Life is Gray and Much is Unclear

Parshat Acharei Mot-Kedoshim 

 by Rabbi Avi Billet 

The last two weeks have seen new kinds of ways that community gets together. Between Yom HaShoah and Y’mei Zikaron and Atz’maut, the creativity that has emerged to help people feel united even when we are apart has been a source of inspiration. 

At the same time, it remains a source of sadness, mostly because getting together in a Zoom meeting room is not the same as being with people. Humans are social beings, and we need the interactions and the personal connections. 

Noting Yom HaShoah calls to mind two relevant points. The first, the current virus has finally done to some of our precious Shoah survivors what the Nazis and over 75 years since WWII were not able to do. This is a tragedy for their family members, as well as for all of us who are slowly witnessing the steady decline towards no living survivors. May it not be soon – but certainly we all know that time will eventually win. The second point is that anytime we feel despair over our current conditions, we can look to the Shoah period to see what real despair and hardship is, and while we live in awe and admiration of those who went through it and built lives after that terrible time, in our time we ought to count our blessings. 

We have also seen ways in which communities continue to be torn apart. 

In this double parsha, we have a few verses that follow one another: “You shall not be a talebearer among your people, do not stand on your brother’s blood. Don’t hate your brother in your heart, rebuke your kinsman and don’t bear a sin because of him. Don’t take revenge and don’t carry a grudge against members of your people, you shall love your fellow as yourself.” (Vayikra 19:16-18) 

Having recently buried a dear friend and mentor (who died of natural causes and not the virus) who lived a halakhic life guided by a personal mantra that “Life is gray,” I am troubled by all the black and white that exists among our people with respect to everything that is going on around us. The problem we face is that there is no conversation. There is no subtlety. There is no room or allowance for questioning authority, even though there are people who are authorities in their own (very relevant) fields who have very differing opinions. 

Just this week, there are different narratives surrounding what took place at a Rabbi’s funeral in New York City. While many people certainly found the NYC mayor’s words troubling and inconsistent in calling out “the Jewish community,” while never calling out any other specific communities, while also not personally following his own guidelines, there has also been a full scale condemnation of those who attended the funeral. There is a whole lot of talebearing going on. There is a whole lot of hating, grudge carrying, and anti-loving your neighbor. Even among the Jewish people. 

Don’t stand on top of your neighbor’s blood? Everyone has a choice as to whether they want to participate. People know what is going on. (No one is deliberately putting others at risk or deliberately infecting others.) While there is what to be said about having a private funeral, as so many are doing, there is also what to be said about giving a “kavod acharon,” while planning to follow recommended protocols – in conjunction with the NYPD, as was purportedly the plan and what was given a go-ahead. 

I accept a narrative that most people were following rules, while some were not. (This is called giving benefit of the doubt) Rebuke your kinsman? That applies when your brother will listen. And it also applies when you have absolute correctness on your side, and the other side is completely wrong. 

What is absolute these days? 

This is a difficult time for a lot of people. This is true. 

New York City environs have been the worst hit in comparison with the rest of the country. This too is true. 

The CDC guidelines for reporting COVID deaths are very vague and inconsistent with other elements of certainty typically required of reporting deaths. While this is true (see here: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/faq-surveillance.html), the “why” is not clear. Why do they want to pump up the numbers? A true conclusion I can reach regarding data is that the numbers are not accurate. (This is not to suggest that people are deliberately lying.) 

So here is a sampling of questions that a person who tries to think in “terms of gray,” who wants to give people the benefit of the doubt, who is trying very hard to respect freedoms, who wants to love my neighbor, who doesn’t want to hate my brother, who feels rebuke only works when there is an ear for it, who questions where we draw the line in what defines standing over our brothers blood, who is not a fan of talebearing or snitching on neighbors, wonders. 

I accept that some people will not like these questions. Some might even call this line of questioning “dangerous” (because questions have somehow become dangerous). But I am not dictating any policy here. Simply asking questions. And I also know that pikuach nefesh guides much in terms of Jewish practice. But certainly even pikuach nefesh must take a cost-benefit analysis of many things (see 3rd question below). Life is never risk-free, it is never illness-free, it is never challenge-less, and it is never fully sanitary-squeaky clean. Assuming otherwise is simply denying world history (to bring one example: Until World War II - more soldiers died in every war from disease than from combat. Surely this change is thanks to medical advances - and it has only improved since then, surely on account of hygiene advances out in the field of warfare. Combat death - while all tragic - outnumber deaths from disease in war zones.)

