Baruch Hashem, Rachel Naomi bat Esther Chana has improved and her family is so grateful for all the prayers & good acts.

(Please see a previous post about her here.)

However, they're not out of the woods, yet. So please continue to daven for her and her newborn, Rach Hanolad ben Rachel Naomi.

Also, please see this verified campaign page for Rabbi Avraham Rachamim Chaim Sofer. Hopefully, you can donate. But it's also important to read his story (included on the page) of medical malpractice in the treatment of his covid-19 virus.

It's a very disturbing eye-opener. 

The severely limited access (based on the claim the covid-19 is sooooo dangerous & contagious) to ill family members allows medical staff to injure & kill patients because there is no outsider allowed in to supervise the treatment of the patient.

How convenient for those who are heartless zombies in hospital uniform (not all, but some).

Please daven for him: Avraham Rachamim Chaim ben Yeshuah Alexandra.

And for intelligent insights into a lot of the "why?" aspects of COVID-19 by a grandson of Rav Avigdor Miller, please see:
Rav Eliyahu Brog: COVID Crisis - Middah Kineged Middah Of How We Persecuted Our Unvaccinated Brethren 

I experienced so many "Aha!" moments while reading the transcript. The actual shiur is available on the same page as the transcript.

Note: Just to be transparent about where I'm coming from: I'm not an anti-vaxxer in general; I & my children have received the standard vaccinations over the years. However, research has caused me to be undecided regarding the measles & mumps vaccines, see no reason for the chicken pox or diphtheria vaccine, and am highly suspicious of the COVID-19 vaccine.)

Thank you so much to Neshama of Going Home...To Yerushalayim blog for publicizing the above link (and also for all her investigative research into the whole topic).

I'm on Dr. Miriam Adahan's email list, and the other day she sent the following (used with permission): 
​

I loved this list because it's basic to-the-point information—and doable for most people.

But let's say you can't do everything on the list.

For example noisy family members (including a baby or child) or neighbors may prevent you from getting 7-9 hours of sleep. Or a young adult child who stays out way too late. (And no, a mother cannot always control the amount of sleep she gets, manage naps, etc. It depends.)

Or maybe you cannot avoid toxic people because you either married one or gave birth to one. (And yes, there are parents with good shalom bayis who tried their best to parent well, yet ended up with a problematic older child. I didn't believe it either until I saw it.)

Or maybe you have toxic in-laws or parents living with you or near you.

And maybe you can't manage to acquire the right vitamins right now.

And so on.

In that case, do any of the other suggestions on the list.

Seriously. 

Any of these things will help, including if you just start drinking more water. Or adding more garlic to your diet.

Or eliminating sugar.

Or dancing.

Or simply laugh! 🤣

I started out with supplements of natural folate (instead of the synthetic folic acid) & methylcobalamin B-12 rather than cyanocobalamin B-12.

And I felt a huge difference, especially with the folate supplement.

So please don't feel stressed out or overwhelmed by these kinds of lists. Just do whatever you can as your hishtadlut and feel really good about that.

And just for knowing: I wasn't asked or even hinted at to post this. Instead, I received it along with everyone else on the list, and simply wanted to pass along such good advice to help more people in any way possible.

So thank you very much to Dr. Miriam Adahan, both for her email & her permission to use it on this blog.

Her website: https://www.miriamadahan.com/

She also does ZOOM, face-time and phone consultation all over the world. You can contact her via her gmail address. A contact page is also on her website.

Please note: Comments are closed for this particular post.

There's an article going around the frum community about the cholera epidemic in the time of Rav Akiva Eiger.

It's a fascinating look at how they responded to a deadly disease before modern hygiene and modern knowledge and antibiotics.

It also showcases Rav Eiger's wisdom & innovation in protecting his community against a truly dangerous disease.

The reason so many people innocently promote this article is because of its supposed similarity to the covid-19 epidemic.

But it's simply not a good comparison.

They're nothing alike.

Left untreated, cholera kills 50-60% of those infected.

That's a horrific death rate!

Furthermore, cholera sometimes kills its victim within hours.

Meaning, some victims die a mere 2 hours after showing symptoms.
​
That isn't anything like covid-19.

Here's an personal example of a covid-19 outbreak:

Right around Rosh Hashanah, a group of around 20 yeshivah students caught covid-19 together. They'd been following the rules by attending yeshivah in a "capsule," which meant staying in yeshivah without leaving the premises, not to buy a can of soda or to go home—nothing.

Even going off the steps outside the yeshivah wasn't allowed.

The staff followed the rules of masks, etc.

But these young men still caught the virus because the non-NC95 masks simply do not work, nor do the other rules.

The young men subsisted on yeshivah food, no one even coughed, and the main symptoms were aching limbs, mild fevers, and the temporary loss of taste or smell.

As for treatment? No vitamins, no citrus fruits, no medication, no vitamin D or hydroxychloroquine, no ventilators, no special care—completely untreated.

(Note: If they'd asked for lemons or tangerines, they would have received. But they felt pretty cool about getting along in survival mode, so they proudly made do without.)

They fasted Yom Kippur and even made scrumptious festival meals with the extra food the yeshivah staff brought them.

(Yes. Yeshivah bochurim can cook—and cook really well! Some of them, anyway...)

Then after the newly instated 10-day quarantine passed from the time they got tested, they came home.

(No one gets retested; you're simply free after 10 days—which is nonsensical because there's no guarantee that a person is automatically virus-free after 10 days. If covid-19 was a truly lethal disease, the 10-day stipulation-without-retesting would be dangerously irresponsible.)

Interestingly, out of these 20 infected bachurim who went through a bout of covid-19 COMPLETELY UNTREATED...NO ONE DIED. No one even suffered complications. Baruch Hashem.

If it was anything like untreated cholera, at least 10 should've dropped.

​But as it was, there was a 0% death rate.

Likewise, in many of the "corona hotels" here in Eretz Yisrael, the guests subsist on unheated pre-prepared trays of meals. Many quarantined guests have uploaded impassioned complaints to social media, detailing their suffering and lack of medical care, without even a tablet of Acamol (Tylenol) available to alleviate their aching limbs.

Yet no one dies.

​Why?

Because covid-19 is NOTHING like cholera.

Just as a side point: Another difference is that cholera is a bacteria while covid-19 is a virus. Furthermore, cholera is rarely spread by person-to-person contact, but from drinking or eating stuff infected with cholera, like contaminated water or seafood.

Note: Please understand that I'm not pointing fingers at the average person sending this article around. They've been led to truly believe that covid-19 is much more dangerous than it has been proven to be. I'm concerned about why people who should know better insist on conflating covid-19 with untreated cholera—emphasis on untreated cholera; when treated, the mortality rate for cholera drops to less than 1%.

Also, I understand that in America, covid-19 has manifested in a particularly frightening manner—in New York in particular—with several respected rabbis from different communities dying of covid-19 in a narrow timeframe, plus people see ambulances coming to pick up people with severe cases.

That's not happening everywhere, so it's easy to dismiss it if you're not from New York. But in New York, the Jewish community is certainly experiencing covid-19 with more severity and it's important to be sensitive to that difference.

Having said all that, this still is nothing like a cholera epidemic.

In my area, we've seen hundreds of infections over the months of covid-19...yet only 2 deaths.

Both of the niftars were around 81.

One I did not know, but the other I knew.

He was obese and he looked & moved like other obese elderly I'd known who suffer diabetes & high blood pressure.

I was very sad to hear he died because I liked him; he'd always been so nice to children.

However, I also suspect that had the flu or pneumonia been going around, that might have ended his life too because people with his health issues are very susceptible to illness.

After all, while I don't know his specific health issues, he looked & moved like a very unhealthy 81-year-old.

By the way, pneumonia kills 50,000 people in the USA alone each year.

1 million adults seek hospital treatment for pneumonia each year.

In fact, within the 30 days of contracting pneumonia, 5-10% of its victims die.

Shockingly, it is the world's leading cause of death for children under age 5.

​This seems very serious. Why are there NEVER any lockdowns or masks because of this?

In any discussion of covid-19, I try to keep 2 points in mind:

(1) Despite the very light response to the disease in most people, it's still new and a light infection could fester into something worse months or even years down the line. If it's anything like its family of coronaviruses, then probably not. But it's true that we don't know.

(2) It SEEMS like covid-19 is more lethal than other viruses for vulnerable people (i.e., people with pre-existing medical issues, like heart trouble, high blood pressure, etc.). But it's hard to say for sure because the accuracy of data collection of covid-19 is questionable.

