorah with two candles lit, on the first night. (Photo: NashvilleScene.com)

I love the first night of Chanukah. I love the bravery of the two little lights, the shamash (“helper”) candle and the 1st candle. The dark is so very dark, and those little lights shine brightly against it.

The world has felt like a dark night for so long. Whatever your political persuasion, surely the state of American democracy is distressing. The fact that we cannot even agree on the facts is terrifying. A frightening virus has completely disrupted our lives for nine months, and while a vaccine has been developed (a miracle in itself) the logistics of a just distribution of that vaccine is a daunting prospect. Over 290,000 lie dead from coronavirus in the United States.

Tonight I’m going to take comfort in two little candles. One lights, the other is lit. We never have one without the other. There is never a lone candle in the dark.

In some ways, the shamash is the “extra” candle. It isn’t counted, doesn’t get credit for its light. But it stands for all the helpers out there in the world, who spread the light to others, often without credit for what they do. This year it stands for the healthcare workers, the journalists, the delivery people, the “essential workers” who do their work in danger and often for low pay.

I will remind myself that none of us is ever a lone candle in the dark. There are always other lights, and I will focus my eyes on them as I read the news and make my way through social media.  Fred Rogers suggested that the best way to navigate a scary world is to “Look for the helpers.” I’m going to look for the people who are spreading the light.

Chag urim sameach – Happy holiday of lights!

Prayer For Those In Isolation

Image: Person sitting alone with Coronavirus floating outside. (Tumisu / Pixabay)

Of all the cruelties of Covid-19, perhaps the most cruel thing is the isolation it imposes.

It isolates those who are hardest hit with the disease, when the best treatment available is a ventilator. For the patient to endure this treatment, they have to be sedated, and they are left without the comfort of human interaction, even with the strangers caring for them.

It isolates all those who are hospitalized with the disease, because everyone who enters the Covid-19 treatment environment is put at risk for the disease. Family and friends cannot follow, cannot visit in person. Only healthcare workers who tend the sick at a risk to their own lives can be allowed to be there.

It isolates all who have been diagnosed with Covid-19, because suddenly they have become not only a human being but also a vector of disease. They must isolate themselves completely from everyone, lest someone be infected.

It isolates those who are known contacts of the infected person, because the disease is so contagious that they have to sequester themselves lest they infect another person.

It isolates the vulnerable healthy, those with underlying conditions that put them at risk for the worst of Covid-19. Every human contact carries risk for them, so to whatever extent they can they must isolate themselves. Their isolation is necessary but often psychologically brutal. It is painful to go months without so much as the touch of a human hand or an in-person smile.

Covid-19 isolates everyone: those of us who hide from it, and those who are perceived as carriers. It even isolates the who don’t believe in it, because they are left stranded in a make-believe world that endangers them and the people they love.

Oh God, who created each of us in Your image, who created the potential for this deadly disease, hear our cries and deliver us from the tentacles of this misery!

Inspire us to find ways to reach out to one another for comfort, while keeping ourselves safe.

Help us to retain our humanity while we avoid this virus.

Help us to treat one another with compassion.

And please, please God, let justice and mercy guide those distributing the vaccines.

O God, who listened to the cries of Your people in Egypt, hear our cries now and heal us.

And let us say, Amen.

How Can We Avert this Evil Decree?

Image: A family huddles together wearing surgical masks, while the coronavirus hovers in the background. (Mohamed Hassan / Pixabay)

What? Are we still slogging through this pandemic? Surely it was going to be over by now!

The bad news about Covid-19 is becoming clearer to more and more of us here in the USA. Yes, we are still slogging through it. And no, it isn’t going to be “over” anytime soon or maybe at all. No amount of wishing or happy talk will change that fact.

What CAN change the evil decree, as it says in the High Holy Days liturgy we’ll be reading (over Zoom, or facebook, or in our homes) in September?

The liturgy tells us that “prayer, repentance, and charity” are the recipe for changing the evil decree. But how can that be so? What about science?

Science has its place. Science can give us the information we need to choose our actions. Science can develop treatments and vaccines. But science alone cannot change our behavior, and science alone will not defeat the coronavirus.

