I knew of another family who lived in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in America. 

But as very frum people, they restrained themselves from planning family simchos as extravagantly as they could afford. 

I don't mean they avoided debt. They could afford to make an eye-popping extravaganza...but didn't.

They were concerned about the people who couldn't afford to make such extravagant bar mitzvahs & upsherins.

Why not tone things down instead of always upping the ante? they concluded.

And Hashem definitely rewards them for that. They're being holy.

​They are separating themselves, restraining themselves? That's HOLY.

Rav Miller suggests starting out in small ways. 

If you've just eaten a meal and you're no longer hungry, don't treat yourself to dessert just because it's there and you like chocolate cake.

Resist. Go do something else.

If someone offers you a l'chaim, say a bracha and take one sip, then spill the rest on the floor. (Rav Miller says not to do this if it's a carpet and, of course, he does not mean to do it where people will slip in it or if it's going to make extra work for the hostess; only if the janitor is going to go over the floor with a mop later anyway.)

​As Rav Miller says on page 7:

(That quote would make a great inspirational poster, by the way.)

​Presumably, he did not say to put it on a table because my others would sip it. Sometimes, children enjoy sipping the leftover l'chaims. 

And maybe you can't get to a sink or else you can get to a sink, but pouring it would be conspicuous.

I think the big lesson here is to get rid of the whiskey in the most harmless way possible.​

At the same time, we should not practice prishut in an unbalanced manner.

For example, we should speak less than we want to. (Starting out with this differs according to each person and how much they are used to speaking.)

Some people even do a ta'anit dibbur – a speech fast. They refrain from speaking at all or only when absolutely necessary.

However, you can't be rude about it.

For example, I know a man who used to make a regular taanit dibbur and also wore his hat in a way so it acted as blinders.

Once, he passed his wife in the street and she greeted him, but he did not greet her back.

Though she was a person of excellent middot & positivity, this crossed the line and she felt both embarrassed and offended. And when he told her later, he didn't see her, she didn't believe him because he was on a taanit dibbur, not a taanit shmiyah (hearing).

"How could he not know it was me?" she said. "He can't recognize my voice? Anyway, what other woman would be addressing him by name in the street?"

He refrained from such "fasts" in the future.

On pages 7-9, Rav Miller tells us how to speak, look, and spend.

We're told in the last paragraph of Kriat Shema not stray after our eyes, but this generation is custom-made to lead eyes astray. Nearly every manmade thing you see nowadays is carefully crafted (based on detailed research) to catch your eyes & hit your brain in just the "right" way. 

That's why ANYTHING you do for prishut, even a baby step, is a VERY BIG HOLY DEAL.

​No joke.

If you want to control your thoughts, it's good to decide on something else to think about before you have that problem.

Rav Miller reminds us that we're here to think about Hashem.

That's a big part of our purpose in life.

So you can think about Hashem. Or stuff for which you're grateful. Or decide to contemplate an apple seed and everything it does.

(People who listened to Rav Miller's shiurim, in which he often discusses the wonders of apple seeds, used to ask him to send them his apple seeds. And he would actually do it! Yes, he'd go to the post office himself with the envelopes and the seeds, and mail them.) 

​Rav Miller compares non-prishut to filling up your stomach with bad things, like sugary cereal in the morning rather than nourishing foods; you won't have room in your stomach for the stuff your body really needs.

Sure, it's not an exact comparison; your mind isn't as limited as your stomach. 

But the truth is that the comparison is true enough.

You see that when your mind is full of non-frum stuff, that's what you think & talk about.

When your mind is full of truly Jewish stuff, that also fills your thoughts and comes out your mouth.

For example, many men remember their intense post-high school yeshivah years with fondness.

A lot of women, especially if they spent a year in Eretz Yisrael, also remember their seminary phase as a special time.

Why?

Because they were in a Torah atmosphere surrounded by Torah ideals & like-minded people. It was a taste of Gan Eden.

Once, I saw a child who looked at a small chunky wedge of watermelon, and exclaimed, "Hey, this is a mizbe'ach!" (the Altar from the Holy Temple)

Is that what your first reaction would be?

​Most people just see a watermelon chunk. Or a 3-dimensional triangle. Or a slide.

By the way, it's not about freezing your mind.

It is the nature of thought to move. (I believe this is from Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.)

​You just want it all to move in the right direction, that's all.

The big secret about prishut is that the more you separate from material stuff & desires, the happier you actually are.

People think prishut means deprivation & suffering, but the opposite is actually true.

All beginnings are difficult.

But once you separate from something, you often stop wanting it.

Not always, but often. It depends.

And what great freedom it is to NOT want something! To NOT feel deprived!

Now, Rav Miller reminds us that we all have different personalities and different situations. For example, a person often needs to work or else he'll get depressed or something.

But even the This World stuff in which we need to engage shouldn't lead to being obsessed with it. 

For example, we can appreciate our things, but shouldn't LOVE them. We can love Hashem for giving us our things, but to LOVE the thing itself?

For example, do you ever see guys who refer to their car as "she" and care for "her" as if the car is a living being?

That's going overboard.

Someone who worked in Hollywood told me that the stars can micromanage their lives to the extent that when they order a meal (at home from their cook), they order it cut into the exact measurements (millimeters or centimeters) they find most palatable.

If the pieces are cut a little bit off these designated measurements, these stars get their noses seriously out of joint about it. It infuriates them.

That's part of the reason why you see that celebrities are often not happy people and why you see them sometimes experiencing a major meltdown or acting out violently: They invest way, way too much in This World.

And it all makes them terribly unhappy & frustrated.

I knew a young couple in which the wife wished to order a private helicopter to fly the family to another residence that Shabbat as they were accustomed once a month. But because of a family event, the husband wished to postpone the helicopter trip to their other residence until next Shabbat, and so they remained at home (in their mansion with all their luxuries and staff).

The wife sat petulantly at the shul kiddush, much to the embarrassment & discomfort of the husband.

And yes, many people were chuckling to themselves about the incident as the couple sat there. (The shul was a frum shul with a mechitzah, etc, but many of the congregants weren't fully shomer Shabbat or fully shomer other mitzvot either.)

The thing is, what was so awful? That she had to stay in her own mansion with her staff of servants for that Shabbat? If they didn't take the private helicopter that Shabbat, they would take it the next! After all, they did so every month.

Also, the wife hadn't even grown up with all this luxury. She was a middle-class girl who'd married into it. Can't she say to herself, "Sure, I can't take a private helicopter to the luxury residence in that other city this Shabbat, but at least I enjoy this really cool mansion!"?

Is that too much to ask of a person?

So she's unhappy and fighting with her husband and embarrassing him by acting all huffy in public – all because she is way too attached to This World.

And the attachment is not even making her happy.

On pages 16-20, Rav Miller explains to us both how to enjoy the physical pleasures of This World (like light) and ALSO the spiritual pleasures.

He notes that Rebbe Akiva of the Talmud used to cry tears of joy during Shemoneh Esrei because he knew he was speaking to his Best Friend: Hashem.

Then on page 21, Rav Miller sums up the 3 steps of prishut:

1. Self-control – Abstain from what you don't really need so you don't become a slave to your desires: "A man who doesn’t have any control over himself yields more readily to forbidden things."
2. Keep your mind open to beautiful Torah thoughts & closed to everything else: "Building a Torah mind, that’s the great achievement of life but it cannot happen in a mind which is occupied by substitutes."
3. "LEARN HOW TO REALLY ENJOY THIS WORLD! Get out of your head any thoughts that prishus means to be unhappy!"​

Credit for all quotes & material goes to Toras Avigdor.

In Tel Tzion in Binyamin, coronavirus struck the Buchris family in an extreme manner: Both parents tested positive for infection, as did 3 of the children.

The father ended up in with a severe response to the disease and was hospitalized & put on ventilation.

The mother, only 2 weeks after her ninth(!) birth, experienced a much easier response to the infection, but still could not be at home. 

Even worse, 3 of the 9 children, including the oldest (a 13-year-old girl) who tested positive for coronavirus were also removed from the home, leaving the home without a capable caretaker.

Who would care for the 6 remaining very young children during this pandemic — and only a couple of weeks before Pesach?

That's when 16-year-old Tamar Heinman stepped up to plate.

Tamar also lives in Tel Tzion and when she heard about the desperate situation, she volunteered to go live in the Buchris home and care for the children for as long as necessary.

Not only did this up her risk for infection (remember, the virus remains alive on some surfaces for an extended time), it meant that in addition to caring for 6 young children whom she never met and who don't know her either, she must clean their home & ready their kitchen for Pesach, and also prepare and conduct the Pesach Seder — all by herself.

No help & no reprieve, no matter how tired or stressed she felt.

​​In an interview that took place outside as Tamar stood on the Buchris porch, Tamar said,

It's wasn't easy for Tamar.

She needed to be both father & mother to all 6 children from morning until night.

The children didn't know her and she needed to establish gentle, loving authority without the on-hand support of the children's parents (who are in phone-contact with their children, but cannot provide backing any other way).