Also, with 50,000 annual deaths from pneumonia and the 12,000-61,000 deaths per year from the flu receive no attention, and so we don't have the same comparison.  
​
Frum media, for example, went out of its way to list the people who died (or who allegedly died) from covid-19. Pictures of relatively young people (with obviously pre-existing health problems) appeared in frum media to accompany reports of their tragic deaths.

But that never happens with more common diseases like the flu or pneumonia.

Not to mention, it also seems like many covid-19 deaths were treatment-induced—meaning the ventilators davka harmed people, hospital staff offered ineffective treatment, or hospitals even denied their patients proper treatment (via self-imposed quarantines, which prevented them from caring for their patients properly).

Here are a couple of reports:
habayitah.blogspot.com/2020/04/new-york-city-of-chelm.html
habayitah.blogspot.com/2020/04/our-mom-survived-covid-19-but-died-of.html

​That's just 2 examples. There are more.

Also, many reports state that the covid-19 numbers are falsely inflated.

​Meaning that if someone diagnosed with covid-19 dies in a car accident, then the death is reported as covid-19. If someone diagnosed with covid-19 dies of another illness, it's registered as a covid-19 death. Not sure if there's proof, but those are the reports.

An indication of this lies in an article quoted here:
havahaaharona.blogspot.com/2020/10/19-reasons-to-thank-hashem-for-covid-19.html

According to Shmuel Sackett's investigation into Israel's chevra kaddisha, LESS people have died OVERALL in Eretz Yisrael during March-September 2020 than in the last 10 years!

If the mortality for covid-19 was real, we should be having an overall higher death rate, not a lower one.

So it looks like the deaths from covid-19 really aren't as reported.

​That needs to be investigated.

However, it still stands to reason that we need to both protect and care for our vulnerable brothers & sisters—but we should be doing that during flu season too.

There seems to be almost a willful desire to make covid-19 worse that it is.

After all, the article on Rav Eiger's responsible & insightful handling of cholera is both interesting & heart-warming.

However, it has nothing to do with the covid-19 epidemic.

​Yet it is being presented that way.

Covid-19 is simply not as lethal as untreated cholera.

So why publicize an event of a truly lethal disease as if it's related to a fairly non-lethal disease?

Why the insistence on trying to conflate the mostly non-lethal covid-19 with the extremely lethal untreated cholera?

This has probably been discussed elsewhere, but it occurred to me that a lot of what's going on over the past year has to do with the penalty of chenek—strangulation.

We no longer merit a Sanhedrin to conduct capital cases (and even when we did, the Sanhedrin only arrived at the death penalty less than once in 70 years).

So Chazal said that those who deserve a certain type of death penalty may receive it in an unofficial way. 

For example, one who commits the sin of toeva, which earns the penalty of execution by burning, may indeed die in a fire.

Therefore, because so much suffering highlighted in the world this year connects to chenek, it's helpful to look at that.

High-profile cases of death during arrest had to do with the perpetrator suffocating to death (usually from his own health issues & drug addiction, intensified by forcing the perp into awkward positions).

Symptoms of COVID-19 include coughing & difficulty breathing, with more severe cases causing serious breathing problems.

While hurricanes can kill via skilah (stoning), the most common way is by drowning--chenek.

Wildfires can certainly kill via sereifah (burning), but victims tend to die of asphyxiation rather than the actual heat of the fire.

And right now, you have millions of people affected by the smoke of America's Western wildfires.

Symbolically, 40 years of Californian environmentalism ensured that massive amounts of dead, dry trees & underbrush would "strangle" the lush forests—and provide copious fuel for wildfires. (See here for how that works.)

On the lighter side of it, we are forced to wear an oxygen-inhibiting mask. While not leading to actual chenek, it inhibits breathing, a mild form of non-lethal chenek.

So we definitely see a theme here...

What sins earn the penalty of chenek?

These:

• Committing adultery with another man's wife.
• Striking one's own parent hard enough to wound them.
• Kidnapping another Jew (and forcibly bringing him or her to one's property).
• Prophesying falsely (i.e., a "prophecy" that he never heard OR that he heard from another person, rather than from Hashem).
• Prophesying in the name of other deities (EVEN if it supports Jewish Law)
• A Torah elder guilty of insubordination before the Sanhedrin.
• Testifying falsely that someone had adulterous relations with a Kohen's daughter

(Mishnah Sanhedrin 11)

Needless to say, adultery has reached appalling standards of acceptance in society at large.

For decades, it has been both glorified & justified in popular books, movies, and songs.

I still remember in my teens as we waited to hear the results of the #1 Most Popular Song in the World that year. 

To my shock, it was a song that cheerfully glorifies adultery, making adultery seem like a playful pastime rather than the disgusting betrayal it actually is.

My siblings and I looked at each other, mystified.

It wasn't even such a great song!

Yet in addition to our agreement about its aesthetic lack of merit, the lyrics always bothered me. In addition to making adultery seem like a playful, desirable pastime, it implied that everyone engaged in it.

But clearly, its lyrics comprised a big part of the song's popularity—meaning that a large part of the "civilized" world identified with the idea & the attitude expressed in the song.

(UPDATE: Originally, I named the song as I wrote down this memory. Then I kept hearing the song in my head. "Argh!" I thought. "What have I done? And in the 10 Days of Teshuvah too, for crying out loud..." Then I remorsefully realized that if it happened to me, then probably it caused this for others too. I'm sorry. So the name has been deleted.) 

​Another song that hit the pop charts for years was sung by a self-professed believer in the gospels who got her start in gospel music. Her popular croon was an ode to an adulterous relationship, romanticizing the betrayal in the most appealing way.

We even sung it in our high school jazz choir, but needed to change one of the lyrics to make it less inappropriate for teens.

Because of the large church-going population in my school, it caused some discomfort for both the singers & the audience. 

Some people questioned its propriety for high school students.

Some wondered: What could the music teacher have been thinking? 

Well, considering his past, he was probably thinking: I can really relate to this!

After all, he'd been married 4 times; each successive wife had been the woman with whom he'd cheated on the wife before.

Each time, he had an affair with one of his 12th-grade students, divorced the previous wife, then married his student-paramour after graduation. (We met his much younger 4th wife a couple of times...and, boy, was she uncomfortable around us...)

So he probably felt it was his personal theme song.

Okay, my high school music teacher was not exactly the adulterer mentioned in the laws above. Furthermore, different laws apply differently to non-Jews & Jews.

But certainly, adultery runs rampant through modern society, both the glorification & romanticization of it, along with the practice of it.

Anyway, prophesying falsely and convincing others to worship idols because of a dream you had...well, I can think of entire religions which fit that transgression.

The other angle to that sin appears when you switch the English translation "idolatry" or "idol worship" to "occult worship."

The oh-so simple-sounding idolatry of ancient times was a very powerful & dark occult worship still practiced today, albeit in modern form.

And in the USA, children definitely turn on the parents in far greater numbers than ever before.

Even in immoral & violent societies, it was unheard of for a child, especially a teenager or adult, to physically harm a parent—even if that parent physically abused that child.

But it happens now. Maybe not the majority, but it definitely happens more than ever before.

Finally, according to the 7 Laws of Noach, sxual abuse goes under the category of kidnapping, which is an aspect of stealing. As we know, Noachide transgressions elicit the death penalty.

Such crimes are also obviously forbidden among Jews, and as we see above, kidnapping is a transgression which earns the penalty of chenek.

Along these lines, human trafficking in general & child trafficking continues to be a increasing tragedy worldwide. Very little is being done to stop it.

The Rambam and the Gemara have a lot more to say about all the above, but I don't know either of them well enough to extrapolate further.

But suffocation can also be understood metaphorically.

After all, Hashem knows that most people (including Jews) do not know the intricacies of Jewish Law & execution & how they connect to current events.

Let's ponder the following:

• How many times have you, as a religious person, felt that you must put up & shut up around non-religious (or less religious) people, no matter how appalling their behavior or conversation?

 

• How often have you, as a religious person, suffered jibes & tirades in either silence or placation because your nemesis came across some kind of exaggeration or outright falsehood about religious Jews in the media, and refuses to believe otherwise?

 

• How long have people with the true moral high ground felt gagged & unable to express (no matter how gently) their real (and truly more virtuous) thoughts & feelings due to fear of offending someone or being shut down or rejected?

 

• Or maybe you gag yourself because of deep-seated false beliefs?

 

• Maybe you don't allow yourself to feel so much joy & pleasure in life?

 

• Maybe gag yourself regarding your relationship with Hashem?

(Due to upbringing & society, many people fear Hashem in an unhelpful way. Many view Hashem as a punishing parent. Many fear cultivating a relationship with One who seems like He could be brutal & do not take comfort in the idea that "Hashem is behind everything." This understandably inhibits emunah & bitachon, and also inhibits the development of a deeply personal relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu.)

