 Good evening and welcome to our program. We're here to discuss a Jewish perspective on coping with COVID-19. Now probably at any other time in history, a talk on tonight's topic would not be terribly controversial. There's a passage in the Talmud Tractate Psachim 50b where Yosef, who was the son of Rabbi Yeshua Ben-Levi, dies and he later revives. He comes back to life and his father asks him, So what did you see? I mean here you died and now you must have gone up to heaven presumably and now you're back here with us. What did you see? So Yosef said, Olam HaFukh Reisi, I saw an upside-down world. What is above appears below and what is below appears above. And his father said to him, my son, you have seen the world clearly. Indeed. Talmud is telling us that we're living in a topsy-turvy world. Everything is upside-down and this seems to really describe our generation. The certainty of reality is losing its solidity as we seem to be standing on shifting sands rather than on solid ground. I've been aware of this creeping up on us but never really encountered it directly. Until I got into a discussion on social media with a number of people a few years ago insisting that the Sandy Hook Elementary School Massacre, the mass shooting of 20 children and six adults, was a staged fake event. And these people, a number of them, insisted that all of the people that you see crying about their children who've been murdered are actors and it was all stage and it was all fake. In order to create the kind of tension that would help the government take away people's guns. And I remember having this discussion on Facebook and I was shocked. I was shocked and I was trying to engage them in a conversation and explain, no, this is real. This happened. These are real people and I wasn't getting anywhere and I had to basically excuse myself after about a half hour and I told the people, I said, I'm really sorry. I have to go into the next room and throw up. That was my reaction. My reaction to being in a conversation with people who just for them, reality wasn't real. Now, I had heard years ago of some people claiming that the moon landing never happened. But that was way before the Internet had the ability to amplify every bizarre idea in the world. And that's the kind of world we're living in. We're living in a time now when 12 million Americans reportedly believe that shape-shifting lizard people, reptilians, control the United States, and countless more people insist that the earth is flat. And there are hundreds of such bizarre ideas that circulate in our world that have not hundreds or tens of believers hundreds of thousands, millions of believers. Now, I didn't intend for tonight's talk to be a deep dive into the psychology of conspiracy thinking. But this is just by way of introduction to note that unfortunately, I believe I'm going to get a tremendous amount of flak, possibly a tremendous amount of hate mail, and maybe even worse, for what I'll be sharing tonight. We're right now in the midst of the greatest international health crisis, at least in my lifetime, and I'll be 68 years old in a few months. COVID-19 has now become the number one leading killer of Americans, with someone dying every 30 seconds. And yet we're living at a time when countless people call it a fake-demic. There was a news report recently of someone dying in a hospital of COVID-19, while the doctors were trying to help them during their final moments, insisting that it's not real. There is no such virus that's spreading around. It's all fake. The Talmud tells us in tractate Sota 49b, that during the days when the footsteps of the Messiah are getting close, I am at Nehederis. Truth will be scarce. Truth is going to be absent, and it seems that that's the kind of world we're living in. So instead of seeing a world united to effectively fight this virus, we have widespread cynicism, mistrust of mainstream doctors and scientists, and suspicions that the government is out to get us as part of some kind of malevolent and evil plot. In a world that wasn't turned upside down, there would be widespread joy that relief was around the corner. With the development in record time of vaccines that are 95% effective. Here in Canada, they're going to begin giving those vaccines in a day or so. But in our topsy-turvy world, this blessing is seen by countless people as a wicked plot to make fortunes off of our misery and to ultimately kill us off. Sometimes I feel like we're living in the middle of a famous quip by Woody Allen. He said, more than any time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. This past week, the United States began seeing days when more than 3,000 people were succumbing to the coronavirus every single day. That's more than the total number of people that were killed during the terrorist attacks on September 11th. And yet, on these very grim days, there were mass protests against municipal proposals that people wear masks. Enraged protesters screamed at the top of their lungs that they will not see their personal freedoms trampled. They will not tolerate any infringements on their rights. We will