As we face the fourth wave and the COVID Delta variant, many Canadians are less concerned. If one is vaccinated, risks are much lower. Outside, I see many close-knit groups of people strolling on the streets to restaurants and bars. This correlates with Manitoba\u2019s recent choice to abandon capacity and indoor mask requirements. For those with kids under age 12, it\u2019s a scary scene right before school starts. The Delta variant is looking for vectors, and unvaccinated kids may be one of them.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to stop thinking about this as a parent. In anxious moments, I hear the Jaws<\/em> movie\u2019s theme music as we drive past the elementary school. It\u2019s still summer, but Rosh Hashanah, a new year and a time of reckoning are around the corner.<\/p>\n Much of the pandemic rhetoric now involves a refrain of \u201cgetting back to normal.\u201d However, for many of us, we\u2019re not sure normal\u2019s going to ever be the same. Many people have died. Normal isn\u2019t the same after the death of a loved one. Normal also isn\u2019t the same for those who were very ill or are suffering from long COVID. For many parents, including me, this prolonged time at home with my kids has resulted in more teaching and childcare and a lot less time to work. Things may change, but \u201cnormal\u201d is something elusive. If our kids are too young to be vaccinated, I\u2019m not sure we\u2019re there yet.<\/p>\n Yet, Elul, the Hebrew month where we contemplate our actions in time for the New Year, is upon us. Even if you don\u2019t ever get to a morning minyan, someone\u2019s blowing a shofar every day now, around the world, except for Shabbat. It\u2019s time to wake up our souls.<\/p>\n This metaphor about \u201cnormal\u201d has a lot in common with teshuvah<\/em>, when we seek forgiveness for what we\u2019ve done wrong to others this year. We apologize and seek forgiveness, but any relationship where one party harms another may remain forever changed. It\u2019s one thing to look at the Torah portion of Re\u2019eh (Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) and read that Moses set before the Israelites the choice, from G-d, between blessing and curse, and simplistically say, \u201cIt\u2019s easy! Choose to be a blessing.\u201d Many sermons sound like this, but, when things go off track, it\u2019s not always simple. Obviously, trying to fix it is the right thing to do, even though the effort may not make a relationship all better.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve been studying the talmudic tractate of Sukkah and, on page 31a, there\u2019s a good example of this kind of unsatisfactory resolution. On this page, an old woman comes before Rav Nahman, the exilarch<\/em> (leader of the Babylonian Jewish community) and the sages and screams, saying they are sitting in a stolen sukkah. Remarkably, no one disagrees with her! She\u2019s upset because the sukkah was constructed with wood that was stolen from her. Even though she\u2019s right, Rav Nahman is condescending. He pays no attention to her.<\/p>\n Rav Nahman says, \u201cThis woman is a screamer and she has rights only to the monetary value of the wood. However, the sukkah itself was already acquired by the exilarch.\u201d His legal ruling is that, when a sukkah is built of stolen wood, the wood\u2019s original owner only deserves compensation for its value.<\/p>\n In Rabbi Elliot Goldberg\u2019s introduction to this Talmud page online on My Jewish Learning, he is uncomfortable with this decision. In other talmudic discussions, a stolen lulav is invalid, or G-d denounces theft, even for the sake of heaven. Even if this stolen sukkah fulfils the commandments on Sukkot, Rabbi Goldberg writes that mistreating an elderly woman who has just been robbed is wrong. Rav Nahman lacks respect for her, demeaning her by calling her \u201ca screamer\u201d and failing to speak to her directly.<\/p>\n What is going to fix this relationship or make things \u201cnormal\u201d again? If someone pays this woman for the wood, it doesn\u2019t make appropriate amends for her experience, even if that were all she were entitled to legally.<\/p>\n When studying this, I saw an odd metaphor for some of what\u2019s going on around us. We may be transitioning to a new time in which we all have to cope with COVID as endemic. Our new \u201cnormal\u201d may include breakthrough illnesses in those who are vaccinated. It may include feeling unsafe or condescended to or unfairly dealt with, as we navigate changing public health orders that don\u2019t keep some of us safe. This may feel risky or, for some people, like an amazing freedom, as they legally disregard the risks.<\/p>\n However, the chances of being ill or having long COVID remain. Like the old woman who is robbed, we may be eligible for compensation after the fact, but the original trauma remains. If someone steals your wood, it isn\u2019t OK. You may get COVID, even if you\u2019re vaccinated. It might not be OK. Worse yet, you could experience the loss of a child or another vulnerable family member who couldn\u2019t be vaccinated. There\u2019s no compensation for that. Losing even one person is too many.<\/p>\n I may be a risk-averse scaredy-cat, but I\u2019ve been thinking about that talmudic elderly woman in Sukkah 31a. If she hadn\u2019t been robbed in the first place, she wouldn\u2019t have had to confront important rabbis and been treated poorly. The new normal for her didn\u2019t get her wood or her dignity back. So, too, if we can be careful, perhaps we can avoid getting sick during a pandemic \u2013 but people don\u2019t choose to be robbed or to be exposed to a virus. If we\u2019re careful, bad things can still happen.<\/p>\n What does this mean for Rosh Hashanah this year? When we seek forgiveness and resolution with others, perhaps it\u2019s not enough to simply try and fix only what we\u2019re legally obligated to fix. If we want a \u201cnew normal\u201d in a relationship or in society, we will have to build trust, mend fences and patch up things so that our mistakes can be mended. Our new societal normal should result in an even stronger darned fabric than what existed before the pandemic hole was torn out. We can\u2019t expect everything to come out OK if we behave as Rav Nahman did.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how the fourth wave will go, or if vaccination will protect our kids. We could think about one another, behave kindly and with compassion in the meanwhile. Masking up, keeping our distance, washing our hands, and doing extra for one another are important. We owe it to one another, and to that older woman that Rav Nahman shamed. Maybe, when it comes to some Jewish laws or health care, the bare minimum required by the law is just not good enough.<\/p>\n Joanne Seiff<\/strong> has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including <\/em>From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner<\/a> or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we face the fourth wave and the COVID Delta variant, many Canadians are less concerned. If one is vaccinated, risks are much lower. Outside, I see many close-knit groups of people strolling on the streets to restaurants and bars. This correlates with Manitoba\u2019s recent choice to abandon capacity and indoor mask requirements. 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