Prayer – The Hebrew word for prayer, tefillah, actually translates in English as “to judge oneself.” If we want to “defeat Covid,” we each need to have some serious conversations with ourselves and with God about our behavior. Am I truly doing all I can to avoid spreading Covid-19 by wearing a mask and staying 6 feet away from anyone who isn’t in my immediate household? Or is life one little exception after another? Is there more I could do? Am I pressuring anyone to “loosen up” a bit because I want something?

This may seem to you to be an odd definition of prayer, but many of our understandings from English words are heavily colored by Christian understandings of the words. In the Jewish understanding, prayer can be talking to God, but one does not need to be “religious” or even “spiritual” to pray. Praying can be putting into words what we need and what we feel, or saying words from the tradition and having our own reactions to them. Either way, we pray best when we are totally honest. That’s when prayer can work on our souls and our lives and produce real change.

Repentance – The Hebrew for repentance is teshuvah. It’s more than being sorry. It’s more than a promise to change. I like to say that teshuvah is the Jewish Cure for Guilt, because it is a very specific process for change, or as the root of the word implies, turning things around. We need to make teshuvah about individual behaviors (see “Prayer” above) and we need to make teshuvah as a country. Covid-19 has laid bare so many of the systemic problems in our society: health care based on employment, racial and economic inequities, the undervaluation of essential workers, and the evils of food and housing insecurity, to name but a few. If we hope to “defeat Covid,” we have to address those issues, make changes, and see the process through. Wishing and polite conversation will not do the job. And no, it will not be cheap — this is going to cost tax dollars. The alternative is to have this monster virus circulating indefinitely, fed by reservoirs of infection in the poorest parts of our society.

Systemic change of this sort has to begin with individuals, but it ultimately must involve speaking truth to power. We need political engagement while insisting that our leaders do what is good for ALL of us, not just for their wealthier constituents. And yes, some of us will feel that as loss: losses in tax bills, losses in power, losses in prestige. It will mean seeing gains for some whom we might judge undeserving, but remember: the virus doesn’t care whether someone is deserving or undeserving. It just sees a vulnerable target and reproduces itself.

Charity – If we are speaking Jewish, that’s tzedakah, which is like the other two a very specific concept, not the English “charity.” It is linked to tzedek, justice. To get through the immediate crisis, we have to be willing, individually, to open our purses and give to the institutions that support the vulnerable. We may need to take care of vulnerable relatives with a check or with housing. We may need to ask for help, either for ourselves or for someone else. None of those things are cheap, but then, neither is human life.

And as I said in the section on repentance, as a society we have to begin caring about justice. Justice is not revenge. We need to care about what’s fair, and “I keep all the marbles, they are mine Mine MINE” is not fair or just. We need to stop teaching the idea that “the one who dies with the most toys, wins.” We need to lose “greed is good.” We need to think more creatively than “lock them up.”

Covid-19 is offering us a lesson: each of us is linked to the other. My fate is inextricably linked to that of every other person on the planet. We breathe the same air, we exchange the same micro-organisms, we drink the same water, and no resource is truly unlimited. Whether I like it or not, we are linked. I can choose to see you with compassion, or I can hate your guts, but the virus does not care. It will make its home in any of us, and some of us will suffer horribly for it — and there’s no real test for who is who. A healthy young Broadway actor died after weeks in the hospital. An elderly person with risk factors survived. So let’s not kid ourselves.

Tefilah, teshuvah, and tzedakah can change the evil decree. It isn’t the easy path. But as far as I see, it is the only path that goes where we want to go.

Prayer for a Change of Heart

Ribbono shel Olam, Ruler of all, my heart is broken.

A disease is ravaging my country,

A virus that seems utterly vicious in its attacks on the body.

Some who get it don’t even know they have it,

And others succumb after weeks of suffering.

This plague does not make all suffer equally.

It has turned a spotlight

On the cruelties in America:

The poor suffer more,

The homeless suffer more,

And people of color are especially hard hit,

Because the other disease, the one we have had for 400 years,

Has turned too many hearts to stone,

And has ruined too many lives to count.

We therefore repent of our sins:

The sin of systemic racism,

The sin of extreme income inequality,

And the sins of selfishness and unbounded ego.