not conform. We will not submit. We will not go along with these proposals. Now, these are buzzwords that carry a tremendous amount of weight in the world today, freedom, rights, entitlements. And while they are important from a Jewish perspective, they are not seen as independent or more important than the area of our responsibilities. One of the ultimate values in Judaism is human life and human health. When the Torah says in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 19, you should choose life, it's not just a slogan. The Jerusalem Talmud teaches in Sanhedrin 22A that whoever destroys one person, whoever kills one human being, it says if he killed and destroyed an entire world and whoever saves one life, it's as if they saved an entire world. Every single life is infinitely precious. The Torah teaches us in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 4, Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 9, Rakhisham'er lacha'u shmor nafshcha meod. Be very, very cautious, be very, very careful and guard your souls very much. And then a few verses later in Deuteronomy 4, verse 15, v'nishmartem meod et nafshotechem. You have to guard your souls very, very carefully. Now in context, this is speaking about our souls, it's a spiritual concern. But the word nafesh here can also refer to our body. Animals have nafesh. And so the Talmud in tractate Brachot 32B takes these admonitions from the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy. Of guard your soul very carefully, the Talmud takes these as admonitions and warnings to be very careful in guarding our health. Rabbi Akiva teaches in Baba Kama, the Talmud, Baba Kama, 90A, that we are prohibited from doing anything in life that might bring some harm to ourselves. We are not allowed to do anything that could even potentially bring harm to ourselves. Rabbi Shemshin Mufar al-Harsh, in his Magnum Opus, the Khoreb rules in paragraph 62, that we may not knowingly place ourselves in any kind of dangerous situation. It is totally forbidden. The Talmud and the Shulchanaruch, the code of Jewish law, prohibit a whole list of things because they may be potentially harmful. For example, they say that we're not allowed to put coins into our mouth because they may have germs on them. Now the commentaries clarify that this list is not limited to the examples given in the Talmud and in the code of Jewish law. They're merely examples and anything, similarly potentially dangerous, would also be prohibited. Significantly, the Talmud rules in tractate Chulun, 10A, that Hamira Sakanta me Isura, which means that we have to be stricter, we have to be stricter when it comes to potential harm, potential health damage. Then we are concerned about something's ritual permissibility, meaning if we're concerned about whether a food is kosher and if we check a product's ingredients to make sure that it's kosher, the Talmud is saying you have to even be more concerned about whether that food or that product is dangerous. We have to be stricter when it comes to danger. Then we are to ritual issues. The code of Jewish law establishes this as normative halacha, as normative Torah law in Yoridea, 116, paragraph number five, and that's the ruling of Rav Moshe Israelis the Ramua. We also see the primacy of human life in the Talmudic ruling in tractate Psachim, 25A, that with the exception of murder, idolatry, and adultery, we are required to violate every law in the Torah to potentially save a life. You would be required to eat on the Day of Atonement on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, where there's a mandatory 25-hour fast. You'd be required to eat in a situation where there's a potential risk to life. And the Talmud teaches us in tractate Yuma, 83A, that in cases of doubt, we take the lenient view. For example, if there's a question about someone who is ill and whether they should fast on Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement or not, and if there are 20 doctors who say the person can fast, 20 doctors say they'll be okay, they can fast, and only one doctor says that they really shouldn't fast, that person should not fast. We don't go with the majority. We go with the lenient view, which says the person should not fast. They say that Rabbi Chaim Salavachek, one of the great, great rabbinic sages of the 19th century of Brisk, they say he was very lenient when it came to permitting people to eat on Yom Kippur. And he was challenged, of course, in the Jewish world. Sometimes we believe if you're stricter, you're holier. If you're stricter, you're better. And he tended to be lenient. He would tell people, you know, if you're not feeling well and you're sick, you're better, not fast. And so he was challenged once. How come you're so lenient when it comes to eating on Yom Kippur? And he said, I'm not lenient about eating on Yom Kippur. I'm very, very stringent. I'm very strict when it comes to the law of saving people's lives. Rabbi Yakov Kamenetsky once ordered a diabetic congregant of his not to fast on Yom Kippur. But this person couldn't imagine himself eating on this holy day. How can I