Tamar's parents helped as much as they could from the outside: laundry, supplies, shopping, etc.

It has been very difficult for them as parents themselves to allow their daughter into such a situation, but Tamar was so committed to the idea of helping, plus the thought of leaving 6 young children on their own was chilling.

Social services also assisted in whatever they could.

In an interview three days before the Pesach Seder, Tamar said,

Probably some people think that Tamar took too big a risk.

But she speaks intelligently about the virus, clearly knowledgeable that the death rate (especially in Eretz Yisrael) is pretty low and also affecting only those who are decades older than she, and with underlying health problems.

For what it's worth, I think Tamar's decision to help the family shows good sense, plus tremendous compassion and fortitude.

​Ultimately, I hope she merits as shidduch who is as sensible, compassionate, and dedicated as she obviously is, b'ezrat Hashem.

She seems so quiet & tzanuah and just like any other frum girl, but what an amazing person she is!

Also, it's worth noting that Tamar & the Buchris family are not of the same ethnic group. Clearly, they also follow different rabbanim, which includes different customs for Pesach. There's no doubt Tamar received halachic guidance about everything and that local rabbanim made themselves available for any halachic issues that came up, but putting everything together, Tamar shows profound ahavat Yisrael.

Mi k'Amcha Yisrael? Who is like Your Nation Israel?

(BTW, the father is healthy now and I believe the Buchris family is back to normal.)

In the haftarah for Parshat Shemini (Shmuel II:6:1-7:17), we encounter David Hamelech's dancing for Hashem and the criticism of his wife Michal, the daughter of Shaul the former king.

Michal was an extraordinary person who'd displayed her spiritual greatness from the time she agreed to marry David after he killed Golyat (Goliath), and then later when she exhibited unswerving loyalty to David when he was pursued by her father.

Her constructive criticism of her husband's style of dancing was meant well; she had her husband's honor & and the honor of his exalted position in mind.

Yet Michal received what appears to be an extreme consequence for her reprimand:

She never had a child. (Shmuel II:6:23)

(Or she never had another child, meaning that she had children until that point. Or she had a child on the day she died, implying that she died in childbirth [Radak]. The truth is, it's even more complex than that because there are different interpretations regarding Michal and her children, who they were and when/if she had children of her own or if she raised her sister Meirav's children who were thus considered Michal's, etc.) 

What gives?

We know that Hashem judges greater people by more exacting standards.

This is fair because the greater a person is, the more knowledge & awareness & capability they possess.

For example, when a 2-year-old in preschool wrangles a toy away from another 2-year-old, knocking the other 2-year-old down in the process, we intervene to educate the pint-sized aggressor in the ways of good middot & civilized behavior.

However, if a 30-year-old does this to another 30-year-old at work, we call the police.

​It's even likely that the 30-year-old aggressor will pay some kind of fine, suffer consequences in his career, and even serve jail time, depending. 

We treat 2-year-old aggressors & 30-year-old aggressors differently because we have different expectations of their knowledge, awareness, and capabilities — and rightly so.

So we can accept Michal's consequence on that basis alone.

But there's more.

When King Shaul killed the Kohanim of Nov (Shmuel I:22), this also affected the Givonim, a group of Amorim who sort of converted to Judaism (back when grey statuses were still possible & official) and became the wood-hewers and water-drawers for the Beit Hamikdash.

(Because of their lesser middot, they were forbidden by King David to marry into the Jewish people.)

By either killing them directly or by harming their lives by killing the Kohanim (on whom the Givonim depended for their livelihood) [Shmuel II:21], Malbim says it was decreed from Above that there should be no more descendants of King Shaul.

And this decree was revealed to King David.

Michal's misguided scorn of her husband's behavior was the final straw necessary to seal the decree against King Shaul's descendants.

And according to Malbim, this was the real reason she suffered this consequence.

In a sense, her inner scorn and her verbalized criticism were preordained because they provided the necessary act to finalize a Heavenly decree against her father's descendants.

​Note — I always encourage people to do their own research. Feel free do conduct your own search with questions like:

• Do gloves help with coronavirus?
• How long does coronavirus live on surfaces?
• How long does coronavirus hang in the air?
• Can masks protect against coronavirus?

You'll see a wide variety of sources come up with scientific studies and (hopefully they really are) expert opinions, which state the same conclusions expressed in this post.

You may also get really frightened & overwhelmed reading all the contradictory statements & theories. (So maybe it's better not to.)

Also, all this is only based on current knowledge. Our knowledge & experience with coronavirus changes, sometimes daily. I think that's part of what's so frightening about it and why it might be better to read less about it, and listen to Torah shiurim (the non-scary ones) instead.

I wanted to revisit (again!) certain issues with coronavirus.

Again, I looked at current reports and what experts claim to know right now — with the awareness that it could all change.

(Heck, even the virus itself is mutating as we speak, although that's apparently normal in flu virus too: Coronavirus Has Small Mutations and Now Has 8 Strains, Doctors Say)

The current quarantines, including the strictest ones (like in Eretz Yisrael) cannot possibly prevent infection with such a contagious disease.

As confining as they are, they simply aren't strict enough to provide real quarantine.

At best, they can postpone infection for a while (whether that means an hour or a couple of weeks), but based on current reports, they are nonsensical.

Here's why:

The 6-Foot Requirement of Social Distancing

• Coronavirus can travel up to 13 feet. 
• A coronavirus sneeze or cough can shoot coronavirus 27 feet.
• Coronavirus hangs in the air for 30 minutes after the coronavirus source leaves.

(This means that if you are standing in line or walking behind an infected person, you will encounter their coronavirus germs hanging in the air even if you maintain a 6-foot distance — unless you wait 30 minutes before entering their space. And only if you enter a space you know no one stood for the past 30 minutes.)

Based on the above, please explain how maintaining a distance of only 6 feet from another person will protect against being infected by coronavirus.

Making Allowances for Essential Activities like Shopping

• Coronavirus has been detected on copper for up to four hours.
• ...on cardboard for up to 24 hours.
• ...on plastic & steel for up to 72 hours.

​
Please tell me how, for example, granting vulnerable people a special shopping hour just for them in the morning will protect them when the grocery carts, shelving, door handles, containers, cans, cash registers, and the checkout can host coronavirus for 3 days?

And on cardboard cartons for 24 hours?

Thou Shalt Wear a Mask

• There are different types of mask with different levels of effectiveness.
• Some masks allow viruses through.
• Most people either do not know how to wear a mask in the way that prevents the virus from escaping out the side or conversely, entering in the sides.
• Most people cannot tolerate the suffocating feeling of covering their mouth & nose (even improperly, but especially properly) for the amount of time it takes to conduct their essential activity (whether grocery shopping or work), rendering the mask less effective.
• Masks pick up germs. Even if they do not enter your nose or mouth, they are still there on the mask.
• Most people do not know how to remove a mask in a non-infecting manner.
• Some reports say coronavirus is transmittable through the eyes, which are not covered by a mask.
• Experts say rather than wear a mask, it's best just to avoid disease hot spots (Rav Avigdor Miller says this too.)

Based on the above, please explain to me how people wearing masks is supposed to effectively reduce their chance of catching or spreading the disease.

The truth is, if you interact with another person AND you are wearing the proper mask and wearing it properly, you do reduce the chance of infecting them (except, of course, for the eyeball possibility) and them infecting you. That's why doctors and nurses wear them.

Yet what happens is that most people do not wear them properly and even if they did, they go home and...then what?

Let's say there is coronavirus on the mask. Now what? How do you take it off without getting coronavirus on your fingers? Or in the air? And how do you dispose of it without affecting yourself or your family members?

Doctors & nurses know how to remove the mask. I don't. Do you? And if you do, how many others do you think know?

The other problem is getting people to follow rules, to wear the masks properly and dispose of them properly. Most people simply aren't inclined.

​Gloves

• Oh, those nice latex gloves — on which coronavirus can live for 8 hours.
• ​Unless you change or wash them frequently, what is the point?

Let's say a glove-wearer touches a metal grocery cart handle (on which coronavirus can survive around 3 days). 

Now there is coronavirus on the glove. And when the glove-wearer reaches for a can of peas only to accidentally knock the can next to it, coronavirus is transferred to that can.

Or maybe the glove-wearer places his possibly coronavirus-infected latex on a can of peas only to discover it is a can of asparagus, which he intends to return to the shelf as he continues his search for a can of peas.

Does he immediately rub down the asparagus can with alcohol?

Unlikely.

In general, experts say just to forget about the whole gloves thing altogether. Your hygiene will be much better with frequent & thorough hand-washing.

14-Day Quarantine

• At the beginning, no one knew how long a coronavirus quarantine needs to be. 14 days was a dumb & irresponsible idea. 30 days is a lot more logical when you don't know exactly what you're dealing with, and especially if you think it's highly contagious & dangerous.
• Case in point: Some incidents revealed an incubation period of 24 days.
• A great many people do not show any symptoms when infected with coronavirus (like my neighbor's teenage son), so being in apparent good health after 14 days is no indication.
• It's really not at all clear that testing positive for coronavirus confers immunity. There are some people who seem to have caught it twice, but that's not clear either.

