February 19 I went to a friend’s wedding in Bayit Vegan, Jerusalem. Not a large wedding, but a wedding. (You remember those, don’t you?) Israel had its third election in one year scheduled for March 1, and I was asking my 92-year-old mother every day whether she wanted to vote. Some days she said yes, and some days she said no. Since she is wheelchair bound, cannot really use her hands, and can mostly only respond to yes-no questions, this was going to pose a challenge. But if she wanted to vote, it would be good for her and meaningful for her to do so.
I was trying to describe to my mother’s foreign worker, a woman from the Philippines, the political issues facing Israel, and I asked her if she was following those things at all. She responded, patiently, “The main issue that concerns most people I know is the virus that has struck China.” And I said to myself, “What? Oh, I heard about that.” On February 23, there was indeed something in the news about 200 South Korean tourists to Israel, some of whom had come down with the coronavirus. A safe route was being found for them to leave the country, and I said to myself, “Good, so let them leave.” I still wasn’t listening.
My life was going very smoothly. I was working on two large translation projects I really enjoyed, and I had another large project scheduled for later. I was learning three hours a day: Hebrew Daf Yomi in Me’arat HaMachpela’ an hour’s chavruta in Tur-Shulchan Aruch (Hilchot Kilayim)/Rav Kanievsky, with Rabbi Yitzchak Rodrig, head of the Hebron Rabbinical Research Institute; and I was bluetoothing the same Daf Yomi in English from Rabbi Yehonasan Berger from the Portal Daf Yomi during my daily walks to my mother and half-hour anti-cholesterol walk. I was doing my translation work on a laptop right in Rabbi Rodrig’s research institute, and I had Mincha and Ma’ariv coming to me right there. I was using my time optimally, and I was very pleased with myself. I just wanted everything to stay the same, and I couldn’t really listen to anything else that might disrupt that.
Also, I had been saying Kaddish for two years: first for a cousin, then for my father-in-law, and then for my mother’s sister, with some overlap. March 27 was my aunt’s upcoming yahrzeit, and I was looking forward, even hungering, for the arrival of that date, and in particular for the following day, when my Daf-Yomi buddies, who had been listening to me for two years, would look towards me expectantly after korbanos and I would wave my hand and smile to indicate that I was finished. This was a fantasy of mine, but it never happened.
On March 1 my mother and I voted. There was a minor news item about a few Israelis who had coronavirus voting separately, but I didn’t think much about it. Purim came, on March 10, and I went to my regular small synagogue and small Purim seuda with old friends. On Shushan Purim, which we in Kiryat Arba celebrate as well, I brought shalach manos to a friend, and we sat and talked for a few minutes. The coronavirus was more in the news by then. I joked about the 10 books I had read by Steven King during the last three years, and said I felt like I was living in one of those books. My friend said, “You’re thinking of The Stand, aren’t you?” That’s the book where most of the world dies from a virus. Surprised to meet a fellow King groupie, I laughed. All this was before we knew that all hell had broken loose the day before and many people were now infected.
On March 15 everything started happening all at once. The malls were about to close, and I rushed by bus – afraid to breathe the air – to a long-scheduled doctor’s appointment in a Jerusalem mall, and the doctor, seated further behind his desk than usual, made a joke. I told him, “If you joke, I’ll laugh and I’ll breathe more,” but he answered, “We’ve still got to joke,” and he was right. His office was still open but most of the mall – hundreds of stores – had been shuttered, and all the enormous parking lots, usually packed with cars, were empty. There was an eerie, otherworldly, ghost-town feeling.
Over a 10-day period, social distancing was instituted, all shuls closed, all schools closed, all malls closed, people were required to stay home except for food purchases. The first of seven corona-infected Kiryat Arba residents was discovered. March 17, my 80th consecutive day davening and learning in Me’arat HaMachpela, was also my last, 10 days short of my aunt’s yahrzeit. There was a sense that the whole world was closing down.
On March 18 a Baltimorean sent me a frightening plea from a frum, overworked, tired, upset New York physician imploring people to stay inside. We now knew about all the people who had gotten sick on Purim. I, my wife, and my unmarried daughter were all home. We were all nervous, and each of us was relating to it in his or her own way. On the 19th I bought my family masks and started wearing one on my two daily visits to my mother, as well as keeping two meters away from her. That same day, the editor of the Where What When asked me if I could write an article about the coronavirus in Israel, and I discovered that I could not. I was too frazzled and uncertain over the future. For the first time since the 1990 Gulf War, I was mildly preoccupied with death.
As Pesach approached, they were announcing that 500 Israelis were signing up each hour for the online unemployment declaration. In a few days, Israeli unemployment went from three to 25 percent. Thank G-d, none of this directly affected me or my three working children. I was able to continue to work as though nothing had happened. My older son, air force kashrut mashgiach; my second son, a gardener spraying rat poison on municipal plants; and my daughter, a social worker in charge of all volunteers in Kiryat Arba during the Corona crises, all continued to work.
