While Standing (Six Feet Apart) On One Foot
May 11, 2020
So it is pretty clear that the country is starting to ‘open up.’ No one really knows what’s going to happen but the epidemiologists have a pretty good clue. Many will open. Many will get sick. Some will die. It is a terrible calculus but the virus is the truth and no matter which state or governor or government wants to hide the numbers, skew the numbers or make it all go away, the virus is one holding the cards for now. But it seems clear that what I feared was going to happen is, indeed, happening. Though we are clearly not out of the woods yet, we are acting as if we are.
Now another question is beginning to emerge. We have been in lockdown for 8 or 9 weeks already. Thankfully we haven’t starved. We had plenty of the material comforts to make our incarceration tolerable. And we have access to information. For an incarceration, it was at least tolerable.
But people are impatient. Even with all the comforts and conveniences everyone wants to get outside despite the still-obvious danger. And when they don’t get what they want, they go on rants, on protests with guns, and intimidate all of their perceived enemies. It’s basically a tantrum.
And now that things are opening up once again, the tantrums still go on. You probably heard the same story about the the Polar Cave Ice Cream Parlour in Mashpee, Massachusetts. Re-opened for just one day, the customers came in and disregarded the social distancing rules, demanded service immediately, insulted and intimidated the staff even leading to the immediate resignation of some poor, 17-year old who just wanted to make a few bucks serving ice cream. But, clearly, the needs of the rowdy must be met for, God forbid, they lose the chance at mint chocolate chip.
What we need to understand is that opening up will not return us to what we considered normal a couple of months ago. We will carry the burden and the consequences of the pandemic with us for a long time. In much the same way that the Jewish people have never forgotten the Exodus from Egypt and recite about it in every service, we too will speak about our own Exodus from society and our reemergence into a new one.
But the difference between the Jews of the Torah and the Mint Chocolate Chip Deprived American is that when the Jews left Egypt, they understood how they had been transformed and they created a society built around a shared history and shared destiny. Our impatient and angry friends have forgotten that the scared 17-year old just went through the same thing. But, feeling entitled, why not just heap abuse on her? If there is no sense that we have all been through something terrible together – together being the important word here – then we will not have learned a lesson the Jews learned a long time ago: people are here not to serve you alone. Moses was not there to serve the Jews ice cream (although they got angry at him for takings so long through the shlepp in the desert!). In truth, we survive as a people when we recognize that we are here to serve each other.
My Teen Academy class has begun sharing and opening up deeper layers of themselves to each other. In this crisis they have found a deep love and respect and trust for one another. Yesterday, they shared their levels of grief coming from the loss caused by COVID-19. Some felt little loss but some disappointment. Others felt a much deeper loss. Others recognized that the different levels of grief may manifest themselves at different times. But though they may not share the same grief or even sense of loss, they share the truth that they may never have seen before: this crisis has shaped them and created a shared history among them which has led to deep respect, love and trust. They do not see each other as a means to an end but rather as sufferers on the same journey together.
If we want to open this country with a sense of civility, we would heed well my Teen Academy class. Get your ice cream but, for God’s sake, remember that the poor kid serving it to you suffered just as much as you did. Maybe have a litte rachmanis, no?