Other issues:

• They don't even know how to treat it.

Theories abound, but they really don't know. In fact, this sobering new article pinpoints just how much they don't know. New insights are changing the way the treat it (which means they weren't treating it properly before, though they were trying to).

They don't even know if coronavirus infection confers immunity. It looks like it might not, but that hasn't been proven.

So this is all why I had fatalist attitude about it from the beginning.

After all, if it's so contagious and enduring, AND if a person can never receive immunity from it (meaning a person can just be re-infected again & again), then there is no way of ever protecting oneself against it.

Based on the known reported information at present, the only way to seriously hinder a coronavirus epidemic would be to both shut down & shut up everything for at least 40 days.

This means no allowing citizens from abroad to come home and no going out for any reason whatsoever.

Allow time for the virus to die on surfaces.

Allow time for people who are sick (whether they show symptoms or not) to recover & lose their contagiousness.

(40 days may not be enough to cover all cases. You may need 54 days just to be sure.)

You can imagine the desperate consequences this would bring and why it would not be possible to just impose it from the beginning.

For example, many people do not have enough food stored for 40 days. Baby formula, diapers, medication refills...

And what about people who fall seriously ill and need medical attention? Is there a sterile way to transport them the hospital during that time?

And what about when they get to the hospital? We've all heard how doctors & nurses are being infected one after the other.

So you see, a genuinely effective quarantine can't be put into effect without truly desperate consequences that may be worse than the disease itself (for most people).

But the big conundrum gained from looking at the numbers is that coronavirus simply isn't as deadly for the average person as all the media & government hysteria makes it out to be.

Yes, it does seem to be highly contagious.

But in a recent look into 3 New York hospitals at the condition of those who actually died from the infection, we see that:

• 57 percent had hypertension
• 41 percent were obese
• 34 percent had diabetes

If you do the math, it adds up to 132%, so it's safe to assume that some of these people suffered dual problems, like obesity AND diabetes, for example.

Again, the actual fatality rate is overwhelmingly in vulnerable people (whom we should help & protect).

Yet it's being promoted as similar to the Black Plague, Ebola, or the Spanish Flu.

This can actually cause more death because some places instituted a do-not-resuscitate order in place against mouth-to-mouth on the mere suspicion there might be coronavirus. 

People suffering potentially fatal illnesses have been & are being denied proper medical care in order to make way for coronavirus sufferers who haven't even arrived yet!

​Fear of coronavirus is already hampering efforts for first-responders to assist in natural disasters, because they're much more cautious how they help, say, tornado victims.

This would make sense in a Spanish Flu pandemic, but not in this current pandemic (based on the current information).

The other pandemics had a terribly high death rate. A lot of suffering also occurred during the illness (and not the no fever, no chills, no coughing, asymptomatic — like with many infected with coronavirus).

Oddly, the Spanish Flu was most likely to kill the strongest of society — young healthy men, making them the most vulnerable group back then.

(Some research indicates that treating Spanish Flu with aspirin exacerbated effects of that disease, and young men were more likely to be given higher doses of aspirin than, say, children. In other words, most doctors didn't know how to treat it properly — sort of like now.)

And I don't know about you, but I'm getting fed up with the overconfident declarations that contradict the previous overconfident declarations.

For example, "experts" initially declared, "Oh, coronavirus doesn't linger in the air; it drops down to the ground!"

Now reports are saying it actually hangs in the air for half an hour.

Initially, we were told that 6-foot social distancing protects from the disease.

But now reports say we actually need at least 13 feet.

Initially, we were told that a 14-day self-quarantine was the oh-so responsible thing to do, but then we discover that really, one should self-quarantine for at least 24 days.

Initially, experts declared that they had a test. Then they discovered their test put out false negatives.

But now, they say, they have a REAL test! 

Except that it's mutating and has already developed 8 different strains. But no worries — they have the "right" test for it!

It's so typical of modern science to say, "Oh, yeah, that previous idea was wrong, but NOW we REALLY know!"

And to say it again. And again. And again!

And initially, they were screaming, "BRING US VENTILATORS! WE NEED MORE VENTILATORS!"

And now they're scratching their heads and saying, "Well, gosh. A disturbingly large majority of people on ventilators still died. And the people most vulnerable to lung issues — asthmatics — aren't getting hit so hard with this virus. So maybe ventilators aren't where it's at. What gives?" (source)

They still don't know how to treat it. The malaria drug? Blood thinners? Ventilators? Doing the hokey-pokey?

(I've heard that a steady infusion of vitamin C is the best solution, but who knows if that's true either?)

Yet as described above, despite new knowledge, societies still impose requirements of 6-foot social distancing, masks, etc.

The only way to really make sense out of this is to look at it more spiritually.

And that's where our big rabbanim come in.

Initially, some of the biggest Israeli Gadolei Hador stated that minyanim should continue, as should yeshivot & schools. They declared this would protect us.

Not long after, they declared support of the quarantine strictures, and a lot of our most prized activities (davening in shul, weddings, learning Torah) either shut down or adapted into a different life form (holding minyanim from porches, etc.).

Are they wishy-washy?

Incapable of looking at the real statistics?

NO.

As already discussed on this blog and in so many other blogs, shiurim, magazines, and more, there are very obvious correlations with the shutdown to a lot of mitzvot & prohibitions.

As a result of the shutdowns, people needed to focus on the true essence of a Jewish wedding.

People needed to make do with a lot less.

Tsniyut (dressing & behaving with dignity), shemirat Shabbat, davening, and teshuvah all improved.

Crime plummeted.

A lot of social ills like theater-going, discotheques, and pop concerts fizzled out.

When we look to the metzora (a person suffering tzara'at from lashon hara), we see he needed to cover his face and keep away from others; he needed to call out in warning to others about himself, "Tamei, tamei — Impure, impure!" 

And now, most of us walk around outside like a metzora with a mask. We need to maintain a distance from others. And those that are sick do indeed need to tell their families, "I've been diagnosed with COVID-19. Don't come near me."

And like the metzora who lived in dilapidated conditions, many of us have had a dip in our finances and standard of living. 

For many people, Pesach was not conducted according to their usual standards. Without cleaning help, how could it be? Even now, some are forced to manage without their weekly help.

Anything in need of repair at home has been staying that way for many. You may not be able to get a plumber or electrician or repairman to your home right now.

Baruch Hashem, our rabbis have been emphasizing this correlation to the metzora.

Here is a letter from Rav Kanievsky about strengthening ourselves in the laws of speech to fight corona:
https://hamodia.com/2020/03/13/letter-harav-chaim-kanievsky-shlita-coronavirus/
(Sorry it's in Hebrew. Briefly, it mentions strengthening ourselves in lashon hara, rechilut [tale-bearing], the trait of humility, and foregoing honor & being "right" (ma'avir al middotav). Every person who strengthens him- or herself in the above will cultivate merit that will protect you and prevent you and all the members of your household from falling ill.

And Toras Avigdor put out a dvar Torah on Parshat Tazria-Metzora clearly delineating the plight of a metzora and what we are supposed to glean from this:
Parshas Tazria-Metzora 3: Returning to Normalcy

Those are just 2 examples. You've likely come across many more explanations & correlations of what's going on & how to respond spiritually.

But it's more than even that.

We are supposed to respect derech-hateva realities, like germs.

Hashem put them their, created their effects, and we are supposed respect the rules of basic cleanliness & hygiene, just like we look both ways before crossing the street (rather than just saying, "I have emuna!" and diving into a busy freeway.)

Likewise, our rabbis have been very strictly supporting quarantine rules, both for spiritual & for practical reasons (though they mostly emphasize the practical reasons).

For example, Toras Avigdor has published several transcripts of Rav Miller discussing germ precautions:

• Rav Avigdor Miller on Keeping Away From Germs
• Rav Avigdor Miller on Current Medical Theory 
• Rav Avigdor Miller on The Sun Kills Germs
• Rav Avigdor Miller on The Ebola Virus
• ​Rav Avigdor Miller on What Caused the Virus

A helpful reader also sent me an audio of Rav Miller discussing this topic.

I've also read that if there is a disease hot spot, it's a sign that Hashem does not want you there, even with all the pretty precautions.

In this case, in which there is no place that's NOT a corona hot spot (except for Antarctica, and I don't think Hashem's message is to make a beeline to the bottom of the planet), it's clear that Hashem doesn't want us out & about much.

Finally, there is a spiritual entity behind the disease, which we are supposed to avoid. 

Aside from germs, we don't wish to meet any mashchitim — destroyers.

​Rav Miller discusses this in Parshat Bo 3: Night of the Locked Doors.

He discusses this from page 1 of the PDF until page 8, but particularly on page 7, (though it's worth the reading the entire booklet to get the full message).