• How many people express the feeling of being suffocated, gagged, boxed in, or shut down due to the inflexible behavior of others?

 

• Don't many people express their distress as "I feel like I'm drowning in..."?

Interestingly, the most oppressive & abusive people often scream the loudest about feeling "gagged" or "censored" or "oppressed" when ANY boundaries are placed on their abusive behavior.

Is it any wonder that the most Leftist regions of America (the West Coast), the ones who feel most oppressed & suffocated by anything religious or conservative or moral or Trump-related, the ones who embrace the most liberal policies regarding drugs, toeva, environmentalism (which is really nature-worship—see above)...are now experiencing REAL air-oppression & confinement? 

Previously, their complaints & fears were imaginary, based on media-hype.

​And now they really ARE being suffocated. Gagged. Confined. Shut down & shut in.​

For years, Rav Avigdor Miller, Rav Itamar Schwartz, and others have been mentioning the tumah (spiritual impurity/blockage) in the very air.

But only the spiritually sensitive could perceive it.

The smoke from America's West Coast wildfires reached the East Coast.

All along the West Coast, people must stay inside their homes with all the windows closed (in summer weather!—and not everyone has air-conditioning) because the smoke is so thick.

Now the air quality isn't only spiritually bad, it's physically bad.

The suffocating spiritual pollution has now manifested itself physically.

A relative who lives in one of America's most toeva-tumah-infested cities (in the thick of the smoke, though not in the path of the fire) is forced by the wildfire smoke to use 5 air-purifiers at one time.

Now if that's not perfect symbolism for that city, then I don't know what is. 

Before this blog continues with discussions & insights into Rav Itamar Schwartz's Q&A on Coronavirus, it's important to address what people CAN do to manage the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

(Otherwise, the whole thing can turn into an overwhelming fear-mongering dynamic, which is pointless. The entire purpose of fear is not crushing despair or paralyzing anxiety, but self-improvement via awareness of Hashem.) 

On pages 32-34 & 44 & 103 of the Q&A, Rav Schwartz discusses the response and the "remedy" for coronavirus.

It has to do with self-nullification, which I stated before I'm not qualified to go into that. However, it's imperative to mention the basic idea of self-nullification: One should strive to internalize the fundamental idea of "Ein od milvado — There is nothing but Him."

And while in today's world of self-promotion and self-esteem, the very idea of self-nullification seems offensive or even frightening, a person who achieves true self-nullification experiences freedom & happiness on a level impossible to otherwise comprehend.

We see this among our tzaddikim who achieved this level, like Rav Aryeh Levin, a person who was wholly selfless and truly happy & content.

Self-nullification occurs when one wholly bonds to & unites with Hashem with no interference of cognitive dissonance or ego.

Self-nullification doesn't cause you to lose yourself.

On the contrary, self-nullification enables you to discover & fulfill the real you — the pristine neshamah residing within you.

Halevai I was on that level & could actually know what I'm talking about!

But that's the basic definition as written in books & exemplified by tzaddikim who reached that level.

According to Rav Schwartz, one can fight coronavirus via mesirut nefesh (self-sacrifice).

Different types & levels of mesirut nefesh exist.

One way is physical death.

But another (and more appealing) way is on the spiritual, nefesh level.

When you break your middot, you kill off your bad middot.

​This is a wonderful thing!

Because we feel attached to our bad middot & taavot (desires), letting go of them causes pain.

Some people even define themselves by their bad middot or taavot.

For example, some people pride themselves on their sharp tongue (they call it "clever") or their insistence on always getting their way ("being assertive," "nobody's doormat," "never a sucker," "I don't take dirt from anyone," "nobody messes with me!").

Some pride themselves on their ability to control others, whether it's a classroom, an office, or their home.

I knew someone who prided himself on being an innate (and successful) businessman. However, he sunk to manipulative & exploitative behavior to maintain his self-image as "Benjy the Businessman!" 

It took me a while to see that he wasn't a bad person, but his commitment to his self-image as "A Businessman" led him to behave with less compassion or integrity in business situations — behavior he took pride in.

Yet in other situations, he could behave with a lot of compassion and fairness.

But think of how hard it is for someone like him to relinquish his commitment to winning in business when his entire self-image depends on that.

It's a kind of death because he needs to let go of his pretend "self," which feels very real to him.

And the transition phase feels like a hermit crab switching from one shell to another: horribly vulnerable & desperate.

But completing the transition phase brings increased emotional maturity, wisdom, and satisfaction.

So it eventually feels good, but yeah, the transition phase is a wringer.

Breaking taavot also demands mesirut nefesh & feels like a type of death.

For people addicted to alcohol or drugs, dealing with problems by facing them head on is torture.

In fact, getting out of bed in the morning or facing the upcoming weekend with no high or drunkenness to look forward to often depresses the addict. (That's why treatment programs encourage them to take it one day at a time.)

Life initially feels blah without the hit people get from watching their favorite show/movie/podcast, smoking a cigarette, eating their comfort foods, reading their favorite non-kosher novels, social media, listening to their favorite non-kosher music, mixed dancing, unwholesome relationships, "juicy" gossip, or whatever is their taavah of choice. 

So for such a person to think they'll never engage in a certain act or have that thing again...it's unbearable.

In fact, they often describe the desire for that which they deny themselves as: "It's killing me."

Mesirut nefesh.

If it helps, the Pele Yoetz recommends relating to the pain of the unfulfilled taavah (specifically alcoholism) as a kaparah (atonement) for all the damage & transgressions caused while indulging in that taavah.

This puts a positive & beneficial spin on the pain of NOT getting what you crave.

In other words, the pain is l'to'elet; it is useful & rectifying. It has meaning & purpose.

Immediately after a shiur to a group of frum women regarding halachically appropriate shaitels, a woman approached the rebbetzin and asked her how she should change her own shaitel.

The shaitel in question comprised 100% human hair & hung down to the wearer's waist.

The rebbetzin thought for a moment, then said, "Cut off 2 inches, then get back to me in a month and tell me how it went."

The woman thanked the rebbetzin, then went on her way.

My friend, a very unmaterialistic person who lives an especially simple life in Eretz Yisrael, witnessed the exchange in astonishment.

She asked the rebbetzin why only 2 inches? To my friend, that seemed insignificant. After all, even at 2 inches shorter, the shaitel remained far from tsniyus.

But the wise rebbetzin explained that a woman willing to invest in such a shaitel obviously felt very attached to that particular shaitel.

The woman also showed tremendous sincerity in that after hearing only a little mussar on the topic, she immediately sought to improve herself in this area. And the woman's question was open-ended. Notice that she did not ask whether she should do this or that, but she simply asked what she should, making herself vulnerable to a big & possibly overwhelming change.

That's sincerity.

If you think about it, the rebbetzin showed excellent judgement.

These types of shaitels cost more than a used car.

Women who invest so much money in such a shaitel also invested their hearts in the length, style, and color.

There is a very real emotional attachment to THAT particular shaitel in all its details.

Furthermore, if the woman made a drastic change in her shaitel, her family & friends will certainly respond and usually the response won't be one of praise & encouragement, but of discouragement. (Particularly if her husband likes her in the untsniyus shaitel and especially if his ego depends on having a trophy wife — which is a VERY un-Jewish attitude in marriage — and a husband's criticism of her appearance is a bitter pill to swallow.)

For most people, it's too much to ask of them to change their identity & self-image to that point (meaning, if the woman would cut her shaitel to above her shoulders, for example) AND the discouraging responses she's likely to receive from others.

It could cause her to give up completely. (Like selling the newly vamped shaitel and buying a new one with the old waist-length again.)

In addition, a human-hair waist-length shaitel has issues other than length. These types of shaitels look way too realistic & alluring from the front too.

Yet the rebbetzin only focused on one aspect of the shaitel: its length.

And she had the woman start with just 2 inches.

So for that woman, this is big-time mesirut nefesh. Hopefully, she continued on her journey toward a more dignified & refined hair-covering.

However...

What of the woman who already wears a shaitel that conforms to all opinions of tsniyus (of those who permit shaitels)?

If she would look at the above situation superficially, she would go out & buy a custom shaitel that comes down to 2 inches above her waist and say, "I'm being mosser nefesh too!"

But for the one already wearing a refined & dignified shaitel, buying a nearly waist-length shaitel would be a HUGE step backwards!

It's a yeridah, not mesirut nefesh at all.

So we see that these things are individual.

We cannot copy the mesirut nefesh of others.

​We must find our own.

On pages 17-21 & 44, Rav Schwartz discusses practical suggestions for teshuvah (a form of mesirut nefesh).