Locked up at home, protected from the outside, with my wife and daughter nearby, I found I could work very well, and I completed my self-imposed pre-Pesach deadlines and was actually able to help my wife more than usual. I love being at home, and I love having family members at home with me. I work best that way. I was kind of nervous about visiting my mother, but I was even more nervous about the idea of ceasing my visits. I was caught between the rock and the hard place.
When thousands of people are reporting to the authorities to be tested for a possibly fatal illness, your mind starts to play tricks on you. It was announced, “You’re not sick without a 38 Celsius (100.4 Fahrenheit) temperature.” But what if you were? What if a bit of dryness in your throat meant you had it? What if you interpreted a plain old bad night’s sleep as delirium? As Pesach approached, I was becoming paranoid. I was checking my temperature every day. For several days, it was 98, instead of 98.6. No fever; that was good. But I had heard that people sometimes have a lower than normal temperature just before they get sick! I was nervous.
Then came even tighter regulations. The police were stopping anyone they found over a hundred meters from their home. They fined a female friend of ours standing in line at the post office, claiming it was not important enough for her to be out of her home. When I walked down the street, my large mask did not invest me with sociability. I found myself avoiding all contact with people, like a leper surrounded by people with bubonic plague. Visiting my mother was supposedly all right, but was it really? She has a foreign worker. What does she need me for, especially considering that I couldn’t kiss or hug her or come within two meters of her? The police stopped me and asked, “Why are you out?” and I said, “I’m going to my 92-year-old mother to check on her,” and they said, That’s okay. That’s in the regulations. Just give us your I.D. number so we don’t bother you anymore.”
When the Pesach Seder came, it was forbidden to travel between towns. And just like the original Pesach, where Jews could not leave their homes, Netanyahu made a regulation forbidding people from leaving their homes on that night. The elderly were making their own Seder, all alone, without their families. After seven years of hosting my mother for Shabbos meals, or bringing the food to her on rainy nights, my wife and daughter were no longer having any contact with my mother. They wanted me to lead their Pesach Seder, but my wife wanted me to go to my mother first with hot food and give her a half-hour feeling of a Seder, and that is what I did. But I worked myself up into a panic, afraid the police would bother me, saying, “Your permission to go to your mother was not for this. It was not for tonight.” My fears were all nonsense. But my anxiety was real.
I hurried through the empty streets in great trepidation, breathing heavily into my mask. When I made it to my mother’s house, I breathed a sigh of relief, and when I made it back home, I breathed an even bigger sigh of relief. And when I said Shehechiyanu, I almost cried. I was still alive! I had made it to my mother and back! I know. The combination of those two thoughts was ridiculous, but please be kind. These are not easy times.
We actually ended up having one of the nicest sedarim of my life. My wife had been thinking about the Haggada for a month, and my daughter has spent this year in seminary, and both were active participants. In terms of new material, I was almost totally unprepared. Whatever spiritual energy I had in the weeks preceding the Seder went into learning Masechet Shabbat. But I was able to participate as well. I usually think of myself as an 11:30 Seder finisher, but this year we went through to 1:45.
As we moved into Chol Hamoed Pesach, I was calmer each day. We were allowed out a bit more in the days after the Seder, 100 meters, and I walked back and forth around my house, doing my half-hour walk. And the fact is that there were towns with sick people, and the police were more interested in policing those. The seven sick people in Kiryat Arba slowly started returning home from the hospital, with Corona behind them. Today, is anyone in Kiryat Arba sick? Possibly. But we are maintaining social distancing.
So what is going to be? Obviously I have no idea! When I learn with Rabbi Rodrig, we discuss current events and their spiritual implications for a moment at the end of our learning sessions. But we haven’t been together in a month. The strongest idea my wife and I have heard in internet shiurim is the basic concept that Corona has shown us: that if we thought we were in control of our lives, we now know that we are not. G-d is in control. I am sure that the reader has heard these same shiurim.
The rabbanim in Kiryat Arba who have given internet talks about Corona have emphasized the importance of examining our own deeds and trying to improve ourselves – nothing earth shaking, just a very basic idea. Likewise, the Chofetz Chaim in his Letter 45 wrote, 100 years ago, that we are in the period of Ikveta DeMeshicha, the footsteps of the Messiah. He quotes from Sanhedrin 98b, which states, “What should a person do to be spared the suffering of the Mashiach? He should engage in Torah and acts of kindness.” The basics!
I remember the Gulf War. Sadaam Hussein bombed Israel over the course of a month, and then suddenly, at Purim, it was all over, without any casualties. I pray that G-d shows us mercy this time as well.
Let me conclude with one further point by the Chofetz Chaim (Shem Olam, Chapter 7): When King David was punished by G-d and asked by the Prophet Gad whether he preferred to be attacked by the enemy or suffer a plague, he responded that he preferred the plague over the human attack. We recite these words twice a day in davening: “David said to Gad: I am deeply distressed. Let us fall into the hand of Hashem, for His mercy is great. Let me not fall into the hand of man” (II Samuel 24:14). We don’t know what G-d has in mind, but we can at least pray for His mercy.
Besorot tovot!