Furthermore, Rav Yehudah Petiyah goes into great detail about this phenomenon in his book Minchat Yehudah, which I plan to cover in a future post.

So despite feeling all fatalistic and "What is the whole darn point of it all?" regarding everything coming out about coronavirus and the feel-good not-terribly-effective measures, I listened to our Gadolim about it and stayed inside much more.

It's a combined physical & spiritual event, and needs to be responded to with combined physical & spiritual efforts.

The need for spiritual change cannot be over-emphasized.

A part of me is still waiting for things to go back to "normal," even though I know that's not realistic. But I think it's also normal to feel that way.

​Right now, Hashem has sent us a pandemic that, for the most part, is actually not so deadly and not even so torturous (again, for most people, not all). 

We receive the strictures & fear & limitations without the really awful springboard (like mass suffering & death).

We receive the same strictures & limitations common under anti-Jewish persecution, but without the obvious persecution coming from evil authorities (emphasis on "obvious"). We are not forced to stay indoors because of falling missiles or invading armies or rioting savages or blizzards or natural disasters, all of which would be much worse than the current situation.

We also still have our modern conveniences, like electricity and their appliances, indoor plumbing, running water, and more.

This is a big chessed from Hashem.

He's giving us a pandemic, a disaster, but without the truly insufferable aspects of a pandemic or disaster.

​(Though if you know someone close who has suffered a severe reaction to or actually died from coronavirus, that's not much comfort. But it could be & has been massively worse.)

For example, when tornadoes recently ripped through America's South, 1 million people were left without electricity.

In the middle of a coronavirus pandemic. During quarantine.

It can happen!

B'ezrat Hashem, it won't.

And while there have been positive results from all this, as one commenter mentioned, shemirat Shabbat needs to happen inside the home too, not just in the public square.

People need to stop indulging in wasteful or forbidden activities with their phone or computer.

The Internet has been the most diabolical conduit for lashon hara & machloket.

The very tricky thing about liking or disliking posts, email, commenting, blogging, texting, "stories," and more is that you can get caught up in lashon hara or machloket before you even realize that's what's happening.

It has happened to me, much to my chagrin, and despite efforts to be aware & avoid it.

​And it has happened to nearly everyone with an Internet connection.

What are we doing in our homes right now?

Yes, there are major challenges & stress right now.

Depending on your situation, it may be difficult to rise to the occasion (like the guys who wish to learn Torah, but are crammed in a small 2-bedroom apartment with 8 children or people living with a spouse or child who is bad-tempered, hyperactive, or mentally ill).

And I'm talking to myself as much as you. I'm also doing the inner work, along with the expected stumbling, failing, then picking myself back up again.

It's all something to work on now, while the chessed & rachamim are still palpable.

B'ezrat Hashem, we'll all do the teshuvah necessary to sweeten the judgement and bring about the Geula in a sweeter way.

As Rebbetzin Heller said at the end of a recent shiur, this is preparation for the much better world that's coming.

In Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshas Tazria-Metzora 3 – Returning to Normalcy, we meet the sufferer of tzara'at (often translated as "leprosy," but it's not actually leprosy). A person with tzara'at is called a metzora, and how he discovered via the Kohen's diagnosis that the white patch on his skin is the dreaded tzara'at — a skin condition brought on by speaking lashon hara.

The metzora must leave his life behind and spend time out in the field, far away from the rest of the Nation.

He could spend weeks or even months there...who knows?

Rav Miller says that back then, tzara'at was often a fatal disease. 

So the metzora stays outside the limits of society, living in whatever structure he can find out there, completely isolated and not sure if he'll die that way.

It's a miserable, miserable life. 

But when he sees his white patch healing, he goes to the Kohen and the Kohen declares him fit for society once again.

​And this is a great joy & relief.

Then he undergoes a whole purification process, and Rav Miller focuses on the symbolism of the last step of sacrificing the 2 birds, on pages 4-5.

Part of what we learn from the metzora is how grateful we should be upon recovering from any illness, no matter how minor or temporary. (Rav Miller fleshes this out in blazing detail on pages 5-6.)

We should be so grateful and joyful for the body parts that work well.

But the other thing we learn from the metzora is the great importance of living in joy & shalom.

A metzora was so infectious that he needed to keep a garment wrapped around his mouth and then call out to anyone approaching him: "Tamei, tamei! Impure, impure!"

Of course, this reminds me of today's obligatory masks (also meant to protect others from you, not you from them) and a doctor's discomfort when he needed to warn other to keep away from him after he caught coronavirus: 

The metzora is suddenly grateful for all the rountine things in life, like walking down the street, going to shul, and davening with a minyan.

He could get clothes or footwear when his old ones wore out. 

And on pages 10-20, Rav Miller eloquently describes the joy-inducing wonders going on around us in the most mundane things.

If you're in quarantine, it might help to read through pages and then look out your window or look in your fridge. Or even look a picture of nature, then contemplate Rav Miller's description of it. Or make up your own.

Then he speaks about the color red, which plays a big part in several parts of Tanach.

Red dye can be made from beautiful plants like rose or beetroot or the rubia plant.

Part of the metzora's purification process is to dip a piece of red-dyed wool in the blood of the slaughter bird.

And here's the symbolism of that (page 15):

That's a very, very powerful statement.

Think about it:

• Are you going to notice Hashem because of the colorful world He gave you, for all the good within?

• ​Or you going to notice Hashem because of another, more painful red?

It encapsulates the whole choice in a nutshell.

Here is an facts-on-the-ground example of what the raw statistics regarding coronavirus have been showing:

Near us lives a family with 6 or 7 children at home.

The father was exposed to coronavirus at work and received a positive result upon being tested for coronavirus. That was before Pesach.

He suffered lower back pain, and says that at night sometimes he wakes up with breathing difficulties. (It is not clear to me whether his breathing difficulties only at night are psychosomatic or not.) This I heard from my husband, who spoke with him directly.

He may have had low-grade fever; not sure.

His teenage son also tested positive for coronavirus, but never exhibited even one symptom – not even a slight fever. No coughing. Nothing. (This I heard from my teenage son, and also myself, as the conversation was conducted via speakerphone.)

His teenage son has since been tested several times more and each time, tested negative.

The man's 5-year-old daughter also tested positive for coronavirus. (This I heard from both my husband and my son.) Not sure if she's still positive, but she exhibited symptoms similar to a light flu virus: some fever and generally not feeling great.

Everyone else in the family has tested negative, despite being cooped up together in an apartment for weeks now.

(Baruch Hashem, they've relatives & neighbors who've been doing their shopping for them.)

This is just one example of what we've seen reported so far:

Coronavirus tends to be fatal in those who are over 70 AND/OR suffering previous medical issues that weaken their immunity.

THEY need to be protected; we should help them! 

But as for the rest of us...?

Having said that, I suspect there are things we don't yet know about coronavirus.

Hashem isn't unleashing full negative judgement against us.

But based on what has been reported, it is not the terrifyingly threatening plague as portrayed UNLESS you belong to a vulnerable group – as is always the case with any disease, including the flu.

Heck, I once knew someone with an immune deficiency who needed to be very careful not to catch a cold because that could kill him. (Eventually, he died at around age 28.)

Having said that, it's of great concern that some of our most highly respected religious leaders having been dying davka of coronavirus in their advanced age (and yes, also with underlying medical issues).

But they've been felled davka by coronavirus.

As already discussed on this blog and in numerous other articles, blogs, and Torah lectures, that is a significant message from Hashem.

And now in Eretz Yisrael, they've started lifting the suffocating strictures and apparently plan to gradually relax strictures even more.

The question is why?

And no, I don't believe for a minute it has to do with health.

As written in an An Analysis of the Current Pandemic, the quarantines anywhere never made sense for 2 reasons:

1. The quarantines were really neither strict enough nor enduring enough to effectively prevent infection (and anyway, the vulnerable people generally had the sense to put themselves in a genuinely effective quarantine). It's almost as the quarantine was for show.
2. The disease, based on what's reported, isn't nearly as fatal or as dangerous as the response indicates. Again, that was discussed in An Analysis of the Current Pandemic. But with Israel's death count under 1% and nearly all of them (or literally all of them) over 70 AND/OR suffering underlying medical issues, a nationwide quarantine over every last citizen is really not warranted and can even cause more problems than it solves. 

​I already wrote about parallels of these strictures and the spiritual messages:

• The Paradox of the Present Pandemic
• An Analysis of the Current Pandemic (toward the end under the section "A Clear Act of Hashem")

​Many others also have discussed this in articles and Torah lectures.

So why are the strictures being relaxed (at least in Eretz Yisrael and a few other places)?

In fact, many other places that have been hit hard are talking about relaxing their strictures.

Either way, it all defies logic.

​Why is that?

While it's true that much of the world has used the lockdowns to indulge in movies and food, those in the know have been doing the opposite.

In other words: teshuvah.

For example, we've just come out of Pesach – a major mitzvah bouquet.

