This letter was written by Rabbi Reuven Fink, spiritual leader of Young Israel of New Rochelle, N.Y., and a biblical instructor at Yeshiva University. It has been re-posted by JTA with his permission.
As so many of us are now contemplating going into a Shabbos of seclusion, I want to share afew thoughts with you.
We all woke up Tuesday morning, Mar.3, prepared for our usualschedules of work or school or whatever we usually do. By late afternoon, welearned that the state and the county health departments ordered a voluntaryquarantine of those who were in a number of venues where the Coronavirus mighthave been.
I said to myself, “But at all of those places, we were performing mitzvot. To be davening in shul, attending a funeral, attending bar and bat mitzvah celebrations — all are good deeds, mitzvot!”
And yet, we were about to commence an unpleasant course of action:isolation and quarantine are words that evoke fear. I must confess I wasfrightened that we might have an epidemic, a pandemic in our community. Our layleadership and I met with the health officials and tried to explain thatquarantine of almost an entire congregation was an overarching edict. Theyquickly disavowed us of any such thinking and announced the shutdown of the shul before we could even announce it toour own members.
We were locked in our homes. What would we do?
This Shabbos is Parshat Zachor. We all know it is incumbent upon Jews to hear Zachor being read from the Torah. Additionally, a young man’s bar mitzvah was scheduled for Shabbos. He had studied his parshah so long and hard. What would be? And then, a young woman’s bat mitzvah was on Sunday. She would be so disappointed! Our friend and member lost her dear father and is sitting shiva. We who are in quarantine are not able to visit her in her time of need.
People’s lives are so disrupted. And certainly our minds neverdiverted from thinking about and praying for our good friend who lay in thehospital in such serious condition. We thought of his wife and the kids andwhat they were going through in comparison to what our situation was.
I told myself we would work things out. The people of New Rochelleare resourceful people.
And we prayed. Everyone was emailing for our friend’s Hebrew name and wanted to know which tehillim [prayers] should be recited. People who were not in quarantine were calling to arrange to help people in need, particularly those who were elderly or sick. Neighboring communities volunteered to help. Our neighbors in Scarsdale and White Plains shopped and made deliveries to many. UJA-Federation offered to send our members food from a canceled dinner. So many good people did so much good.
And it continues.
Over the past day or two, other members of our congregation weretested and found to be positive for the Coronavirus. I as well found out anhour ago that I am infected with the virus. I can now reassure you that it ispossible, thank G-d, to get through this virus without a special vaccine. Ihave the virus and am doing reasonably well. But I must caution all of you whohave had personal contact with me to seek counsel from your health practitioneras to how to proceed.
As a shul, we must worry about religion. We tried to address inwriting what people could do for the observance of yahrzeit and recitation of kaddish.We worked out a plan to read Zachoron Purim. Daf Yomi [daily page ofTalmud] was taught online via Zoom. We had two shiurim [lectures] today given by me and by Rabbi Axelrod aboutPurim topics.
A crisis can bring out the best in people. It is bringing out the best in us.
Admittedly, it is hard to comply with the burden the state hasplaced on us. But as we see, despite all these measures, the amount of peopletesting positive is increasing. We all have to be careful to comply.
There are some positive elements that can be found in looking atour predicament. It slows down the pace of our frenetic lives. That can bepositive. It can give us more time with our families. Maybe that book that wenever got around to reading can be read now. Maybe we always wanted to findtime to learn Torah. We now have that opportunity. I can’t remember the lasttime I davened without a minyan inthe morning. But my davening this morning was much slower than usual.
This circumstance certainly gives us the opportunity to think. Ourattention turns to mortality and our vulnerability. We sometimes find ourselvesvictims of life’s fragility and tentativeness. This is one of those times. Itcan help us to reorient our ultimate goals in life. Contemplation is good forthe soul.
Perhaps we can take a lesson from this crisis. Maybe we can accept upon ourselves to be more mindful and meticulous in reciting brachot. A bracha, a blessing, is our way of acknowledging the profound awareness that we have of G-d in our lives. A blessing can elevate the most mundane activity into something lofty and holy. It takes seconds but launches us into eternity.
We still have a way to go in handling our communal situation. Together we can persevere and triumph over these challenges. With our ever-abiding faith in G-d who is the healer, we pray that we, as well as our fellow Americans and the peoples of the world, will conquer this disease במהרה בימנו אמן.
Wishing all a Shabbat Shalom.
JTA is a global Jewish news source.
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