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We are all concerned with the continuing expansion of the coronavirus. As days pass, cases multiply and more measures are taken, many thoughts pass through our minds.
I would like to share with you the thoughts of one of my friends, Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski, whose daughter went through leukemia last year.
“We learned many lessons last year during those long months when our Mussi was fighting leukemia. […] But the most meaningful of all of them was “Living with Uncertainty.”
When a person is being treated for Leukemia, no one knows how his day will look. He can’t plan anything. In the morning he may feel well, and after two hours he will be ill. He can be at home in the morning and be hospitalized by evening. For how long? “We’ll see. In an hour we will check and then we’ll know.” This can go on for hours, days and weeks.
We are programmed to live according to some plan and suddenly, when one is living in such uncertainty, things become confusing and upsetting. But then you understand that that is exactly the lesson that you are supposed to learn – the crash course.
And that is when you begin to cope and accept, and also to learn. The heart practices and trains and slowly, slowly it gets used to accepting the uncertainty with a smile. Usually this includes a look upwards.
You know what’s amazing? As the days pass and the uncertainty course is internalized, you suddenly understand that lack of certainty is not ee-vada’ut (uncertainty), but ee shel vada’ut – an island of certainty. The more you hand over your fate, time, money and life in general to Hashem, you acquire powerful amounts of certainty and trust, and they enter your heart and your life, and then – you live on an island of certainty.
[…]
We don’t know why and for what purpose the Master of the Universe decided to attack the world with the fear and anxiety of the Corona virus, but it is already clear that there is one central thing that is happening to almost all of us: plans are being disrupted. And they keep changing and getting disrupted again from one moment to the next.
But maybe Hashem just wanted to give us all a crash course – sharp and painful, interactive and replete with live demonstrations called “Life on the Island of Uncertainty”? I can say only one thing, from my experience: it is worthwhile to open one’s heart and listen to this course. You might yet discover that it is not uncertainty, but an “island of certainty.”
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski, Basel, Switzerland
In these difficult times, it is important to follow the instructions of the competent authorities about protection from the coronavirus. Alongside with physical protection of ourselves and others, we need to strengthen ourselves spiritually, with faith, positivity and prayer.
With this in mind, I would like to propose to you to read Psalm 121 which we traditionally read in times of need.
Take good care of yourselves,
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Mendel and Nehama Hendel