You have told us, through your prophet Isaiah:

“Your hands are stained with crime—

“Wash yourselves clean; Put your evil doings away from My sight. Cease to do evil;

“Learn to do good. Devote yourselves to justice; Aid the wronged. Uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow.” (Isaiah 1:16-17)

O Holy One, we are listening.

We will cease to do evil and learn to do good, so that

Our hearts of stone will turn back into flesh and blood.

For Your sake — for our own sakes — for the sake of the world —

We can do better, with Your help.

We will devote ourselves to justice.

We will not stand for murder.

We will uphold the rights of poor children and their families,

We will give aid to the wronged.

We make this effort in the knowledge

That we are Your hands in this world and

We can be the instruments of Your love.

Bless this effort, O God: give us the wisdom and strength

To own what is wrong and change it to right.

Then those who sowed with tears shall reap in joy.

Blessed is the one who lifts up the fallen,

who heals the sick,

the Love at the heart of the world.

Amen.

The Rabbi Who Juggled Fire

Image: Rabban Gamliel was famous for juggling lit torches during the Sukkot celebrations in the Temple. (Sukkah 53b) (Vagengeim / Shutterstock, all rights reserved.)

When I was a little child, I would read history and think enviously, “That must have been exciting – I wish I had a time machine!” Now that I’m older, and I’ve lived through a few such times, I know better. It is frightening and draining to hang on as the world seems to spin out of control. We in the United States are living through a simultaneous replay of 1918, 1929, and 1968, with a few added extras.

For me, study has been a refuge. I’ve been teaching and preparing classes nonstop, working harder and longer hours than I have done in years. I’m learning new material in order to be able to teach it. I’m co-teaching two other classes, and find comfort in the partnership with colleagues. I think of the generations of rabbis who have served the Jewish people during terrible times, and I know in my kishkes (Yiddish for guts) that Torah sustained them too.

Rabban Shimon ben Gamaliel used to say: on three things does the world stand: On justice, on truth and on peace, as it is said: “execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates” (Zechariah 8:16).

Pirkei Avot 1:18

Shimon ben Gamaliel (10 BCE – 70 CE) lived during the run-up to the First Jewish Revolt. He was the president of the Great Sanhedrin during his last years, and he died when the Romans beheaded him, along with the High Priest, Ishmael ben Elisha. Rabban Shimon saw his world disintegrate through terrible divisions in Jewish society and under the cruel rule of Rome.

It is interesting that this, likely his most famous quotation, is a drash on a verse from the prophet Zechariah. Zechariah lived in a very different time, a time of rebuilding. He wrote after the Exile in Babylon was over, after Cyrus of Persia authorized a return to Israel and the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem. Zechariah did not live in an idyllic time (see the books of Ezra and Nehemiah for details) but it was a time of building, not of destruction.

What I learn from this is that one way to survive terrible times is to remember that history is full of cycles: some live in troubled times and some live in times of rebuilding. We can use the memory of better times to guide us forward towards better times in the future.

I’m not talking about “the good old days,” some idealized past. I’m talking about looking back for the values that brought out the best in us. Shimon ben Gamaliel looked back to a time when the guiding values were justice, truth, and peace:

  • Justice: that none should be treated as less than others.
  • Truth: that there is such a thing as truth.
  • Peace: not the absence of disagreement, but the presence of justice and truth, so that the world can be built instead of torn down.

We are living in a time like Shimon’s time, in a society polarized to its limit and beyond. The federal government of the United States is pursuing policies that bring out the worst in people, and that prey upon the weakest among us. The line between facts and opinion seems to have disappeared for many people. Peace is nowhere to be found.

I cannot guarantee that things will improve. I can’t promise that they won’t get worse. What I can say for sure is that the Jewish people have been through bad times in the past, and that the sages of the past can offer us guidance. Shimon suggests that justice and truth make peace possible, even in the darkest of times.

May we work for justice.

May we tell the truth.

May the world – our world – know a true peace, a peace based on justice and truth.

And let us say, Amen.

How to Judge a Prophet

Image: President Donald Trump listens as Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Friday, March 20, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Lately there have been a lot of people making predictions about the future: that the country will open back up over the next month or so, that if we do open up it will be a disaster, that the coronavirus is some kind of hoax, that the U.S. is on its way to being the pariah among first-world nations, this one will will the next election, no that one will….etc., etc.