​Intensifying & deepening prayer is one strong recommendation.

As we've seen from Rav Avigdor Miller & others, focusing on one aspect of Shemoneh Esrei (like saying "Baruch...magen Avraham" with total kavanah and/or feeling a pang in your heart when you recite the prayer for the Beit HaMikdash) is an excellent way to start.

Bonding with Hashem even for only a few minutes every day is excellent. (Yes, 30-60 minutes is ideal, he says, but a few minutes is also very good.) Regarding time spent with Hashem: QUALITY is more important than quantity — especially now. (You can see this guidance on page 44.)

Our focus now is getting real.

Refraining from any type of lashon hara takes a lot of self-control. Depending on the situation & your own personal impulses, NOT saying something can feel almost physically painful.

And therefore, you receive FABULOUS reward for this restraint.

The only reason you restrain your mouth is for Hashem.

​And that's such a beautiful thing.

Forgiving someone is also very powerful (both Rav Kanievsky & Rav Gedalyah Edelstein recommended releasing grudges in the coronavirus era).

Our reasons for holding tight to grudges & resentments can go very deep.

Working through this causes pain. (How much depends on the depth of hurt & anger & damage caused by the object of your resentment.)

​Forgiveness makes you into a different person than you were before.

Forgiveness does not mean whitewashing truly bad behavior.

If someone intentionally & intensively hurt you, that is not so forgivable, practically speaking. After all, the person MEANT to hurt you and feels NO remorse. Maybe they're even happy about it.

Forgiveness in that case means connecting to the idea of emunah, that everything comes from Hashem.

That awful person was the agent for something you needed to go through for the rectification of your soul.

You don't pretend the person or the actions were okay. They weren't.

But you let go because you realize Hashem was behind the entire disaster and there is somehow in some unfathomable way a benefit.

I'm the first to admit this is much easier said than done.

But any step forward you can make in this area is a form of mesirut nefesh & very powerful.

Gratitude remains an essential component of mesirut nefesh & teshuvah.

Noting your spiritual progress & also feeling grateful for aspects of your life foster feelings of happiness & contentment.

Even if you can't manage to feel wholly happy & content, saying "thank You" to Hashem still increases happiness & contentment.

Even if you can't achieve a wholly positive state, a smidgen of positive feeling is a million times better than none.

On pages 18-19 & 84, Rav Schwartz emphasizes we must NOT daven for the world to return back to "normal."

That would be worse.

We should daven that coronavirus is uprooted BECAUSE everyone returns to Hashem and develop a warm & genuine connection with Hashem & our fellow human beings.

​So we daven for a global return to Hashem & genuine connection with Him & other people.

We daven for the light of Redemption to illuminate all souls and we daven that a global healing is activated by kedushah (holiness) overcoming tumah (spiritual blockage/impurity).​

Rav Avigdor Miller repeatedly stresses the importance of NOT sharing your baby-steps with others.

Unless the other person is spiritually aware, they often discourage or mock you for your efforts.

This can ruin everything.

This caution contradicts the newest generation, in which every little thing you do needs to be photographed and advertised on Instagram.

​Of course, you can share your baby steps (or your grandest efforts) with another person, but only if that person will recognize your individual need for this particular type of mesirut nefesh, and will validate your efforts.

​Many times, your efforts will be between you & Hashem.

And that's perfectly fine.

​You're making Hashem supremely happy & that's all that matters.

It bears repeating this idea again: One drop matters.

Drop after drop fills a lake.

Drop after drop erodes stone.

On page 32, Rav Schwartz reassures us that person can activate a little bit of mesirut nefesh by working on just one area, as long as it is an area on which one needs to work.

Mesirut nefesh is channeling the power of death in a holy direction.

Rather than destroying your body, you destroy your unhealthy ego and bad middot.

You destroy the tumah blocking you from being your best — the wonderful person you really are underneath all the spiritual blockage.

By taking only 1 thing each day — something you personally find difficult — and working on that, you achieve a form of mesirut nefesh.

That's Rav Schwartz's practical advice.

On the emotional inner level, Rav Schwartz recommends cutting oneself off from everything that's happening in the world. He encourages a feeling of separation from the entire world.

He emphasizes doing this "deeply," which I think means not only that you stop checking the news or social media, but that you make yourself realize how meaningless much of it is so that you don't even WANT to see the podcast of your favorite political commentator or check your social media account every 5 minutes.

It's important not to misunderstand this.

He means the world & all the distractions & fake news.

He does not mean to stop davening for people or to ignore pleas for verified tzedakah campaigns.

We still need to look both ways before we cross the street and cultivate warm, caring connections with others.

We should concern ourselves with the genuine emotional & material needs of those around us.

But many things portrayed as A Very Big Deal do not actually matter. It's sheker.

Ultimately, in comes down to:
​

• Focus on mesirut nefesh & self-nullification
• Start small: Pick ONE thing in ONE area YOU find challenging.
• Make it individual; Hashem created you unique with unique needs.
• Daven for the right things: Redemption, Divine Illumination, the victory of kedushah over tumah, etc.
• Do not daven for things to return to normal. (What we consider "normal" is actually sick & warped.) 
• ​Try to cut off & distance yourself from the world as much as you can.
• Aim for real inner change (though only practical behavioral change is also really good).

May Hashem grant us all tremendous hatzlacha & bracha in our spiritual endeavors!

Related posts:

• ​What's Stopping You from Making Real Change?
• Pele Yoetz: Even the Smallest Acts Count beyond Measure!​
• ​​The Causes and Treatment of Soul-Sickness (AKA The Kli Yakar on Parshat Beshalach – with Advice on Addiction from the Pele Yoetz)

In Bilvavi.Corona.Q.and.A.pdf, Rav Itamar Schwartz addresses why COVID-19 has hit our spiritual leaders & other very good people (i.e., respected talmidei chachamim & other people leading Torah-true lives).

​In particular, we see this happening in America more than anywhere else.

Judaism describes the concept of Hashem taking a very good person as a kaparah for the Nation, rather than killing off, say, 1000s of people, chas v'shalom.

And that explains part of it.

But Rav Schwartz delves even deeper into what lies behind the spate of deaths from coronavirus among our spiritual leaders.

It's rattling, yet hopefully also a spur for positive change.

On page 24, Rav Schwartz addresses the question: Why America?

​There are many wonderful things to say about the frum community in America.

For example:
​

• Chessed, bikur cholim, & tzedakah occur with great generosity, regularity, and attention to detail.

 

• The beloved & heroic Hatzolah emergency medical service is an American innovation.

​

• There are frum American Jews who, despite all the temptations of the outside world, invest so much in keeping their Yiddishkeit alive & intact.

 

• The frum American community fosters many activists who work on behalf of anything troubling Am Yisrael, whether it's shidduchim, abuse, addictions, mental health issues, physical health issues, errant youth, shalom bayis, schools and much more.

However, a vapor of materialism has also infiltrated the community, and affects the community in ways that seem bizarre if you're looking at it from the outside.

Americans who got used to & even enjoy the simpler life in Eretz Yisrael describe a type of culture shock when they return to North America for a visit, expected to adhere to the material dictates inherent to some (though not all) communities there — dictates that honestly do not matter one bit & even cause unnecessary stress & inconvenience.

I don't want to give specific examples, but if you know, then you know. And if you can do something about it (at least within yourself), then you can.

Not everyone is materialistic; as stated above, much good exists.

But according to Rav Schwartz, that infiltration of materialism is a major reason the virus hit America so hard.

Needless to say, secularism & materialism infiltrate Jewish communities around the world (including in Eretz Yisrael). But you see the impact of secularism & materialism in the USA more than anywhere else, so the virus hit there the hardest.

For now, anyway.​

And there's an aspect hinted at in this blog's previous coronavirus posts, but it certainly hovers at the back of my mind and others have also mentioned:

...a feeling of something "waiting in the wings."

I don't know what you're sensing, but to me, there's a powerful sense that Hashem is holding back — yishtabach Shemo, Av HaRachaman.

Because of that, we're not really seeing the whole picture.

It's blurred because in His Great Mercy, Hashem is not unleashing the full force of it upon us.

Yet on page 26, in answer to the question of why Eretz Yisrael is seeing a much lower rate of complications & death, Rav Schwartz states: 

That potential increase in complexity and scope is hinted to in the contradictory & unclear information regarding the virus: 
​

• How far can the virus REALLY travel after being emitted?

 

• How long does it REALLY stay in the air?

 

• How accurate are the tests REALLY?