This alone bequeathed massive zechuyot for Am Yisrael: keeping the laws of yom tov, eating the right shiurim of matzah and everything else, reading the Haggadah, singing praises to Hashem, remembering His Kindnesses...big, beautiful mitzvot.

And many people were keeping Pesach with mesirut nefesh: Leil HaSeder in less-than-ideal conditions, whether they needed to conduct it all alone or with immediate family but without their beloved parents or grandparents, and so on.

People did not extend strenuous efforts on chol hamo'ed in all sorts of nonsensical unspiritual pursuits. Sure, some people wasted their time. (I'm sure not all the men are learning Torah as much as they could in quarantine, for example.) But it's not the same as spending lots of money and effort to go to the circus or the zoo. (And in the interest of full disclosure: We usually go to the zoo on chol hamo'ed Sukkot or Pesach. Probably we shouldn't. But we do. But now we didn't. And we were fine!)

People were davening in minyanim with mesirut nefesh, whether outside or on their porches. And there was achdut. People sometimes joined a minyan with different groups of Jews with whom they don't necessarily daven usually.

Many people have been turning to Torah shiurim. Websites like Torahanytime.com have reported site difficulties from such heavy usage – YAY! That's the kind of problem that reflects well on us!

In fact, a lot of people have been davening more. People have been learning more. There are opportunities for unique chessed that people have been undertaking.

And even if people were getting really impatient with their family members, so many people were at least trying to make the best of it. Even if they failed and had their snapping-turtle moments, they were trying.

There were also moments in which they overcame their lesser impulses; they also had moments of trial in which they succeeded.

In quarantine, so many problems with tsniyut (modesty & personal dignity) simply cease to exist! Ta-dah!

Think of all the hanky-panky & flirting & hirhurim that simply DIDN'T happen because it COULDN'T.

Shemirat Shabbat greatly expanded during this time.

So there was both teshuvah & an imposed inability to sin.

Either way, there has been improvement.

In fact, so many people have done so many good things, it's impossible to list it all.

I hope we will keep it up and push even further in our teshuvah.

(Here, I'm hoping for myself just as much as for anyone else.)

There are lessons learned, and more to do, and hopefully, we will take it all to heart.

We are certainly not out of the woods yet, but seeing things as from Hashem, this seems to be a positive sign that Hashem is accepting our teshuvah and tefillot.

In fact, this bears noting: In His Great Mercy & Compassion, Hashem brought about quarantines and a whole truckload of difficulties and sorrows via a disease that is actually not so harmful or fatal.

In other words, it's not Ebola. It's not the Black Plague.

But it could be, chas v'shalom.

We don't want to need Hashem to give us a stronger message.

Right now, we're doing better.

And again, I hope so much that we (me!) can not only keep this positive momentum going, but just fly with it even higher.

With our biggest rabbanim emphasizing the need to work on our bein-adam-l'chaveiro (person-to-person) mitzvot, a big thing is to avoid denigrating other Rebbes & Rabbanim, which also includes other groups.

BTW: By "other groups," this ONLY means HALACHICALLY LEGITIMATE groups.

Groups that deny the chain of tradition from Har Sinai, nullify fundamental halachah by weaseling fake loopholes, groups that deny the Divinity of Torah, or even hold the belief in Hashem Himself is optional...these ideologies deserve no respect whatsoever. 

Having said that, treating the bamboozled adherents themselves of these groups with respect is derech eretz. The vast majority of them were not raised with authentic Torah knowledge, and are fed cunning lies & distortions to get them to believe in these halachically illegitimate ideologies. 

They're simply flailing over the stumbling block placed before the blind. They need help & outreach more than censure.

But respecting these extremely damaging & anti-Jewish ideas? No way. Never.

However, there are groups which developed over time; there are varied traditions set by real tzaddikim.

And those should not be tangled with.

Since the creation of Bnei Yisrael, we have been split into different groups according to Tribe.

When we crossed the parted Yam Suf, we crossed in different pathways according to Tribe — a Divine message that Hashem Himself wishes for us to be varied yet united.

It's like different jewels in one setting.

For example, a pearl necklace often has diamond and/or gold fixtures or gold clasps. Not only is a gold clasp more practical than a pearl clasp, the necklace is all the more beautiful for its gold (or diamond) accents.

I think we've all seen beautiful pieces of jewelry that combine diamonds with gold and amethysts or emeralds or rubies or sapphires.

A bracelet is simply so much more exquisite for the combination of precious stones and metals.

Likewise, bnei Yisrael.

This is an astounding revelation from someone devoted heart & soul to the path of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

In order to appreciate this objectivity & integrity, it's important to know how deeply immersed in Breslov ideology Rav Bender was.

First of all, Rav Bender was not born into Breslov. He was born in Poland to parents who were not Breslovers at all. He only delved into Breslov at age 17 after having been impressed with the ideology. He moved to Uman against his parents' wishes.

So he chose it when he hadn't needed to.

And out of his own free choice, Rav Bender developed an unswerving dedication to the path of Rebbe Nachman.

For example, Rav Bender advised doing a whole session of hitbodedut ONLY on the appreciation for Rebbe Nachman and what he gave us, promising that one could enjoy hours just on that alone.

Rav Bender also literally risked his life & endured a terrible prison sentence that almost ended in execution — all for saying a quick Tikkun Haklali at Rebbe Nachman's grave site.

​It was worth it to him, no regrets.

​That's dedication.

​On page 158 of Vol. I, Rav Bender waxes:

This is obviously a Breslover chassid devoted heart, soul, and mind to his chassidus and his Rebbe.​

On page 456 of Vol. II, Rav Bender states:

These are the words of a truly passionate chassid of Breslov.

​At the same time, he also stresses Rebbe Nosson's passion to listen to all tzaddikim (i.e., probably not just Rebbe Nachman & probably not just the Breslover tzaddikim) — "to listen to all that they say."

(Rebbe Nosson/Natan Sternhartz was Rebbe Nachman's prime disciple & transcriber.)

But Rav Bender's fiery devotion to Breslov, to Rebbe Nachman himself, is prime.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rav Moshe Tchunstchover made a post-mortem visit to Rav Bender, during which he gave Rav Bender the above message in reply to Rav Bender's question.

It cannot be that this is a figment of Rav Bender's imagination because in the depths of his being, it's clear that Rav Bender felt that Rebbe Nachman's way was the best & most effective way to fulfill Torah.

(Also, Rav Bender was remarkably self-aware. If he describes this as an after-death visitation and not a mere dream, we can be sure he really knows that it is.)

So this brief message from the World of Truth tells us 3 things:

• (1) The path of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov is indeed a legitimate path of Torah Judaism. It's zeir chashuv — very important — in the World of Truth.

 

• (2) It's not the only path. (Else Rav Tchunstchover wouldn't have said it's "very important;" he would've declared it considered the "real way" or "the best.")

 

• ​(3) But the clincher is: You need to mean it mit a emes — with Truth. You have to be sincere. You have to really mean it.

​And I'm going to risk extrapolating that lesson to apply to other halachically legitimate groups (Lubavitch chassidus, Satmar chassidus, Yemenite, Litvish, the mussar movement, the Ben Ish Chai of the Sefardim, etc.):

Each one is very important in Shamayim...but you must memeint mit a emes — you have to really mean it.

Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah for Parshas Shemini 3 – Anger and Self Control is very fitting for now: the importance of restraining anger.

Through the dvar Torah, Rav Miller discusses Moshe Rabbeinu's anger and why it was a good thing. (Rarely, is expression of genuine anger a good thing.)

From page 4 of the PDF, Rav Miller offers all sorts of advice on how to start restraining an angry reaction and why it's so important.

Really, anger is the one middah for which the Rambam advises going to the extreme.

There is a lot to be angry about in life.

And there may also be truly infuriating situations.

Oftentimes, a person's ego contributes to his or her angry. Even a person who is not so prideful may find his or her ego popping up in times of anger.

And in American culture, it has become fashionable and even praiseworthy to get one's nose out of joint.

For many Americans (and the younger they are, the more likely this is true) getting mortally offended has become instinctive.

It's like people can't control it.

In fact, it's almost become a sign of integrity to get mortally offended...as long as you get mortally offended about the "correct" things. (And the definition of "correct" depends on your audience.)

And how many times have you heard someone say something along the lines of: "...but I'm so mad, I just can't hold it in anymore, so now I'm going too..."?

As if what makes them personally angry is the deciding factor and the justification for whatever they rant about?

How many times have you said it yourself? (I have.)

And how many times is it used to justify a rant, lashon hara, verbally ripping someone to shreds, and so on?

​Now, the Rambam certainly does not mean whitewash forbidden behaviors or to ignore injustices or the pain of others.

But one must go to the other extreme with anger.

(And here, I'm writing for myself as much as anyone else.)

One can address injustices and all sorts of other things with that Jewish passion for justice ("Tzedek, tzedek tirdof") without frothing at the mouth and losing one's temper.

It takes training, but it's possible.