eat? It's a fast day. It's the holiest day of the year. So he fasted. And unfortunately, his health deteriorated and he shortly thereafter died. And we're told that Rabbi Kamenetsky refused to eulogize him at his funeral because Rabbi Kamenetsky felt that it was vital to make the point and let everyone know that the Torah's command to guard our health is not to be taken lightly. In 1848, there was a cholera epidemic in Vilna. And one of the great rabbinic leaders at the time, Rabbi Yisrael Solanter, put up notices all over the city, letting people know prior to Yom Kippur that people shouldn't fast that year because it could weaken their resistance to the disease, to the virus. Now, according to one version of what happened, he was afraid that his warnings would not be taken seriously. So after the morning services on Yom Kippur, he took out some wine and some cake. He recited Kiddush and he ate them in front of the entire congregation. Another great rabbinic sage, the Sanze Rebbe, was very ill one year. And prior to Passover, his doctor told him, his doctor warned him that he was not allowed to eat the bitter herbs at the Passover Seder. He said, you can't, you won't be able to handle it. It's going to be very, very dangerous for you. Now, at the Seder that year, the Sanze Rebbe took out a very, very large piece of Maror, a very large piece of bitter herbs. He held it up and he said the following, blessed are you who sanctified us with his commandments and commanded us to guard our health. And then he put the bitter herbs away. However, there is an extremely critical issue that goes beyond the imperative to guard our health. We know that after Jacob received the blessings from his father Isaac, his brother Asav was seething with rage and was intent on killing him. So Jacob, we know, left home and went eastward to Aram Naharayim. And there he married and he raised a beautiful family, but after 22 years, he felt that it was now time to return to his homeland, to return back to the land of Canaan. Of course, this could easily lead to an encounter with his brother Asav and this concerned him. So the Torah tells us that he sought to diffuse any kind of explosive encounter by sending a delegation of messengers to Asav with conciliatory greetings, greetings. His messengers returned and they said, Asav is coming in this direction and with him he's bringing 400 men. So the Torah tells us in Genesis chapter 32, verse 9, Now this verse seems somewhat redundant. He's frightened, he's distressed. You only need to say one of those words. So Rashi, the famous commentator from a thousand years ago in France, Rashi explains that there really are two things going on here. Rashi says he was extremely frightened that he might be killed and he was distressed over the possibility that he might come to kill others if there was a battle that would take place. There's a famous quote that's attributed to Golda Meir who served as the prime minister of the state of Israel from 1969 to 1974. And the quote goes, When peace comes, we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons. But it will be harder for us to forgive them to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. The ethos of Judaism is saturated with an overriding concern to not harm other people. This extends to nonhumans. There is a biblical prohibition against causing any unnecessary pain to animals. And there are more laws in the Torah focusing on avoiding harm to other people than about laws for self-protection. If a person has a flat roof, for example, on their home, the Torah in Deuteronomy chapter 22 verse 8 tells us they are required biblically, it's a biblical commandment that they put up a railing, a parapet, to prevent someone from accidentally falling off their roof. The Talmud and Tractate Bubba Kama 15b rules that it is forbidden to do things that are potentially harmful to others. Therefore, for example, the Talmud rules that it's prohibited to keep a dangerous dog in your house or an unstable ladder near your house because someone might climb on that ladder and get hurt. The Talmud and Tractate Chulun 7b relates that Rav Pinchas Ben-Yair would not enter the home of a certain rabbi because that rabbi kept dangerous mules on his property. And Pinchas Ben-Yair said, the angel of death is in this man's house and I should accept his hospitality. Not only does the Torah require that we exercise every caution to make sure that we don't harm other people, we are obligated to try and extend ourselves and attempt to save people who are in danger. The Torah teaches in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 16. You shall not stand aside while your fellow's blood is shed. And based upon this directive, the Talmud and Tractate Sanhedrin 73a teaches that if you see someone drowning in a river, you have to try to save them. Of course, you don't have to risk your life. So for example, if you're not able to swim, you shouldn't try to save them. At least though, you should try to call for help. It's impossible to escape the sensitivity that the Torah is seeking to instill in us to care about others and their