In the age of coronavirus, the words take on extra meaning, highlighting my view of the starkest changes this virus has wrought on the world. Image by Yehuda Blum

There is a section of the morning prayers that not everyone says. I myself, in a pre-coronavirus world, found myself often omitting it, a casualty of hectic schedules and a busy world that would just not stop.

Until it did.

Eli Steinberg

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The prayer is sourced in a Midrashic text (Tana Dvei Eliyahu, chapter 21), and it provides some much-needed perspective for man as he stands before God:

“What are we?” we say, addressing God. “What is our strength? What is our might? What can we say before You, our God and God of our forefathers? Aren’t all the mighty like nothing before you? The famous [are] as though they never existed. The learned [are] without any knowledge, the wise without understanding. For most of what they accomplish is worthless before you…”

Having spent over a month praying alone (with my children) in my home, setting my timeline as I do, I now make sure I always have time for it. In the age of coronavirus, these words take on extra meaning, highlighting my personal realization about the starkest changes this virus has wrought on the world.

It felled all of the things which we once considered impressive. Military power? The crew had to evacuate a $4.5 billion aircraft carrier when over 1,000 sailors caught the disease.

Fame? Sporting arenas and theaters lie empty; celebrities are confined to their (albeit larger) homes just like the rest of us.

Science? We watched as the medical experts we rely on for virtually everything continually had to revise their directives as to how we ought to behave to combat something they were woefully unprepared for – and clearly still don’t really understand.

Accomplishments? Those we chose as our leaders continue to fail us, not only by not knowing what to do next but by being too conceited to admit it.

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It’s hard to see how the natural tendency to comply and defer to authority will survive this completely intact. We already see how it’s bursting at the seams, with a growing number of people openly defying the lockdown orders in some places, and actively fighting back against them in others.

Did we really think we could expect a populace to remain locked down indefinitely when their leaders are not transparent about anything but the current numbers and their ever-shifting models, with no mention of the actual timeline and plan for the future?

I don’t reckon too many will experience a religious reawakening, taking the message the same way I do, as a reminder of our utter impotence before the will of the Almighty. But with the ongoing degradation of the public’s trust in all that we had thought we could rely on, I’m going to hope that the broader Jewish community, at the very least, can realize this too.

Eli Steinberg lives in New Jersey with his wife and five children. They are not responsible for his opinions, which he has been putting into words over the last decade, and which have been published across Jewish and general media. You can tweet the hottest of your takes at him @HaMeturgeman.

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