While I'm always embarrassed to use myself as an example, I think it's important to testify that the bumbling efforts of a normal, flawed person really do meet with at least some success in this area.

Meaning, it's definitely worth at least trying to work on this because you do reap fruits even without becoming a tzaddik.

Needless to say, there are still things that make me angry and times in which I struggle so much to keep a lid on my mouth & my boiling blood.

However, there are things that used to make me angry that now, they simply don't.

Meaning, I'm not repressing anger in those particular situations; I simply no longer feel the anger.

Even more, it's hard for me to understand my old self: Why did I get so outraged about this-and-such?

Likewise, my response in situations that make me angry is much more tempered. After a LOT of training (plus lots of crash-and-burning), my tone of voice is modulated...often (but not always) without me meaning to.

Sometimes, my tone of voice even switches in the middle (from gnashing to even-keeled) without me consciously making it happen.

Meaning, the tone-modulation has become automatic. And that's possible with a lot of practice. I think it's has to do with making new pathways in the brain or something.

Yet am I where I want to be regarding anger?

No, I have a lot of work to do still.

There are still situations with which I find overwhelming.

But fewer situations and less so.

And I'm much happier without getting as angry & self-righteous & outraged & mortally offended.

By avoiding anger, you also avoid a lot of shame and blows to your own self-respect.

Plus, it's a more honest and less ego-invested way of being.

But as the Rambam says, "Lo yiyeh k'meit sheh eino margish – he shouldn't be like a dead person who doesn't feel."

Rav Avigdor Miller, quoting Kohelet 7:29, emphasizes that Hashem made Man perfectly. 

We're supposed to feel all sorts of middot – both the good AND the bad. 

The good middot are supposed to attract us to the right path and the bad middot are there to either be used in a positive way or to be utilized in our self-rectification by overcoming that bad middah.

This is hard to remember in modern society. When Americans aren't being mortally offended and indulging in self-righteous huffin'-'n'-puffin', they aren't supposed to be feeling anything uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable feelings are meant to be medicated, according to much of society today.

In parts of Europe & Scandinavia, it's even worse because an unemotional state is considered the superior one. Being cool & unaffected is the ideal (until they get drunk, of course).

​​Yet Rav Miller notes on pages 6-7:

And that's both our job and our direction in a nutshell.

That's the authentic Jewish way of relating to emotions.

On page 7, Rav Miller describes the chemical process of anger and how it affects your body chemistry.

And he tells us how to use this process when faced with a potentially violent Jew-hating incident (to run away and then how the body naturally deals with any wounds inflicted).

Anger is also good in battle.

​The Tribe of Levi, the Tribe of Moshe Rabbeinu & Aharon HaKohen & Miriam HaNeviah, became separated for greatness – the Kohanim & Levi'im – all because of righteous anger.

Truly righteous anger: They were angry on HASHEM'S behalf. Truly.

When Pinchas speared Zimri and his shady lady, Pinchas wasn't looking for a fight.

First, he needed to get a spear (he didn't walk around with one looking to gore people). And then Pinchas needed to call forth his anger in order to carry out the necessary deed.

This was a man in complete control of his middot; a true and imitable kanai (zealot). 

On page 10, Rav Miller discusses the correct use of anger and how being way to forgiving damages American society.

Then on pages 10-11, he compares anger to dynamite. 

Dynamite is good for blowing through mountains when you need to build a tunnel for a railroad or a highway to improve quality of life.

However, it's not good when you forgot your key and your wife & children aren't opening up for you fast enough, so you blow the door open with your dynamite.

(Great mashal, BTW.)

On page 11-13, Rav Miller quotes the well-known idea that for an angry person, all sorts of Gehinnom will have control over him.

When this idea is quoted, the speaker usually uses that as an opening to discuss the terrible kinds of states an angry person finds himself in This World.

And this is very true.

In fact, Rav Miller discusses this. He personally knew people who developed diabetes and blindness all due to anger.

In fact, one man (page 16) who become blind from anger ended up living all by himself in poverty in a dangerous neighborhood – this poor blind Jewish man.

Rav Miller remarks that the man had what to be anger about – his initial anger was understandable – but despite him being in the right, he still ended up in a self-made Gehinnom.

That's a big lesson: The man endured a genuinely infuriating situation! 

Nonetheless, he (and we) are not supposed to give in to anger.

In other cases, people end up with strokes and other dangerous medical conditions due to anger. 

However, Rav Miller also notes that it's the classic Gehinnom that entraps the person after he dies.

An angry person does all sorts of sins. How many frum people have left frumkeit because they were angry?

But not only that.

A totally frum person becomes mean and says hurtful things from their anger. As Rav Miller states:

So true.

He also mentions that angry often brings people to slander others & ruin their lives.

A person even comes to the point where they lose their belief in Hashem due to their anger.

All this earns Gehinnom.

So what's the cure?

First of all, says Rav Miller, everything is in the Hands of Hashem:

It's hard to take the necessary step back to see things in that light when you're in the moment, but any move you make in that direction adds up over time!

While you're getting your emunah in focus, Rav Miller recommends the following books to help you with your anger:

• Pele Yoetz
• Orchot Tzaddikim
• Shevet Mussar
• Reishis Chachmah
• Mesillat Yesharim

(I'm going to also add Rav Shimshon Dovid Pincus's 2 volumes on emunah, Nefesh Shimshon: Gates of Emunah, which weren't published yet at the time of this speaking.)

On pages 18-20, he discusses how to look angry without actually feeling angry, a method sometimes necessary for dealing with specific situations.

But then he comes back to training yourself.

Keep reading the right things and keep practicing.

He acknowledges that this kind of transformation does not happen overnight.

But, he promises, if you keep working on it for years & years, you'll be richly rewarded for all that inner work. You're fulfilling the tikkun for which you came into the world in the first place.​​

Note: Links alluded to within the post can be found at the bottom of the post.

I must admit that when this whole coronavirus mess started, I didn't take it so seriously.

In fact, I quickly developed a fatalist attitude when I heard that recovering from a coronavirus infection might not confer immunity.

What's the point? I thought.

​There is no way to be immunized from the disease. Even if you recover, you'll be just as vulnerable after recovery as everyone else. This means there's no one who can care for patients without getting infected too.

(Now I realize that they don't know for sure there's no immunity. Maybe yes, maybe no.)

Anyway, my hishtadlut was to go out and buy extra vitamins, soap, aluminum foil for Pesach (and other Pesach supplies), and tzitzit for my 5-year-old in the expectation that shopping would be more difficult at some point and to get stuff then, when I still could do so easily.

(This expectation has since been fulfilled, unfortunately.)

I still don't take the masks seriously, although if I were to go out, I would put one on to avoid problems with the police.

The only reason why I ended up going out less was because of what Rav Avigdor Miller warns about leaving home during a time of dever (plague), and also what Rav Yehudah Petiyah describes in Minchat Yehudah (which will be described in a future post – hopefully soon).

Much of what's resulting from coronavirus simply doesn't make sense.

Let's look at how this whole coronavirus fiasco being mishandled.

First of all, there is a lack of clarity about COVID-19's source. 

Is it a naturally developing disease that mutated from China's wet market to human beings?

Or is it a human-cultivated bioweapon that either escaped or was released?

There is evidence for both.

But no one knows for sure. 

And apparently, figuring out how to treat it most effectively and possibly develop a vaccine (if you can vaccinate against something that maybe does not confer immunity naturally) is influenced by whether it's manmade or not.

Secondly, while it's apparently highly contagious, its fatality rate seems to primarily affect people who already suffer pre-existing conditions and an already compromised immune system.

In other words, healthy people, especially if they are under 70, do not need to have any fear of dying of COVID-19 – statistically speaking. (And really, people over 70 have also recovered nicely.) Furthermore, healthy people under age 70 do not really need to even fear suffering complications.

This is clearly a limited disease so far. 

These currently known facts mean that the quarantine measures are neither here nor there.

• If coronavirus was a truly lethal plague, like the 14th-Century Black Plague that eliminated around a third of Europe (and half the population of England), then you wouldn't have neatly arranged hours for "essential" tasks like shopping.

You wouldn't allow your borders open for any reason, even to bring home fellow citizens who wish to leave coronavirus hot spots.

And you wouldn't quarantine for only 14 days.

In fact, for such a new virus about which so little is known and the testing isn't even completely up to par, 14 days is a silly idea. One needs at least 30 days, preferably 40 days.

• Masks are also a not-very-effective idea, especially since a mask shortage resulted early on.

Do you know how to remove a mask in a sterile manner? 

I don't.

Doctors & nurses do. But most regular people don't.

Think about it: You go out in a mask, picking up all the germs on it, then take all those germs into your home.

And get them on your fingers when you remove the mask. 

Then you let it sit in your garbage can, still live & contagious.

Is that rational?

Other people have already noted that what masks really do is protect others if you are unknowingly already infected.