 

• How infectious is it really? (I personally know people who spent hours in the airspace of, including physically touching, people unknowingly infected with coronavirus...and when tested, these intensely exposed people experienced no symptoms & tested negative for COVID-19. 3 of them had spent a lot of time in the sun, a source of vitamin D, and in addition, one had been supplementing with vitamin D.)

 

• Can COVID-19 really be transmitted via the eyes?

 

• Is treating the virus at a hospital more or less dangerous than treating it at home?

 

• What are the long-term effects, including of those who tested positive but remained asymptomatic?

 

• Is it really better to allow people to die of loneliness & neglect than risk infecting low-risk family members & staff?

 

• For those who focus on the purely medical aspect, why are so many people ignoring the 3 studies indicating that vitamin D plays a huge part in coronavirus immunity? And that vitamin K2 not only helps vitamin D absorption, but also prevents clotting (which is how coronavirus has killed many people)? 

 

• And the really big question: Can you get COVID-19 AGAIN after the initial infection & recovery?

​Whether you have people putting their faith in masks & 6-foot social distancing or claiming that the whole thing is a hoax, there is a tremendous amount that we really don't know.

While the media-induced hysteria looks over-the-top when compared to the actual number of deaths & complications (MUCH less than epidemics like Ebola, Spanish flu, and so on, though a little more than flu deaths & complications, depending on the area), it could derive from this sense that there could be more to the virus, God forbid, then what we see now.

And maybe that's scarier than believing it is controllable via all sorts of questionable precautions or believing that it is a hoax or the flu.

To extrapolate even more from Rav Schwartz's words: What does all this Wi-Fi contain?

For us, the connection is both instantaneous & imperceptible.

​We see the result, not the process.

But it travels.

For example, to read lashon hara or fake news written in San Francisco, that lashon hara must travel electronically through the air, including space inhabited by holy people.

To look at unwholesome images & watch stupid movies, this garbage must travel through other homes and people in order to arrive to your device.

So all this lashon hara, filth, and frivolousness penetrates the homes & beitei midrash of these holy people.

And because they are so clean & pure, the tumah affects them more.

It's sort of like a population never exposed to certain diseases, so they lack immunity to those diseases.

Yet when suddenly exposed to those diseases, infection & death runs rampant in this formerly healthy population.

Likewise, on a spiritual level.

As Rav Schwartz explains:

In addition, there is the unfathomable way Hashem runs the world, which ALSO lies behind the infection & deaths of such great people.

(Meaning, if you focus on the Wi-Fi alone, that's a mistake; it's not the whole reason.)

On page 29, Rav Schwartz recommends reading the Ramchal's Sefer Daat Tevunot to better understand the spiritual dynamic & how to respond.

So that's some very bitter food for thought.

Intellectually, we know that when we sin, it harms ourselves (even if we don't immediately perceive it) and it collectively harms our Nation (by adding more sins to the National scales, weighing down on the side of Heavenly Judgement rather than Heavenly Compassion).

But did we know that when we invite a non-Torah wave to our device, it passes through the space of very good & spiritually sensitive people, harming them directly?

Those Wi-Fi waves infested with lashon hara, kefirah, time-wasting, and pritzut infiltrate the personal space of these holy people.

​I never considered that.

Spiritually speaking, this may be why quarantines ironically bring about an upswing in infection.

Yes, it LOOKS like all the post-quarantine renewed interaction spreads the virus, but people are tested less in quarantine (because they're not going out for tests).

Once people get out more, they also get tested more.

And this means more positives (if the tests are genuinely accurate, of course).

Though some people utilize the lockdowns to improve themselves spiritually, many turn to their Internet devices to relieve boredom & distract themselves from anxiety.

In other words, a person who might normally walk or drive to work (which prevents him from surfing) and then sits at a cash register or goes around fixing electrical issues in homes, or teaches a class (where he also cannot connect to fake news or videos of the best football moments of 2020)...this person in quarantine now spends all that time on the Internet, which increases the spiritually harmful Wi-Fi traffic. 

And wouldn't it be nice if we were all only learning Toras Avigdor or Torah Anytime or Bilvavi via these devices during the quarantines... 

But many people waste time (or worse) on their devices.

​This means that MORE foolishness, MORE pritzut, MORE lashon hara, etc., are traveling via Wi-Fi through homes during a lockdown.

In other words, quarantine increases spiritual contamination via Wi-Fi even as it lessens spiritual contamination in other venues (because people cannot go to bars, discotheques, football games, and movies).

So tachlis, what can we do?

Rav Schwartz mentions several responses, all interconnected:

• Mesirut nefesh (self-sacrifice)
• Self-nullification
• Focus on holy individuality
• Develop "warm" relationships as opposed to "cold" relationships

This is all in addition to increasing prayer, Torah study, tzedakah, and chessed.

I'll be discussing the above (except self-nullification) in future posts, but please remember that Rav Schwartz emphasizes progressing according to your own level.

But just to touch on some of the solutions:

Regarding mesirut nefesh: What's mesirut nefesh for you might not be mesirut nefesh for someone else.

Think about wherever you're holding. Rav Schwartz recommends to start by taking one thing you find difficult & overcome it.

Even just a small amount of mesirut nefesh regarding one thing makes a huge difference.

One aspect of holy individuality means to focus on learning those parts of Torah closest to your heart. What are you really attracted to learning?

If you're a man, it doesn't mean to give up your learning schedule or yeshivah studies completely, but if you've always felt a hankering to delve into Sefer Yeshayahu or Orchot Tzaddikim or Chessed L'Avraham, then now's the time. 

​As Rav Schwartz advises on page 52 (with a special emphasis on learning in quarantine):

As stated at the beginning, it's best if you to read the entire PDF yourself to get whatever you individually can get out of it (which will be different in some respects from what I get out of it, due to the innate variance of "holy individuality").

And future posts will discuss other aspects of the PDF.

In His Great Compassion, may Hashem please bring the Geula sweetly & swiftly.

A couple of weeks ago, a delightful reader sent me the latest English translation of Rav Itamar Schwartz's Q&A regarding these Corona Times.

You can read/download it here:
Bilvavi.Corona.Q.and.A.pdf

And WOW — truly amazing & beneficial insights abound. 

It has been simmering in my mind since I read it.

There's a lot to say about it, but it was Rav Schwartz's discussion of masks that hit me between the eyes.

As regular readers know, I've been rather cynical about the whole effectiveness of face masks.

Why? Because:

• People aren't wearing effective masks (my understanding is that only the N95 masks really protect others from your germs).

 

• People do not wear the masks effectively (i.e., there are all sorts of gaps around the mask, the pores are bigger than the coronavirus, etc.).

 

• People are not using the masks hygienically with regard to themselves or others. (More on that later below.)

 

• People receive no instruction on removing the masks sterilely and therefore, do not remove them without the risk of infecting themselves & others.

 

• In general, you cannot trust people to follow hygiene properly. Even hospitals unintentionally infect & sometimes kill their patients via laxness in hygienic practices.

Yes, it's true: Even hospitals accidentally infect & even kill their patients via laxness by hospital staff in hygienic practices.

1 in 31 hospital patients suffer at least one healthcare related infection (CDC).

In Europe, it's 1 in 20 (source).

Another study found that staff at the University of Arizona Medical Center washed their hands 90% of the time.

Even with the problems carrying out that study (people perform better when they know they're watched), I really don't understand why it's not 100%. I soap-wash my hands automatically at home after touching just raw meat or fish, and all sorts of other reasons (without being OCD about it, BTW) — all the more so, if I worked with sick & vulnerable people.

Also, when I volunteered at an American hospital, they emphasized exactly how long to wash hands (for the time it takes to sing Yankee Doodle), exactly how to do so, and emphasizing that wiping hands with clean paper towels removes even more germs after the hand-washing.

And they emphasized how important hand-washing is overall.

So why only 90%, especially after such training & explanation?

Also, as stated above, the data collection is iffy because when people know they're being observed, they perform better.

A study from the Greenville Healthcare System in South Carolina used secret cameras & discovered hand-washing compliance as low as 54%.

​Worldwide, only 40% of doctors & nurses wash their hands as they should. (source)

In Australia, 64-84.7% of doctors & nurses wash their hands as they should. (source)

This is despite the availability of hand-cleaning equipment, posted reminders, their training, and their knowledge.

And these are your trained medical professionals.

All the more so, your average non-medical professional will be lax.

Likewise, with masks.

​You cannot trust people to wear masks properly.

And if you look around to see what masks people are wearing, whether they're wearing them effectively, and if you have any idea how much people are reusing masks WITHOUT washing or sunning them to kill germs, then you know that many people are NOT wearing their masks effectively.

And just for knowing, I came across studies in which a minority of surgeons refuse to wear masks during surgery because they felt it endangered the procedure due to feeling faint & not being able to see well (source). 

