This past week we have been anxiously following the news as the coronavirus continues to spread. It is now uncomfortably “close to home” as it has made its way to American shores. Cases of infection have even been reported within the Jewish community; a fellow in Westchester, NY tested positive for the COVID-19 and the Young Israel of New Rochelle was subsequently closed temporarily. A student at YU tested positive, and the entire Washington Heights campus of Yeshiva University has been closed until after Purim.
Unlike other crises, this crisis, for most people, is different in that there isn’t much to do. People who are not experiencing any respiratory illness have nothing to do other than to maintain high standards of hygiene that should be observed regardless of COVID-19.
Businesses, schools, and other organizations have been planning how to continue operations in the event of a full-scale outbreak. But it has not come to that, thank G-d. In the meantime, it seems that we just need to wait and hope for the best. For many of us who are action-oriented people, this can be very difficult. There is a fear of the unknown and there are no real actions to take.
Rabbi Josh Flug, Director of the Torah Research Center for the Jewish Future, shares a beautiful insight into Megillas Esther that relates to this topic (published on Yeshiva University’s website Rabbanan.org).
“The fourth perek of Megillas Esther describes how Mordechai convinced Esther to change her approach. A lot could be said about the give and take between Mordechai and Esther, but one point that might get lost is that the conversation doesn’t happen in person. Mordechai sends a message to Esther, she sends a message back, etc.
Why couldn’t this conversation take place in person? Because Mordechai put on a sackcloth and in doing so, he couldn’t enter the king’s palace and speak to Esther directly.
Why didn’t he first speak to Esther, have this whole conversation and then put on the sackcloth?
R. Eliezer Ashkenazi, Yosef Lekach 4:2 suggests that Mordechai wanted to show that even though human initiative is important in times of crisis, we have to give primacy to Tefillah and teshuva, to prayer and repentance. He wanted to emphasize that the first response is calling out to HaShem and only then to do hishtadlus and take action.
Where did Mordechai learn this from?
Yosef Lekach suggests that he learned this from Yaakov Avinu who first davened to HaShem before sending a gift to Esav. Yaakov prepared for Esav on many fronts, but first and foremost, he emphasized tefillah. In an ordinary crisis, time is usually not on our side. We may not always have the ability to daven before putting in our efforts to solve the crisis. Sometimes, it would be negligent to do so.
Consider an extreme example: a person, Heaven forbid, goes into cardiac arrest in the middle of Shemoneh Esrei in shul. For someone who can help to first finish his Shemoneh Esrei or say Tehillim before calling 911 or administering CPR would be negligent. However, we, like Mordechai, are dealing with a crisis that gives us time to do both.
We don’t have to sit on the side and do nothing waiting with fear. We can engage in teshuva and tefillah before we are required to put in other types of action, Heaven forbid.
In the merit of making our primary response a turn to HaShem, we should merit to see an end to this epidemic.”