If you wish, the story of the coronavirus can serve as a sad parable for human nature in general and for character traits unique to us.
Throughout the book of Numbers, which we will finish reading this Shabbat, we see the people repeatedly rebelling against God and against Moses, and then blaming Moses and Aaron for the consequences of their actions – "You have killed the people of the Lord.".
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The Book of Deuteronomy, which we will begin reading with the Sabbath offering, is also woven throughout with Moses' pleas to the people of Israel - keep the commandments and the laws, so that it may go well with you. It warns again and again that if the people of Israel deviate from the right path, the price will be painful.
Unfortunately, the people of Israel did not always choose life, and for this we mourn these days, among the Egyptians – "Because of our sins we were exiles from our land.".
Everyone is an expert.
The behavior of the public in Israel in recent months, in light of the global pandemic, is a kind of parade of folly, as the saying goes, if it weren't for our own fool, we would laugh too.
With the outbreak of the pandemic, public health officials warned of severe illness, a high rate of critically ill patients, and the collapse of the health system. The public was ordered to stay home, avoid social events, and follow the guidelines. And overall, the public obeyed the instructions.
Following all the actions taken, we, thank God, managed to contain the outbreak. The number of patients decreased, corona wards were closed one after another, the mortality rate dropped to almost zero. And the people saw that there was welfare, and began to blame the authorities – why did you scare us in vain? Why did you close the economy? Here, there is no corona and everything is fine.
Experts warned that the attempt to get the economy back on track was contingent on following the instructions, and that if not, the outbreak would come, but large parts of the public decided that they understood better. And so we began to see the beaches, restaurants, and city streets, and even some synagogues, full of people, without maintaining social distancing and without masks.
As expected, the rate of morbidity began to soar, and still the clever ones claimed that the rising numbers were of 'verified' people who were not actually sick, and the evidence that the number of seriously ill patients and those on ventilators continued to be low. Health experts tried to shout in a hoarse voice that this was only the beginning of the wave, and that in two weeks or a month we would see these numbers also rise, and with them the mortality rate would not rise. But there were those who refused to listen.
Why even police?
Our eyes are seeing the results today. We have gone back, to difficult and painful stories, to the closure of neighborhoods, to the tightening of restrictions, to economic harm. And who is to blame? – The government, of course. Not those who crowd into demonstrations, without masks, and who are causing with their own hands the continued rise in morbidity.
Indeed, there is just criticism of selective enforcement, of violent behavior by police officers. But wait, if each and every one of us had acted responsibly, there would be no friction with the police. Perhaps the blame lies primarily with those who flout the instructions, endanger themselves and others, and force the authorities to send police officers to enforce the instructions?
But as we began, all of this is just a parable. Everyone can understand the parable for themselves.