But that's not why people were buying the masks initially; initially, they acquired masks for their own protection, to prevent themselves from infection, not to protect others.
​

• Social-distances measures can't possibly be effective, according to what we currently understand of coronavirus.

For example, the virus floats around in the air and sticks to surfaces for a long time.

So how does maintaining a 6-foot distance from others really help? It's in the air and people and the virus are moving around in that same air. Unless you are going to stand in a place where no one else has breathed and where the virus hasn't floated to, how do these measures really help, speaking from a purely rational point of view?

Also, let's look at the stats for other infectious & potentially fatal diseases:

• The 2009 swine flu pandemic is estimated to have killed between 151,000 and 575,000 people worldwide.

​

• Ebola has around a 50% death rate. 

 

• In 2017 to 2018, the worst flu season on record in the U.S. outside of a pandemic, approximately 80,000 Americans died. (Do hear about that? Probably not.)

 

• During this past flu season in the USA, the CDC reported 38 million illnesses, 390,000 hospitalizations and 23,000 deaths. 

Yet in none of these situations did countries shut down their systems or deny necessary medical treatment to sufferers.

Furthermore, shutting down society, storm shelters, police services, medical treatment, and the economy is clearly causing more problems than it's solving.

A very real concerning & ethical problem is how many hospitals are postponing necessary procedures in order to clear space for potential coronavirus patients.

For example, a woman needs surgery to remove lung tumor, but is postponed because of the possibility of coronavirus patients.

It hasn't happened yet, but they want everything cleared out & ready.

Is that ethical?

Can a doctor decide that it's okay for a person to die of a lung tumor as long as they're not dying of coronavirus?

Patients dying of neglect & lack of treatment is not better than dying of coronavirus, particularly since coronavirus is only lethal for a specific part of the population, while someone in desperate need of a lung transplant does NOT have an 90% chance of recovery – a chance that a coronavirus patient DOES have.

Furthermore, a season prone to natural disaster is upon us: spring & summer.

Hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires.

In fact, America's South & Midwest have already been hit with tornadoes.

And their public shelters are affected by coronavirus-fear.

Meaning, not all shelters may open and those that do may not allow as many people to shelter within.

Again, this means you have human authorities playing God.

Basically, people in authority will decide that some people should die of a tornado rather than coronavirus.

And maybe that person wouldn't die at all, not even of coronavirus, but wasn't allowed in a tornado shelter.

Also, I still think Italy's high death rate is at least partly due to denying treatment to people over a certain age. They're playing God and by denying treatment, they're killing people who might not necessarily die otherwise.

They're also souring the Heavenly Judgement over themselves with such unethical behavior.

Also, if these economic lockdowns continue, many areas of the world will start to riot, which leads to property damage, injuries, and deaths.

(Note: I'm taking this information from anywhere EXCEPT China; Chinese authorities are notoriously dishonest about reporting information that dishonors them.)

​Finally, the actual coronavirus numbers:

• 80% of those infected experience a light illness: a fever, maybe snuffles & some coughing...

And hospitalizing those from that 80% could actually make them worse. 

People with a slight fever need lots of rest and nutritious easy-on-the-throat-and-digestive-system foods, like a hearty chicken-vegetable soup.

Rest & nourishing foods are hard to come by in hospitals. (No offense.)

Good, nourishing rest is extremely hard to come by in hospitals, particularly in this era of the cell phone.

Also, hospitals are bastions of germs.

• Around 10% experience severe symptoms...but most recover.

​

• And around 10% die.

(In Israel, less than 1% of diagnosed coronavirus patients have died.)

To put in perspective, let's again look at the numbers for previous infectious illnesses:
​

• The 2009 swine flu pandemic is estimated to have killed between 151,000 and 575,000 people worldwide.

​

• Ebola has around a 50% death rate.

 

• In 2017 to 2018, the worst flu season on record in the U.S. outside of a pandemic, approximately 80,000 Americans died.

 

• During this past flu season in the USA, the CDC reported 38 million illnesses, 390,000 hospitalizations and 23,000 deaths.

However, the 10% coronavirus death rate reached in some countries a high percentage of a highly contagious illness.

And that's where our concern should really lie.

Except that it doesn't.

Even in Italy, where both the infection rate & fatality rate have been very high (around 10%), 85% of deaths occurred to those over age 70.

​Most people over 70 have at least minor health problems. Not all do, but most.

Indeed, over 90% of coronavirus fatalities worldwide – regardless of age – occurred in people with pre-existing medical conditions.

In fact, 99% of Italy's coronvirus fatalities occurred in people with pre-existing medical conditions, which made them especially vulnerable to the virus.

Statistically speaking, this means that coronavirus is not fatal for people without pre-existing medical conditions.

Heck, even if you're over 70, coronavirus is only a problem in those with pre-existing medical conditions – statistically speaking.

In fact, the current quarantines are NOT protecting the vulnerable.

How can they?

By allowing the higher-risk population to shop, say, an hour a day around potentially infected staff and touching items that possibly infected people have touched and being out near people who are possibly infected...this still puts them at risk.

For example, several years ago, when my friend was immuno-compromised due to her kidney transplant, she did not go out at all and her family was careful around her themselves.

Likewise, she does not go out at all now – not during special hours, not with a mask & gloves, nothing. The only effective & logical way to protect herself is to not go out at all. And despite the fact that she's an active, extroverted person, she doesn't leave her home and is very careful about who enters her home. In fact, her married daughter lives nearby, but could not come to the Seder for fear of her husband/the son-in-law compromising my friend's immunity.

​Now, the guilt trip has been that we all need to quarantine in order to protect vulnerable members of society.

But that is never the way this kind of protection works.

You cannot shut down society during every flu season or virus season ONLY to protect immuno-compromised people with pre-existing medical conditions. 

Society would disintegrate if you did that.

Sort of like now.

What vulnerable people usually do is protect themselves.

For example, my friend mentioned above who, in her thirties, received a kidney transplant from her twin sister.

During her recuperation at home, there was a sign on the door warning potential visitors who've received a vaccine (which often makes people contagious for a bit) or any illness.

Her husband & children also needed to take extra precautions around her.

But please note: The municipality did not shut down the entire city in order to protect her.

That would have been silly and extremely harmful.

Then she was fine. But now she has needed to quarantine herself again for her own protection, and this has once again affected the comings and goings of her immediate family.

And that is how it should be.

Right now, people are under enormous stress (which also affects physical health and disease susceptibility).

People who are ill with other illnesses are NOT getting the treatment they need to survive!

And that's a crime of ethics.

Right now, societies are quasi-protecting POSSIBLE victims while abandoning ACTUAL CURRENT victims of other medical issues.

Again, that's ethically problematic and also irrational.

In some areas of America, police activity has been limited. Meaning, the police will not show up for certain crimes.

Furthermore, with this school year in the trash, children will need to repeat their grade.

​And how to do that with the incoming wave of children for next year? My son is in the middle of gaining the critical skill of reading. He knows his letters and the vowels of kamatz & patach (ah), tzerei & segol (eh). But he's already gotten weak in the last 2 and it will be up to us to teach him shuruk (oo), cholem (oh), etc.

Or school next year...if it happens.

Medical students are been graduated early if they're willing to help the crisis in the hospitals. (This means they're less qualified to practice medicine. Is that a good thing in a hospital? Yeah, I get that the hospitals haven't much choice right now, but objectively speaking, is it beneficial?)

Vulnerable people should protect themselves.

​And those of us who are not over 70 and/or with pre-existing medical conditions should help them by running their errands, leaving sterilized food packages by the door, walking their dogs, etc.

That would be the logical response to coronavirus.

Except that's not how nations are responding.

The question is why?

There is no clear logical reason for the contradictory quarantine rules, which are not ultimately so effective.

As described above, they're not being applied in a logical way that actually protects against and prevents illness.

Taking Eretz Yisrael as an example, Tel Aviv District (which includes Bnei Brak) & Jerusalem District have the highest levels of coronavirus, but the Center District (Netanya, Rechovot, Raanana, etc.) isn't far behind.

Yet they're primarily closing off the charedi areas.

In fact, one hospital is automatically detaining within a special coronavirus ward any person from one of the major charedi cities who comes, even if they don't display signs of coronavirus. By automatically placing a healthy person in the coranavirus ward, they are intentionally infecting that person with coronavirus.

Again, coronavirus is not lethal for the overwhelming majority of people, but it is highly infectious to the point that locking someone in a place teeming with coronavirus coughs and germs on the surfaces will mostly likely infect anyone who enters. (And anyway, as explained above, hospitalizing people who aren't so sick can actually make them sicker.)

BTW, the brings us to another issue: testing.

It isn't clear to me that, with such a new virus, the tests are so accurate. Remember, it's COVID-19. There are similar viruses, like SARS CoV-2.

In fact, the common cold, pneumonia, and MERS are all included in the coronavirus family, of which COVID-19 is one strain amid this virus family.

It was already reported in the USA that early tests for COVID-19 offered false negatives – sometimes multiple times.

Furthermore, all countries have reported a shortage of testing kits.