(This study clearly contradicts what many doctors in the media, including the frum media, say.)

So...yeah.

Furthermore, I sometimes experience severe breathing shortage & MUST remove the mask, especially after climbing stairs outside.

If I have the wire closed properly over the bridge of my nose, I absolutely cannot breathe enough.

So I don't close the wire. Instead, my vision is impaired.

And that's my major & unexpected problem with the masks: the inability to see properly.

The mask hampers my lower visual perception, which affects crossing the street & other aspects of daily life.

For example, I take my 5-year-old on the bus to school.

To keep track of him, I need to bend my neck all the way down to see him over the mask, which then hampers my peripheral vision of other things or people around me.

You can pooh-pooh it if you want, but managing on a crowded bus with my child, other people's children & strollers (which demand both lower visual perception & side visual perception) has become very stressful because looking straight down at a 90-degree angle prevents me from seeing properly anything to the side (and makes it even harder to breathe, incidentally).

At one point, I even sat down right on the leg of a 7-year-old (who had his leg on the seat to save it for his big brother) because I did not see his leg.

Yes, of course I saw the child and I DID look to see if anyone was sitting next to him!

​I did!

However, I did not bend my head so that my chin was touching my collarbone, which is what I needed to do to see the actual seat upon which lay the child's leg.

(Fortunately, he was more startled than hurt and very nicely forgave me.)
​
Mask-free, you can see all around you just by tipping & swiveling your head slightly. 

But with a mask covering your nose, you need to make exaggerated motions, which allow you to see only a limited area at a time.

Furthermore, studies involving surgeons & other healthcare professionals show that wearing masks for prolonged periods cause:

• "significantly different temperatures and humidity in the microclimates of facemasks, which have profound influences on heart rate and thermal stress and subjective perception of discomfort." (source)

​

• headaches (source)

 

• rash (ibid)

 

• impaired cognition (ibid)

In Israel, bus drivers must wear masks, but I noticed that many do not cover their nose, which is smart because bus drivers certainly need their lower visual perception!

So why do I wear a mask?

I wear a mask because:

• I don't enjoy confrontations with police & the resulting fines.

 

• Several very big rabbis said to follow these guidelines, and some even used very strong language against those who feel differently. (More on that in a minute.)

 

• ​I know a lot of people feel distressed around someone who isn't wearing a mask.

(They are uninformed OR they know people who suffered complications/death from COVID-19, so the threat feels very real OR they suffer understandable anxiety about the whole situation in general.)

• I can talk to Hashem outside in public without anyone knowing because no one can see my mouth moving.

Now let's look at why many rabbis insist on masks, even to the point of using very strong language (as if the masks really do save lives), despite the facts on the ground.

​Most rabbis get their medical information from highly reputed doctors.

​That sounds logical & responsible, right?

Many rabbis do not read medical abstracts (like the ones sourced in this post). Instead, they rely on trusted physicians to inform them.

And this sounds like a very reasonable short-cut to acquiring impeccable information, right?

After all, these doctors are shomrei Torah & mitzvot, have likely displayed their integrity by performing chessed for people in the community, and are top-notch professionals in their area.

Again, it's a very logical & responsible short-cut. 

But doctors are people too & may be out of touch or lack certain facts or lack sensitivity.

For example, I've read a couple of interviews with frum doctors who act like wearing a mask is no big deal.

"I wear one all the time!" is one phrase that pops out. "For years!"

The ones promoted in the media express discomfort regarding masks (except the problem of glasses steaming up) — despite the evidence presented in the study above, which shows that surgeons clearly experience discomfort & physical symptoms while wearing a mask.

And they aren't moving around much in surgery.

Also, doctors are not typically on their feet outside maneuvering streets, stairs, and buses in the summer heat surrounded by small children, strollers, and shopping bags.

They go from air-conditioned homes to air-conditioned cars to air-conditioned work environments and back again.

Inside, they can take elevators instead of stairs while wearing a mask.

And unless they're working the ER at a very busy time, they probably aren't wearing a mask while pressed in a crowd of people (and trying to manage a small child).

Yet according to the above studies, doctors & nurses DO experience discomfort and even problematic HEALTH issues while wearing masks — something these media-promoted doctors either deny or omit.

And even in these controlled environments, a survey of nurses DID complain of breathing & communication difficulties, nausea, and visual challenges (source).

​One nurse even withdrew from the study because she could not tolerate wearing the mask after only 30 minutes — and she wasn't on a crowded bus or climbing stairs in the heat.

That right there should pull the rug out from under all the doctors who boast "IIIIIIIIIIII wear the ask aaaaall the time with nooooo problem — so you should too!"

We're all different with different physiology.

Obviously, one nurse could not tolerate the mask for more than 30 minutes while others could manage (uncomfortably) for hours.

To better understand the "we're all different" theme, let's look at the people who care for the elderly, which also entails changing adult diapers.

They do this all day every day.

Does that mean you or I could do that job?

If elderly care-takers said, "Well, I do it all the time, so that means you can too," would that be an appropriate or convincing argument for all of us to take on the task of changing adult diapers?

(And it distresses me to see 7- or 8-year-olds on the bus wearing these masks. They don't look well & it's obviously unhealthy for them. I really question both the compassion & the seichel of the people who decided that such young children must wear these things for so long.)

Furthermore, do doctors really NOT know that people are NOT wearing the proper masks AND not wearing them properly? 

Oddly, it seems most doctors do not know this.

​Some do know, but many apparently don't.

Do they really not know that the average person is not & will not be hygiene-compliant about masks?

I mean, they know that in their own work environments, the rules of hygiene are not followed nearly as well as they should. So why would they assume than an untrained & less knowledgeable population would do any better?

For example, all those cloth masks (with iffy effectiveness, considering the tiny size of the coronavirus): Do doctors think they are being sanitized properly after EACH use?

They're NOT being sanitized.

They're really not!

Even when told about germs and the whole shebang, a lot of people either refuse or forget to wash or sun their spiffy logo mask after each use. Or even after 20 uses.

(Yuck, I know.)

The same is true for those standard-issue blue-white masks.

People repeatedly re-use them without cleaning them.

Back to the doctors: I do not think these doctors are KNOWINGLY dishonest.

But for whatever reason, they seem completely unaware of the facts on the ground.

And so, with good intentions combined with a serious a lack of awareness, they advise their rabbis in the way that they do.

And if you're wondering why I'm listening to the rabbis who are listening to these doctors whom I consider out of touch, it's because it's min haShamayim that these doctors are saying what they do & that these rabbis are listening to davka these doctors.

​As you'll see below, Hashem could provide them with a different message if He wanted.

And indeed, some rabbanim receive a different message.

For example, a caring reader sent me a link to a psak from the Shaarei Shalom Beit Din in Beit Shemesh signed by Rav Pinchas Shapira and Rav Yisroel Meir Veil. Therein, they mentioned "numerous testimonies" brought before them, which show that wearing a face mask "is not at all necessary from a medical standpoint; it's hevel v'tohu (meaningless)." (source)

And at this point, you are probably legitimately wondering what this all has to do with Rav Schwartz's latest PDF...

If you turn to page 106 in the Bilvavi Corona PDF, you'll see a question with the assumption that people not wearing masks are doing so for spiritual reasons.

Yet Rav Schwartz immediately answers...no.

For most of the non-mask-wearers, it has nothing to do with one's spiritual level.

The non-compliant people are simply aware of OTHER medical opinions.

That's what the rav says.

Also, he acknowledges: "...health experts disagree" — exactly!

Rav Schwartz is one of the very few I've heard acknowledge this.

​(Please also note that this PDF came out before the psak din and some questions were dealt with as much as a month or 2 ago, going on the information available back then.)

​I've no idea how Rav Schwartz knows that health experts disagree, whether he consulted with the right people or acquired the abstracts of key studies.

​Either way, he clearly has access to accurate information.

Then the rav emphasizes the importance of not distressing others. It's true.

Some people who are understandably very distressed when people do not wear masks around them.

(Even though, as described above, people are both not wearing effective masks & not using them hygienically.)

It's important to be considerate of people's feelings. Rav Miller explained this at length in his dvar Torah regarding ona'at devarim.

And as explained above, Rav Schwartz acknowledges that "wearing a mask is both helpful and detrimental."

​He knows! He knows!

He also adds (underline mine): 
"If a person is careful when it comes to hygiene and he makes sure to keep changing the mask for a new one, then wearing a mask is very helpful, especially in a quarantined section."

He further notes that the real issue of a mask is to avoid infecting others (something not understood by many people initially), and that we must not be holy or clever on the cheshbon of others.