well-being. One of the best known verses in the entire Bible is Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18, which includes the mandate to love our fellow as ourselves. So I wonder about all of this when I walk into the home of someone here in Toronto, someone who would never dream of giving me anything to eat that had a questionable kosher certification. If virtually all the rabbis in the city have concerns about a particular food, this host would never rely on the one outlier who might say, well, it's probably okay and then feed that food to a guest. So why are these people welcoming me into their home and not wearing a mask? If they went to 100 family doctors or 100 emergency room doctors and asked if they should wear a mask if a guest is coming to their home for a visit, what would the answer be if they were to ask their own family doctor? What would the answer be? Should I wear a mask when people come into my home? But if they see some YouTube video questioning mask wearing, all bets all of a sudden are off. So I see a sad inconsistency here. And this has happened to me more than once where people who are extremely stringent when it comes to what food they eat or what food they would serve others, but when it comes to something like possibly, even possibly, protecting other people from the possible spread of a deadly virus, there doesn't seem to be any concern. Our sages teach that the Torah was only given, that's a very strong statement. The Torah was only given in order to refine and perfect us. And this includes becoming more sensitive and caring people and less self-absorbed. This pandemic is certainly a test. It's a test for how effective the Torah has been in our lives. Bottom line issues, such as whether we conduct ourselves in ways which truly takes the welfare of other people into consideration is where the rubber meets the road. By its very nature, a pandemic affects all of us. The entire planet is being shaken by COVID-19. We're all in this together. And we can only confront this grave challenge if we understand that we're all in this together. And we have to care about each other. The Midrash in Leviticus Rabbah 4-6 tells the well-known story of a man traveling on a boat with other passengers. All of a sudden, he begins to drill a hole under his seat. The other passengers get very upset and they ask him, what are you doing? And he looks up at them and he says, what do you care? It's my seat. They tell a story about a small town in Europe that had just one rabbi. That's how small the town was. And the rabbi had just one son. And there was great excitement in the town because the rabbi's son got engaged to marry a young woman from this village. And in honor of the upcoming festivities, the mayor of the town issued a proclamation. He instructed that a huge barrel be built in the town square with a ladder going up the side of this barrel all the way to the top. And the mayor said that during the coming two weeks before the wedding, everyone should fill a pail with their best wine, beautiful, delicious sweet wine, and bring it to the village square and go up the ladder and pour it into the barrel. And this wonderful wine that was gathered from the entire town would be used at the wedding celebration. So over the next two weeks, that's what happened. A steady procession of townspeople brought their pails up the ladder and poured the contents into the huge barrel. They have the wedding came and after the wedding ceremony, everyone proceeded to the town square for the celebration. The mayor climbed up the ladder and congratulated the bride and the groom and the parents, the rabbi and the Rebbetson, everyone else in the family. And then he tapped the barrel with a mallet and opened the spigot with his mug underneath the spigot. And everyone was shouting, mazeltov, mazeltov. But when the mayor turned the spigot, nothing came out but some water. And everyone in the town lowered their eyes with tremendous shame. What happened? Well for two weeks, each villager figured that they could get away with just pouring a pail of water into this large barrel instead of using up their best wine. After all, no one's going to notice the difference with just one pail of water in this huge barrel of wine. Everyone expected that everyone else would do their part. What should have been a glorious celebration turned into the saddest day that this small village had ever known. Now I think that many people have been acting responsibly during this pandemic. But maximum effectiveness in slowing the spread of this deadly virus needs everyone's cooperation. One thing is obvious. COVID-19 has disrupted our lives in numerous ways. And I want to close tonight by addressing one of these ways. We all know that at times synagogues and houses of worship have had to close or operate at diminished capacity. And even when fully operational, some high-risk individuals such as the elderly or people with underlying medical conditions have had to stay away. Many people have stopped or severely limited having guests for Shabbat and holiday meals. Many people have had to curtail holiday parties, other