In the Jewish mindset, the severity of the pandemic set in around Purim, 2020 — about one year ago.
Rabbi Ron Y. Eisenman of Passaic, NJ, remembers mentioning to one person a year ago that he avoided shaking hands on Purim because of the “rumors” about this “new mysterious virus.”
The person proudly pulled out his phone and showed the rabbi pictures of himself hugging and kissing everyone he met on Purim. “No one ever got sick for being be-simcha [happy] on Purim!”
Unfortunately, his family sat shiva for him before Pesach.
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There is a kernel of truth in this for all of us, whatever we did or did not do beginning last Purim. The truth is this: So much water has flowed under the bridge since the original shocks of the pandemic that our memories are now revised, deleted, suppressed, forgotten, faded or sharpened. In some way, radically changed.
The beginning of the pandemic was so striking that back then we could trace each specific development and our reaction. Now, a year later, most or all of us have developed our personal, generalized approach to the pandemic. Indeed, some have made a profession out of this. There are already books on the pandemic, on how it has changed society, or medicine, or art, or work, or politics. There are now pandemic specialists of all kinds: epidemiologists, politicians, artists, economists, cultural historians.
Remember this the next time you read a work of history. You have now lived through a powerful piece of history. Not only historians but you yourself have put your own gloss on it, thus demonstrating once again how subjective even the best “history” really is.
We have put our own gloss not only on the reality out there, but on our attitude or behavior or both.
Here is one way the pandemic has changed me.
Having received two vaccine shots and waited two weeks, I went back to shul after a year’s absence (since last Purim, more or less). So much that I took for granted, I no longer do.
First, the simple human interaction. Just to be in the same room with people I know, even six feet away, fills my spirit. Just to be out of the isolation.
Second, the responses that a member of minyan is supposed to utter: the amens, for example. It is a privilege to recite them.
Third, the schedule. When I prayed at home, I tried to synchronize with the prayer times in shul, but often I was not exact; a few minutes early, a few minutes late. Prayer in shul follows a schedule. It is good to be back in sync with the community.
At the same time, I have to admit, prayer at home deepened my spiritual sense because it was just me and G-d. I also had the opportunity to stop and ponder a given phrase in the prayers or look up a related text. Prayer at home was a gift; although, like all gifts, not to be chosen.
My attitude toward the vaccine falls within a gray area, somewhere between anti-vaxxer and gung-go. On the one hand, I was aggressive about getting the vaccine. I urge it on everyone. At the same time, I am skeptical. Can something developed so fast, and — we often forget — authorized only on an emergency basis, really work as promised? No scientist can affirm its long-term effect because no long-term has transpired. Scientists are not prophets.
Then, even if the vaccine works as promised, what about that 5% deduction from its 100% efficacy? As my mother used to say, “if it happens to you, it is 100%.” It is reassuring to have the vaccine, but not totally. There is that 5%.
Then, too, I wonder about variants in the virus. The idea that the current vaccines can be easily reengineered to accommodate new variants is obtuse. Say there is a new variant and, very quickly, a new vaccine. So what? Look how long it takes to administer a vaccine to hundreds of millions of people! Look how much social animosity it generates by the unseemly jockeying for priority in getting the vaccine. No matter how effective or speedily developed, a new vaccine runs up against the months or years it takes to administer.
By the time it is administered, who’s to say there will not be still another variant, requiring still another vaccine, and another round of huge, lengthy administration?
Which means, I must hope that the current vaccine works on the variants. Right now, that’s not science. That’s hope.
All this is why I refer to the pandemic’s “first year.” This isn’t over, nor, I suspect, will it be for a long time, if ever. Yes, I am back in shul, but it’s hardly normal there. Spacing. Masks. Reduced rituals. And that’s just my shul, which is open. Many shuls aren’t. Still other shuls like Zoom, not as a fall back option, but as a way to expand their reach.
Not to mention, most other venues aren’t open at all — concerts, movies, sports stadiums, etc. I don’t see life “going back to normal” soon.
Given that reality, I am all the more grateful to be alive and to have access to the channels of normalcy that do open up.
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