It's true that in a group situation, wearing a fresh non-valve N95 mask PROPERLY will make the environment safer for others.

(Most people either won't or can't, but if they would & could, then it's true.)

The emphasis being on OTHERS, since as demonstrated above, wearing a mask harms the wearer, especially while going about daily life.

​(And as shown above, it also harms small children when adults can't see where they're sitting, and plop themselves down on the leg of an innocent child.)

Everything the rav said showed real awareness of facts on the ground (like how people are re-using masks and not being careful with hygiene).

On page 110, Rav Schwartz notes the importance of paying attention to experts' guidelines and following them on a halachic level.

Real experts are people who actually know what they are talking about.

Rav Schwartz also does not advise following government rules blindly.

For example, on page 111, Rav Schwartz replies to such a question by saying, "​We would need to clarify how much of a risk of danger there is, and accordingly we can then know how we should act halachically."

What I really appreciate and benefit so much from Rav Schwartz is his focus on deliberation and consideration.

There is no knee-jerk response here. There's no fear.

Somehow, he has made himself aware of the actual facts.

And halacha is premier.

Furthermore, on page 16, Rav Schwartz provides an intriguing spiritual insight into the decree of wearing masks (which though imposed on us by authorities of questionable character, it originates from Above):
​

• The mask reminds us of the Sin of the Golden Calf (the basis of which still affects us today & needs to be rectified).

 

• By covering the mouth & the nose, the mask hints at the state of This World being covered over in preparation for revelation of the Next World.

B'ezrat Hashem, I'll be discussing other issues mentioned in this PDF.

Also, the PDF shows how the people associated with Rav Schwartz ask such good questions, questions that are on all our minds, and questions that show genuine awareness of "facts on the ground."

And there are so many pertinent points to learn from Rav Schwartz, plus points for doing teshuvah.

A big yashar koach to Bilvavi.

I just received from Miriam Adahan's email subscription that there's evidence of vitamin D's effectiveness against Covid-19 virus.

She included 3 articles showing that no one with high levels of vitamin D has died from coronavirus.

Here's one of them:
Vitamin D Linked to Low Virus Death Rate Says New Study

Based on her research, Miriam Adahan recommends:

• ​Take 3-5000 IU Vitamin D3 daily with about 70 mg. K2 for absorption.

UPDATE: K2 also helps protect against blood clots, which has occurred frequently in the lungs of coronavirus victims.

• Avoid all sugar (white flour & white sugar), since sugar suppresses the immune system.

​While this blog has focused on the spiritual source and antidote for COVID-19, I feel it's irresponsible of me to completely avoid mentioning the derech-hateva solutions.

After all, when I'm not feeling well, I don't just pray and do teshuvah; I also take vitamins & herbs, perform acupressure, and also take ibuprofen if absolutely necessary.

Here's wishing everyone vibrantly good mental, spiritual, and physical health!

If you think about it, the influence of the yetzer hara is truly bizarre.

For example, if you make a slow, thoughtful bracha with real kavanah before eating, the food tastes so much better.

Saying a heartfelt bracha before eating enhances both our physical & emotional pleasure.

Yet we struggle to remember to say a bracha with kavanah, and many brachot are said by rote with little awareness of what we are saying.

Yet the 15 seconds it takes to say a really geshmak bracha which enhances the taste of the food — that's too difficult? Not desirable enough? 

It's irrational if you think about it, yet extremely common.

I really noticed this when I started saying 1 perek of Tehillim a day with heartfelt kavanah. (You read about how that started here: Saying Tehillim: Getting Back to the Barest Basics.)

Not only did I say the Tehillim with careful kavanah, but also felt a desire to go through it again and discuss it with Hashem each time.

Needless to say, it is an enjoyable & meaningful experience.

Really taking my time over each verse and using the Metzudah translation & explanation, plus sometimes the classic commentaries, I'm finding new meaning in verses I've been saying for decades, including verses I thought I already understood well. 

For example, Tehillim 19 came to vibrant life in a completely new way — as if I'd never read it before.

The experience is absolutely delicious.

I haven't timed how long each perek takes, but I think it's around 10-15 minutes. 

Yet surprisingly, I found myself skipping it completely a couple of times.

Or sometimes, I only managed to say it right at the end of the day.

And I found myself saying, "I couldn't find the time" or "The day just flew by and I never managed to do it."

Really? Throughout an entire day, I never had 15 minutes to spare? Or maybe even 5 to just say the Tehillim with kavanah without the follow-up discussion?

It's true that some days are jam-packed and we don't have a moment to think, let alone sit down and do something meaningful.

But the realization hit that I was pushing it off because it felt "heavy." There was an emotional difficulty to it.

So if it's so short, easy, and deliciously satisfying, why not rush to do it the moment I have even a minute of spare time?

How could something so deliciously satifying feel "heavy"?

Yetzer hara.

It ruins everything.

It makes even the most enjoyable things look like a drag UNTIL you actually do them!

Another huge, yet totally irrational yetzer hara is the one against tsniyut (dressing and behaving in a dignified, modest manner).

Men are obligated in tsniyus too, but women even more so.

(Just like how men are obligated more in certain mitzvot, like praying in a minyan regardless of weather or convenience, keeping his payos even when he's balding & would like to shave it all off like all the really cool secular and non-Jewish guys do to cover their balding, wearing tzitzit no matter how hot it is outside, etc.)

Rebbetzin Heller once mentioned an old photo she saw of herself and her friends in their younger days. They wore skirts that weren't long enough (fashionable in that decade), so they are pulling them down in the picture, maybe sitting kind of cramped to really cover those knees, and are wearing the big clunky shoes fashionable then.

They looked awful, she thought (maybe not her exact words, but approximately). Yet at the time, they were very into dressing like this back then.

And this is so often true of non-tsniyus clothing.

A lot of immodest clothing looks bad or makes us look bad, yet some are mosser nefesh to wear this, spending extra money and risking their Olam Haba (not to mention social disapproval in some cases or problems with her school) for this.

Around 20 years ago, short narrow stiff shirts came in style. They didn't look good on anyone because it made the body look awkward and disproportional.

Also, most women are pear-shaped and the hem of the shirt hit right before the hips, which is unflattering to most and really not modest or dignified.

They didn't even look good on slender girls because of the shirt's shape.

Interestingly, I noticed that the shirt only looked good on short plump girls because they needed the shirt a few sizes bigger, which made it the right length on them and was no longer disproportionate.

It was such an ugly and untsniyus style (especially the short length), I thought it would go out of fashion quickly. But to my surprise, it hung around for about 15 years!

I rarely found a top I could wear during that time.

It also wasn't tsniyus unless you wore a very wide skirt, but even then...

If the wearer bent over at all, the back of the shirt slid up, which revealed the completely forbidden torso area.

If the wearer raised her arm at all, the shirt also often slid up too far.

Once, I was on the bus behind a beautiful young woman, obviously frum. Her hair, nails, and posture announced that she cared very much about looking just right and that she invested a lot of effort in looking good.

When she stood up to go, she leaned over to pick up the bag on the seat next to her (which means she wasn't even bending over so far), yet the shirt went up so much, I was really shocked...

...to see what a hairy back she had!

I had never seen such a hairy back on girl before, a layer of such thick black hairs for a girl, and didn't know that such a thing existed.

I felt mortified on her behalf, even though she had no clue she'd just exposed her hirsute back to anyone behind her.

I can't imagine she would've felt fine with that, especially not when her eyebrows were so carefully sculpted with nary a facial hair to be seen either.

If she had any idea that could happen, I'm sure she never would wear such a shirt (or she would at least wear a longer shirt under it).

And I guess it says a lot about both of us that her hairy back (hairiness isn't forbidden at all in halacha) is considered more mortifying than the total breech of tsniyus. (There is no heter for a woman to reveal her torso area.)

See how the yetzer hara totally messes with our minds?

And what about skirts?

Long, wide skirts are infinitely more comfortable & convenient than short skirts — and also more than narrow skirts, even if they have a slit.

Especially if the wearer constantly needs to tug down the short skirt as she walks. Very inconvenient & awkward-looking.

In hot weather, long loose skirts allow the air to circulate and cool the body, which is one reason why Arab men traditionally wear them.

Unfortunately, a skirt came into style a few years ago (and has not yet disappeared) that looks completely tsniyus on the hanger. It's more than wide enough and definitely covers the knee.

The problem is, it doesn't cover much more than that.

Because the hem is flouncy and the skirt is so loose, I think it's hard to tell even when trying it on that it's actually too short.

It's a real optical illusion for a skirt, something I never saw before.

And the slightest breeze or movement causes it to fly up.

So if a girl is even just almost running or if there's any wind, you end up seeing a lot more than you bargained for.