• Why is the media divided on party lines on support for lockdown versus questioning the lockdown? (If it's the right thing to do, why are many people questioning it?)

• Why is there so much information on masks – spanning from “if you keep reusing them” and “if you keep touching them and moving them (in other words, use them incorrectly)” they don’t work, to “they are the best protector against disease no matter what”? Which is correct? 

• Why are politicians (and citizens) mostly divided on party lines over support for continued lockdown versus opening things up out of genuine concern for the non-virus related consequences of lockdown (which include unemployment, hunger, economy, food shortage, depression, alcoholism, abuse, drugs, suicide, violence, crime, deaths that come from not having visitors and advocates in the hospital)?  (Of course everyone is concerned about these things, but some view the repercussions of lockdown as a more dire emergency than others)

• Why aren’t all success stories of treatment of virus patients, by doctors who have real information, explored as methods of healing? Why are things ‘not approved by the WHO’ considered ‘dangerous’ (any more than the virus is dangerous)? (Why does the World Health Organization decide for anyone, especially when they dropped the ball with respect to their initial reports on the virus?)

• Why, when a number of people speak of herd immunity (that the virus really needs to go through the population for the population to be best protected) is this shunned, especially when we are told that 95% of people will have zero to mild symptoms? [We certainly must protect those in hospitals, nursing homes, and those with conditions that have been known to be dangerous as co-morbid issues when combined with the virus! Statistics always have small aberrations (and for the people affected, who certainly should not be viewed on a personal level as a statistic, statistics are irrelevant), but reports from around the world are showing mostly the same things in defining the most vulnerable.] 

• Why are doctors and scientists and epidemiologists and virologists and mathematicians (who crunch the numbers and analyze data) expected to all come to the same conclusions, and if they don’t, then those who don’t fall in line with the flavor of the day are silenced? Different views all have merits, and shouting down or censoring those who think differently is anti-progress.

• Who are the real experts, if so many ‘experts’ are flummoxed by what they’ve seen? 

• Why are politicians who meet at the White House every day allowed to stand near each other, while other human beings are not allowed to stand near each other? 

• Why are some hospitals overwhelmed, and some are shutting down floors and laying off doctors, nurses, and staff because very few people are coming to ERs and ICUs? 

• Why do we assume motivations about feelings to people who don’t share our perspectives, perhaps painting them as unfeeling or as uncaring about people? 

• And in our own communities, is there a way to wean ourselves back into having services again: First setting a maximum attendance in a spaced out area on weekdays - only with those who wish to be there? Then gradually creating a feeling of comfort that will allow us to see that the danger has passed? [Each region of the country is different, and needs to take its own situation into account.] 

• Why do we label those who want to have services "evil" and "stupid" and "sinners" and "idolators"? 

• Those who want to quarantine should quarantine, and those who want to live life as it was can join the pact of those who agree and take the same kind of risks that a life of exposure to bacteria and viruses has always presented to us.

Like anyone, while being realistic about how life works, I don't want anyone to get sick, and I certainly don't want anyone to die. But how much is in our hands, and how much is not?

I heard an interesting line recently - “’Until it’s safe,’ means, ‘never.’” 

That is a different fear I have. In retrospect, life was pretty good before lockdowns. Will we ever trust our neighbors again? (I hope so)

Will we be calling the police on neighbors? Will be talebearers? Will we look at all people as possible 'asymptomatic carriers' and never go near them again? Will we presume motivation of those we think are guilty of standing on top of our neighbors’ blood, even if our evidence is at best shoddy? Will things never be as they were before? 

I hope not. 

Will we ever shake a hand again? Give a hug? Will we have the social gatherings we used to enjoy? Will we be able to sit next to each other in shul? Will we have services on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur this year? Will we love one another, no matter what? Will we stop judging others who think differently (we are all wired a little differently – just look at how we fall into political lines of thinking)? Will we love our neighbor? Will we stop carrying grudges? 

I hope so. 

I certainly mourn the lives that have been lost. The tragedies that have befallen too many families in some regions of the country, in many of our communities, and of course all over the world are hard to grasp. 

But, as my friend and mentor put it, “Life is gray.” Would it only be that what we think is clear is really so clear. 

Too many people forget that we have a belief system that notes all of this was decreed on Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. It is very hard to stomach, and very hard to come to grips with, because we like to think we are in control. 

But life is gray. Isn’t it?