I’m worried. About Israel. It’s hard to watch the second wave of COVID-19 unfolding there and not feel anxious.
This past week was October 6. It marked the anniversary of the onset of the Yom Kippur War. In the annals of Israeli history the Yom Kippur War is referred to as a mechdal, a failure. Golda Meir carried the heavy pain of the Yom Kippur War failure until the end of her life. Officially Israel may have won the Yom Kippur War. They were able to declare victory. But at what price?
I wonder what will be the future composite evaluation of COVID-19 in Israel. I hope it won’t also be classified as a mechdal.
In the first wave, back in the spring, there was so much unity, there was so much love and inspiration. There was such a sense of cohesion and connectivity that overflowed from Israel’s balconies and terraces. Above all there was hope.
Where did all that inspirational singing of the country’s one voice raised in Ma Nishtana go?
Where is the voice of those inspirational minyanim with the cantor at a traffic circle calling out to his congregation of make balconied shuls?
Unfortunately, now, there seems to be so much division, confusion, zealousness, cynicism, and hopelessness.
This might be just the normal toll of a sustained pandemic. But it seems also to be coming from a place of deep pain; psychological, mental and economic. And from a place of different communities coping in different ways, each one feeling overconfident about what the right path forward should be.
Back in the spring the reigning feeling was if you do X and if we each compromise on our own comforts in the short term, we will all benefit collectively in the long term as COVID-19 passes.
Now there is not much understanding about the virus and no terminal point in sight.
In crisis, people turn to find someone to place their anger on, someone to blame.
In this context, the threat is not Hezbollah or a different outside enemy. The blame is next door.
This is precisely what I worry about.
In time, COVID-19 will pass. In time, a vaccine to immunize us against COVID-19 will be discovered.
But what about us as a people? How will we be immunized as a people emotionally and spiritually, so as not to let COVID-19 overtake and destroy us?
As a people, our strength in a time of crisis has always been our unity.
But now I look around and feel worried about how this situation will end.
Right now Israel needs a unified leadership of one language, of clear directives, in order to overcome the current distrust and seeds of discord that have been sown.
In this “war,” so to speak, we have only ourselves as a people to look to. With every point of light, with every smile we spread around, I genuinely believe it can pave the way for tensions to be decreased.
The economic pain is oh so very real and complex. The ubiquitous signs of compassion seen among the many groceries in Israel, nestled among essential foods such as pasta and legumes, read, “in these difficult times, if you are in need, please take whatever you want. There’s no need for you to inform the grocer or staff.” These signs are indeed a glimmer of hope of that Israeliness we have all come to love and cherish.
COVID is still a developing situation. None of us knows how this story is going to end. The longer any challenge takes, the more it stands to erode our inner defenses.
Any emotional loss involves the struggle and processing of various phases of coping and acceptance. This ongoing pandemic that has upended the lives we’ve known and thus preys on our normal human fears, demands leadership that can bolster us that much more.
I can only hope that going forward, somehow, Israel is able to reach back into the resilient and unified spirit from last spring, which touched us all greatly.
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