​I heard at least one very embarrassing story in which the wind caused this type of skirt to fly up over the girl's face, much to her mortification (because the skirt is wide and not as long as it looks, it catches the wind even when it's not a flimsy fabric). 

Yet so many good frum girls & women wear this skirt.

(Note: Wide ankle-length skirts can also fly up in the wind. Pleated skirts are the least likely, as are straight skirts that aren't too narrow. Tsniyus is so individual, it's hard to come up with hard-and-fast rules that apply to everyone. It's very much intuitive, sort of like the female personality.)

​A lot of married Jewish women really struggle with covering their hair.

​A caring & spiritually sensitive reader sent me a link to an article on the great protection provided to a married Jewish woman for covering her hair properly.

(Thank you, caring & spiritually sensitive reader!)

Corona means "crown" or "crown-shaped."

In astronomy, the corona is the gaseous envelope of the Sun, usually only visible during a solar eclipse when the pearly glow of the Sun's corona surrounds the dark disc of the Sun...

...sort of like how a Jewish women's hair-covering surrounds her head. 

Interestingly, cameras that can photograph auras also capture an enhanced aura around the covered hair of a married Jewish woman, very much like the stunning corona of the Sun. (Please see The Human Aura for more.)

Also, the Kli Yakar compares righteous woman to the Sun, considering righteous woman as essential to the world's existence as the Sun itself.

​(Please see for more about that here The Kli Yakar - Parshat Chayei Sara and scroll down to the end.)

According to the article, the corona of coronavirus hints to the unique protection Hashem endowed women by bequeathing Jewish women with the mitzvah.​

And this should give us pause for some thought.

When I was first becoming frum decades ago, a newly married acquaintance showed up to shul wearing a baseball cap with her hair stuffed up underneath.

(A real New York Yankees-type baseball cap, not one of those brimmed hats for women.)

I derided it to an older friend of mine because I thought it so sloppy & undignified in general, and especially inappropriate for shul on Shabbos.

(This was outright lashon hara, by the way, and I should never have said a word about my thoughts. Assur, assur, assur.)

But my older friend stopped me short and said: "No. Covering your hair is HARD. If she's covering her hair, then you cannot criticize her. Some women won't cover their hair at all unless they can wear a baseball cap. So never criticize a woman who is covering her hair al pi halacha. Her hair was actually all covered, right?"

Yeah, it nearly all was, surprisingly, considering that baseball caps aren't really made for that.

"So there's no room to criticize her."

​And that was that.

At that point, I hadn't realized that covering hair was so hard for some people, and I especially did not realize that even a frum-from-birth woman (like the baseball-cap-wearer) might find hair-covering a very challenging mitzvah.

But some do.

​And whoever doesn't have that particular challenge has her own challenges in another area.

It's good to know this and be more aware of other people's challenges, even though I still don't think baseball caps are dignified headwear for daughters of the King.

But sure, they ARE a million times better than nothing.

(And I think they're also much better than these knock-your-eyes-out long luxurious shaitels.)

For me the idea of covering my hair wasn't hard at all; it was even fun — although when I stopped wearing shaitels, I struggled to find a hair-covering that was convenient to use, looked nice, and was dressy enough to wear to weddings.

That aspect was my hair-covering challenge.

But I never felt I didn't want to cover my hair; I did, but struggled to find the most compatible solution for a couple of years.

When pre-tied headscarves came into fashion, my hair-covering frustrations vaporized as if they never existed. Thanks, Hashem!

But it's true that some women really dislike covering their hair, no matter what.

This is despite the fact that hats, shaitels, and pre-tied scarves are so much easier as far as convenience & maintenance go — much less fuss because they're all ready to go and you don't need to do much except make sure they're not crooked when you put them on.

You don't need to worry about bad hair days (although bad shaitel days do exist, as do days when you just can't tie the scarf evenly or when the pre-tied scarf isn't sewn properly — actually, I'm not coordinated enough to tie a scarf properly so I was always having bad-hairscarf days until the pre-tied came along).

When you cover your hair, you don't need to worry about dandruff, limp hair, dry hair, hair crazy with static, brillo hair, gray hair, or hair-thinning & female baldness.

Redhead women who didn't enjoy being redheads finally found relief when they could don a brunette or auburn shaitel.

When I was still single, I often held my hair back with a scarf (not outside, but if I was reading or cleaning) because my hair bothered me when it hung in my face and a ponytail was too uncomfortable or the ponytail didn't catch all the shorter hairs around my face that were still long enough to bother me. A scarf around my head did the trick.

Also, I remember when a 60something woman took off her shaitel next to me as we were at a shaitel macher together. 

I was shocked to see this elegant dignified woman was bald except for a few tufts of hair and then a thick lock of gray hair above her forehead, into which she inserted the little comb of her shaitel to hold it on to her head.

So there are lots of enjoyable reasons about covering hair, but it's true that a great many women find it extremely difficult, emotionally speaking, and find all sorts of reasons why they can't, or why they can't do so properly, or even why they stop doing so after having done so for years.  

Please note: I am NOT talking about people who are just getting started in tsniyus and still trying to find their way (sometimes coupled with extreme opposition by friends & family members, especially an anti-haircovering husband). 

That's tsniyus-in-progress and NOT the same as someone who is already firmly grounded in frumkeit (whether they're FFB or came to it later) and gets married knowing this is a halachic obligation, yet still gets really upset about it. 

The other extreme is the women who spend thousands of dollars on a shaitel that looks exactly like real hair and is styled and colored to knock your eyes out.

Because covering hair is hard, they reason, you need to feel good about it. Like, Las-Vegas-showgirl-good.

Or they mistakenly assume that va-va-voom is a kiddush Hashem.

(Seriously. It's very common for women to think that looking like a total babe is a kiddush Hashem. They mean this in all innocence. Strange how their husbands never try to disabuse them of this notion, which of course the husband, being a man, knows how she really appears in the eyes of others & Hashem. Hmm...)

BTW, really long hair is an incredible nuisance. These elbow-length or waist-length shaitels are clearly yetzer hara because they aren't tsniyus and they aren't comfortable and they're exorbitantly expensive.

​Or the shaitels that have tons of hair piled up like a beehive tower. VERY uncomfortable. And exorbitantly expensive.

Meaning, there's no advantage to them except to be eye-catching & turn heads. It's a weird phenomenon.

And just to be fair, let's take a quick look at those who have actual sensory problems with hair-covering: There IS a minority of women whose hair grows in the opposite direction and they experience anything from minor discomfort to actual pain when covering their hair.

This can also go with having a sensitive head; these women struggled when wearing barrettes or headbands as little girls. 

This is a genuinely challenging situation. No joke.

They're still obligated, however.

​And yes, they need to be more flexible when looking for solutions.

But one woman who wore either shaitels (one of the least comfortable things to wear if your hair grows the wrong way) or berets told me that because her hair grows the wrong way, it's a real mesirut nefesh for her to cover her hair.

She's in constant discomfort.

​But she did it. She always did it and she never stopped. And you should know that she is receiving MASSIVE reward just for this. 

Believe me, if Jewish Law ordered women to NOT to cover our hair or if it commanded us to wear revealing clothing, we'd complain about how hard it is like:

• "I can never have a bad hair day because I'm forbidden to cover my hair so I always have to invest so much to make sure it looks nice!"
• "I get so cold when I can't cover my hair!"
• "Exposing my hair all the time is bad for it — all that sun dries it out!"
• ​"I'm experiencing female old-age balding, but the rabbis refuse to let me hide it under a head-covering!"
• "My really long hair keeps getting in the way; I wish I could restrain it somehow."
• "I have really hairy back, yet I'm not allowed to cover it!"
• "The pigment and dry skin of my elbows makes them look black and dirty all the time, yet I'm not allowed to cover them — so embarrassing!"

Right?

And that's how the yetzer hara works.

True, I don't have a hair-covering yetzer hara, but I have other yetzer haras (like the one trying to stop me from saying Tehillim with kavanah — even just 1 perek a day!).

I have my own battles (like how I spend my time & how I eat), which end up being hour-by-hour battles throughout the entire day.

And the next day, I wake up knowing I have to start them all over again from the beginning.

​That's how it is until you win that particular battle and move on to your next level.

We all have this.

In short:

• The yetzer hara strives to convince us that something genuinely enjoyable & fulfilling is a drag.

 

• And yetzer hara equally strives to convince us that something annoying, inconvenient, expensive, bad-mood-inducing (like Facebook or any news outlet), and embarrassing is the most desirable thing in the world.

Our job is to embrace what we truly enjoy and find both rewarding & fulfilling despite the obstacles.​