parties to celebrate special occasions. We've all seen videos of couples getting married in the front of a house with some friends and family standing across the street and singing. Funerals have been drastically limited in size. We can think of many, many such examples. We all are tired of this. And we all wish that we could just get back to our normal lives. There's a story of a chassid, a pious Jew who lived alone in the forest. And in order to chop wood for his livelihood, that's why he was living in the forest. That's where he made his livelihood. So one trip he came to the city and he met with his Rebbe. He met with his spiritual guide and he poured out his heart and he complained bitterly to his Rebbe because he was living in the forest and he could never pray with a minion, with a community quorum for prayer. He was never able to pray in the synagogue with other people. And he cried to his Rebbe how much he really wanted to be able to pray with a minion every single day. His Rebbe looked at him and said, how do you know that the Almighty wants you to pray with a minion? Perhaps God derives more satisfaction from your longing to pray with a minion. Another story is told of the town shoemaker who was often in a quandary about when to say the morning prayers. Many of his customers were very poor and they only owned one pair of shoes. So he would work on repairing the shoes all night long in an effort to deliver them early in the morning before people had to go to work. So the shoemaker came to Ravitsak Meir, the Gerer Rebbe, and he asked him what he should do about his morning prayers. Should he pray very quickly first thing in the morning and get it over with and then go back to repairing the shoes? Or should he let the time for prayer go by? But every once in a while, while raising his hammer, utter a sigh, oh, what's going to be? I haven't prayed yet. And perhaps that sigh is worth more than the prayer itself. There's a wonderful story about two brothers, two famous Hasidic Rebes, Revelli Melechel Vizhensk and Rezyshe of Annapoli, very special men, Hasidic giants. And once they were arrested on false charges and they were thrown into a cramped prison cell full of seedy characters, lowlifes, criminals, not a very wonderful place to be. And the guard, as he slammed the door behind them, locked the door and left and pointed to a pail in the corner of the cell and told the rabbis that was their lavatory. Rezyshe threw himself on the floor and began crying. His brother Revelli Melech was upset with him. This was not like his this was not like his brother who always had tremendous faith in God. Revelli Melech rebuked him and said he was desecrating God's name. In the presence of all these other inmates, what are they going to think? They're going to think you're giving up hope. So Rezyshe said to his brother, he said, how can I not cry? He said, we're stuck here in this cell with this pail full of filth. So we're not able to study Torah. We're not even able to pray to God. How can we go on if we're not able to pray or to study Torah? Because he couldn't imagine. What are we going to do now? So his brother Revelli Melech looked at him and said, listen, by not studying Torah and by not praying, we are actually fulfilling the law that prohibits us from doing such in situations like this. You're not allowed to pray in the presence of excrement. You're not supposed to study Torah there in a bathroom. So Revelli Melech says to his brother, by us not praying and by us not learning Torah, this is how we're going to serve God. Every second that we are here, we will be serving God by not learning Torah and by not praying. All of a sudden, his brother's face lit up and Revelli Melech smiled and he began to dance and sing. And he grabbed his brother's hand and he began dancing with him around this pail. And they were dancing and they were singing and they were so joyous. And when the guard heard the ruckus from the other room, he came in to check it out. And he felt that these prisoners are not supposed to be so happy in the prison cell. That's not why they're here. And he saw them dancing around this pail with glee and he grimaced and he had to put a stop to this. So he ordered Ravzusha to bring him the pail. And he went, this guard went and he cleaned it spotless. It was clean as a whistle. And he then threw it back into the cell and he said that no one is allowed to use this pail anymore. If anyone needs to relieve themselves, they should call me and I'll take them to a nearby bathroom. When the guard left, the brothers rejoiced once again because now they'd be able to study Torah and now they'd be able to pray to God to their hearts delight. As Jews, we are guided by the Torah because the Torah values human life as the highest value. We are commanded to do everything in our power to protect our lives and the lives of other people. If that temporarily puts us in positions where we can't carry on with our lives as usual, that's our responsibility. Our yearning for a return to normalcy is what our attitude should be during times when we're called upon to make sacrifices.