The coronavirus outbreak has affected all corners of the Jewish community. From yeshivas to synagogues to mikvahs, the standard routine of Jewish communal life has been put in a form of limbo. We are stuck in our homes, minyanim are now considered sakana nefashot (a risk to lives), and Torah learning in chavrutot can no longer happen face to face. This is a situation unlike any our generation has ever experienced.
Discussing plagues, locusts, and other troubles, the Rambam in his Mishneh Torah (Hilchot Taanit) writes that it is a positive Torah commandment to “cry out and to sound trumpets in the event of any difficulty that arises which affects the community…i.e. plague, locusts, or the like.” The Rambam refers to this practice as a “way of repentance,” because the cries and the trumpets will make it clear to all it was their evil deeds that brought this bad upon them and that only teshuva will remove them.
Oddly enough, the Rambam, a physician who approached health in a scientific manner, warned against looking at a plague or other difficulty on the community as just “the way of the world” or “happenstance,” calling this “the way of cruelty” and warning that this would cause people to “stick to their bad deeds.” He further warns that perceiving these things as happenstance will contribute to peoples’ persistence in their ways. “For this reason, we have been commanded to invoke Him and to turn rapidly toward Him and call out to Him in every misfortune,” writes the Rambam in his Guide to the Perplexed, as otherwise we will be further exposed to the “chance” that we perceive in our current troubles.
On fast days declared on the community due to difficulties, the court and elders sit in the synagogue and examine the actions of the people of the city until midday. From midday until evening, they read the blessings and curses in the Torah and a haftara on the topic of the trouble (in our case, it would be a haftara on a plague). They then daven Mincha, supplicate, cry out and confess, according to their ability.
The coronavirus outbreak places us, the Jewish people, in a unique and exceedingly difficult situation. Everyday things we usually take for granted, like going to shul and school, learning in chavrutot, eating shabbat meals together, hanging out, and a number of other things, have now become impossible.
It turns out, however, that quarantine is not a new idea in the Jewish tradition.
One main example of plague as a form of Divine intervention is tzara’at, commonly translated as leprosy. Tzara’at moves in a steady procession. It first shows up on the walls of the afflicted person’s home. If he does not repent, it moves on to leather implements in his home, then his clothes, and finally his skin, marking him as a metzora. According to the Rambam in Hilchot Tumat Tzara’at, tzara’at is a punishment for lashon hara. Once one has tzara’at on their skin, they are quarantined, isolated, to show that only by being alone can they avoid the “talk of the wicked” and lashon hara.
The Rambam elaborates on Miriam as the prime example of someone punished with tzara’at. Miriam was older than Moshe, raised him, and even endangered herself to save his life. She didn’t even speak badly of him, rather she just equated him with other prophets. Moshe didn’t even object to any of this because he was so humble that it had no bearing on him. “Nevertheless, she was immediately punished with tzara’at.” The Rambam explains that, all the more so, those who speak about “empty matters” will eventually come to speak badly about the righteous and the prophets and will be punished in accordance. “In contrast, the speech of proper Jewish people only concerns words of Torah and wisdom,” writes the Rambam in these halachot.
We have been placed in the quarantine scenario on a global scale, but our virtually connected world presents us with a unique challenge. While the metzora was isolated on his own, making it impossible for him to continue his lashon hara, we do not have that same “luxury.” Even in our own homes, we can still pick up a phone or open up Facebook and speak on “empty matters.”
So, unlike the metzora, we are given another chance, another challenge. We can call up our friends and speak the “talk of the wicked” or we can speak “words of Torah and wisdom” and join one of hundreds of chavrutot, classes, and programs that have taken the online world and turned it into an unprecedented arena of Torah and learning.
The virus presents us with another challenge as well. Those most affected are the elderly. We are now forced to keep our distance from our grandparents for their own safety. The hugs and warmth that we took for granted has been ripped away from us.
Our usual existence as a community has been put in limbo. This is nothing less than a tragedy. But it is also an opportunity. Jewish organizations and establishments, thank G-d, have stepped up to the plate and are offering shiurim, support, and activities to preserve learning, halachic practice, and the communal connection. These same groups and others have formed new initiatives to support and take care of the elderly. We have been given a unique opportunity to reevaluate our lives and our connections. We have a chance to increase our learning and our prayer, to cry out and to repent. We have time to consider ourselves and our actions. We have an opportunity to give support to the Holocaust survivors and lonely elderly people who may have been neglected up until now. Hopefully, we will be able to continue to step up to the plate, as countless others have done during the outbreak.
To a healthy, productive, and enriched Shabbat.
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