And I suspect the low reported incidence of COVID-19 across Africa has more to do with lack of testing than lack of infection.

So who's being tested exactly? And how?

And are the people who tested positive for COVID-19 actually infected with that and not another member of the same virus family (like the common cold – which is actually how COVID-19 expresses itself in around 80% of those infected)?

And how do we know the real rate in populations?

For example, no one in my family have been tested. I don't know people who've been tested. It could be that the rates in these seemingly low areas are actually just as high as the Tel Aviv or Jerusalem Districts, but people haven't been tested. (Or they received a false negative.)

Again, IF the test is actually accurate – and I'm not sure that it is. Literally, I'm not sure.

However, the result of the quickly mounting rules is that frum people are actually complying.

If these strictures were imposed out of clearly anti-Torah personalities and ideologies, then the frum people would rebel. For example, it would be a sign of courage & yirat Shamayim to continue holding secret minyans & yeshivot, etc.

But the way it's being done, including secular Israeli leaders and Leftist celebrities coming out protesting discrimination against charedi communities.

It's nice of them, but I do wonder what made them suddenly turn around and display such sympathy.

​Theories abound, like how leaders secretly wish to crash their own economies, thus forcing their populations to be dependent on them.

Not sure about that one.

More logically, most world leaders are in the vulnerable group: They are over 70 with pre-existing medical conditions.

So maybe, in their own minds, it's a self-protection racket.

​But here's what I really think...

To summarize the main points:

• The quarantines & protective measures around the world are not being applied in an effective manner – meaning, it seems to be more for the sake of feeling like something is being done, rather than actually protecting against infection. Masks are not being used properly and social distancing is a joke with the way this virus operates & spreads.

 

• This isn't such a dangerous disease (compared to other pandemics like the Spanish flu or the Black Plague); its lethalness really only affects a very specific population that is easily identifiable and thus possible to protect. 

 

• In other words, unless one is over 70 and have some underlying health condition that compromises your immunity, the death rate isn't anywhere near 10%. Hardly quarantine worthy.

 

• The most effective way to protect people from death by COVID-19 would be to quarantine ONLY the vulnerable individuals (rather than the entire country) until the disease disappears. This is the obvious solution & the better one, yet no one is doing it.

 

• These not-terribly-effective quarantines have resulted in a complete disruption of Jewish life, with the compliance of Jews themselves. If these dictates were coming from any other source in any other way, we would never comply. (Or we would comply outwardly while continuing to not comply in secret.)

 

• The disruptions in Jewish life are eerily reminiscent of Nazi Germany and other edicts of the past (disruption of both religious obligations & being blocked from work). Even their rhythm, like how every day there's a new decree & we don't know what will happen next, is very similar to past Jew-hating edicts.

 

• Certain segments of society are trying to blame specifically the charedi community, and target the charedi community, even though we don't really know how many people are really infected, both within the charedi community & without. (This also echoes anti-Jewish sentiment of the past.)

 

• Despite the disease's non-lethal effect outside of vulnerable populations, the frum community has taken a severe hit with the ongoing deaths of our leaders: rabbis rosh yeshivahs, rebbetzins...especially in New York, they're leaving us one after another.

​Putting it altogether, this is all clearly from Hashem.

And despite how it feels otherwise, it's actually a chessed.

Hashem has disrupted our lives in a way that is so similar to anti-Jewish edicts & attitudes in the past, but has done so without the actual hatred, persecution, and attacks (whether via missile attacks from enemy countries or a violent police force, like Nazis or Communists).

And He has sent us a disease which isn't actual so fatal for the vast majority of people.

In fact, it's not even experienced as so horrible for the vast majority of patients; chicken pox is a lot more annoying.

The truth is that at this point, unless you are over 70 AND already suffer a pre-existing immuno-compromising medical condition, it is totally unlikely you will die, chas v'shalom.

In fact, it's unlikely you will even become seriously ill.

And that's a big chessed because looking at previous pandemics (the Black Plague, the Spanish Flu, Ebola), a pandemic can actually be lethal.

​This isn't (outside of the vulnerable populations).

Furthermore, Hashem has given us a massive wake-up call without actually having unendurably terrible things happen (like terrible suffering or death).

We're not in ghettos.

We're not being bombed.

We still have running water & electricity & all our nifty hi-tech stuff.

Yes, we are stressed-out with frayed nerves. We feel stifled. We are extremely inconvenienced. We feel frustrated, overwhelmed, exasperated, and worn-out both emotionally & physically.

We're being forced to live one day at a time.

​But we still have a tremendous amount to be grateful for at this time.

So this is really a tremendous wake-up call from Hashem.

While the world response has been extreme, the actual impetus is not so extreme.

And this is the chessed in the wake-up call from Hashem: We're getting the wake-up call WITHOUT the severe suffering the exaggerated & ineffective response implies.

And now we get to the part of the wake-up call that is extremely painful & distressing: 

We're losing our leaders.

Roshei yeshivot, askanim, older & wiser teachers, rebbes, rabbanim...Hashem is plucking them from our midst, particularly in the thriving frum communities in the USA.

Again, this is a bizarre and traumatic result from a virus that is actual not so fatal.

So why is it so fatal for them?

Chazal states several reasons for this kind of thing:
​

• Hashem brings consequences upon tzaddikim in order to frighten reshaim into doing teshuvah.

 

• Hashem plucks out good people (especially sinless people like tzaddikim or children, chas v'shalom) as a kapparah for the sins of society so in that way, only 1 or a few people die rather than thousands.

 

• Hashem removes really good & caring people from the world so they won't suffer seeing the destruction of their beloved Am (like how He removed the Chafetz Chaim, Sara Schenirer, Rav Meir Shapiro of Daf Yomi & Lublin Yeshivah, and others just prior to the Shoah).

​​
This is extremely distressing and should impel us toward teshuvah.

And regarding the irrational & not-terribly-effective quarantine measures, I'll be writing about those from a spiritual perspective in an upcoming post.

​Because while these wacky quarantine measures are not so effective against such highly infectious germs that live a long time on surfaces and travel through the air quite easily (despite the feel-like-I'm-doing-something-effective-but-am-actually-not social-distancing formations), going out less IS effective against malachim mashchitim (destroying angels), as Rav Avigdor Miller has emphasizing and as Rav Yehudah Petiyah describes in Minchat Yehudah.

Note: I just want to emphasize something because on the Internet, people's eyes tend to skim rather than read carefully (mine are guilty of the same, BTW).

I do NOT mean to dismiss the very real dangers for those over 70 or who suffer underlying pre-existing medical problems. Every life is precious and even those in a vegetative state are completing vital tikkunim.

So I'm NOT saying to throw old or unhealthy people out the window.

NO.

I'm saying that this whole thing could be handled differently (and MORE EFFECTIVELY) without depriving both the over-70 and immuno-compromised AND everyone else of parnassa, medical care, quality of life, storm shelters, police protection, supplies, and so forth.

We can more effectively take care of vulnerable members of our society AND everyone else.

I want everyone to live and to experience a good quality of life as much as they can.

May Hashem keep us all mentally & physically healthy, and may we take the lessons learned now and do complete teshuvah.

Articles mentioned above:

• Rav Avigdor Miller or Parshat Va'era and Some Very Sharp Mussar on Learning Lessons that Applies to Current Events
• ​What Happens If You’re Seriously Ill and It’s Not From COVID-19?
• Sheba Hospital: All Chareidim are Suspected Coronavirus Carriers
• For These We Cry
  

Throughout the past couple of years, readers have let me know a bit about themselves or else I read a comment on another blog which sheds more light on a reader's situation, and it reminds me of 2 things:

1) There are such special, sincere people out there.

Regular people who've suffered or are in difficult situations...or who are doing all right, but looking to go deeper. And if you saw any of them in real life, you'd think they were standard ordinary people...but really, they are so special.

And so sincere. They want to do the right thing. And they want a positive healthy connection with like-minded Yidden.

2) So many people have suffered in some way, and what we see online in a blog post or a comment (or at the store or on the sidewalk) isn't the whole picture of the person – not at all.

​They may be in a very difficult situation or have undergone a difficult situation, and we have no idea how much they've already worked on themselves to get to where they are now.

​Many times, an off-comment or off-attitude is just the chaff coming off a person who has done so much work on him- or herself, like maybe a person who started off at minus-8 and has scaled to level 5 by the skin of their teeth, but this person is being judged for not being on level 9.

Many people feel like they've done and are doing all they can.

How much more are we supposed to be doing?

So many people are exhausted emotionally – yet they keep struggling to push forward.

AND GOOD FOR THEM!!!

There is so, so much against us. And so many of us have been really trying and have made enormous steps – even sacrifices – to get to where we are now.

But where we are now often feels like it's not nearly enough. (Either that's how we feel or that's what we've been told.)

We want truth. We want clarity. And we want comfort & menucha – emotionally, spiritually, and physically.

May Mashiach gather us together to Eretz Yisrael speedily & sweetly.