Torah teaches us to be wary of people who claim to know the future. There’s an interesting passage in the Book of Deuteronomy which lays out the Rules for Prophets.

First of all, it sets out what prophets are not: they are not augurs, soothsayers, diviners, sorcerers, casters of spells, or consulters with ghosts. They were not necromancers or magicians. All those jobs are described as “abominations.” (Deut. 18:12)

Next the passage lays out a discussion about the reasons for, and requirements for prophets. A Hebrew prophet was an ordinary Hebrew whose life was taken over by God, God used that person as a mouthpiece whenever there was an important message to convey, which could be hazardous for the prophet. The role did not guarantee honor or even respect: Jeremiah suffered horribly for his prophecies, and died in a deep pit in Egypt for his trouble.

Just after that, the Torah asks an interesting question: how do you tell a false prophet from a true one? The answer it gives is slippery: if they speak in the name of God and what they say comes true, then the prophet is genuine (Deut. 18:22) If their words don’t come true, then they are false prophets and we shouldn’t listen to them.

For Jews, the Age of Prophecy is closed, but we still sometimes have to decide whom to believe when it comes to predictions about the future. That has been a sharp issue when it comes to the current pandemic: there is a lot of variation in the predictions, and the information seems to change every day. The disarray in information is extremely stressful, a state that also isn’t good for our immune systems.

Worse yet, there are all sorts of conspiracy theories circulating, and accusations about who is hoaxing whom.

Torah cuts through all of that with a simple question: what sort of track record does the speaker have? Has he expertise in this matter? What level of expertise? Do they have a track record managing pandemics? Or if not a medical expert, on what basis is this person making their claims to expertise? And what about past prognostications: is this just the latest sensational click-bait theory or have they been right about things in the past?

Torah encourages us to ask for credentials and a track record, whether we are questioning a prophet or the modern-day variations on that theme. As they say in Missouri, “Show me!”

Lag B’Omer: A Lesson on Plagues

Image: Mask, Gloves, and Hand Sanitizer (Klaus Hausmann / Pixabay)

It’s Lag B’Omer, and the year is 2020. It’s not an ordinary year.

Where I live, we cannot do a lot of the things associated with this minor Jewish holiday: no big weddings, no parties, no beach bonfires. We can have haircuts if we want, as long as we are willing to do it ourselves. This is the year of #COVID-19 and #StayAtHome.

Here’s a link to what I usually teach about Lag B’Omer. The short version is that it’s a break in the time of semi-mourning we call Counting the Omer.

This year, I’m looking at Lag B’Omer a little differently. Tradition teaches that the first half of the Omer is so serious because we are remembering a plague that killed many of Rabbi Akiva’s students. According to the story, the plague stopped on the 19th of Iyyar, so we pause today to celebrate.

A plague ended? And we are celebrating 2000 years later? Once I would have said that was a bit excessive, but that was before I experienced a pandemic.

Today, on Lag B’Omer, I’m taking the day to remind myself that this will not last forever. The plague among Rabbi Akiva’s students didn’t last forever. The Black Death didn’t last forever. The Spanish Flu didn’t last forever. COVID-19 will not last forever, either.

So today’s lesson is: it won’t go on forever. It will be over sooner if we treat it seriously. Many people talk about the conflicting needs of health and the economy: I say, those are a false competition. There’s no economy if too many people are sick, much less dead or dying. We need to follow the precepts of the scientists if we want to restart the economy successfully. We need to test, and trace, and treat the sick. We need to stop acting as if some people are expendable, because the core lesson of this horror is that we are not really individuals: our bodies are linked. Our survival is linked. We are all part of one human family.

Today, I remind myself that COVID-19 will not last forever, and I will work for the day when we see a FULL recovery: recovery from this plague, recovery of an ethical health system, recovery of a healthy economy, recovery to a true refuah schleimah, a healing to wholeness.

I await that day, and then I will celebrate.

(Lag B’Omer falls on day 33 of  counting the Omer, the count of days from Passover to Shavuot. (Follow the link if you want to learn more about the Omer and how to count it.) It gets its name from the number 33, lamed-gimel, which can be pronounced as “Lahg.”)