We Are In This Together: A Shabbat Reflection on the Coronavirus

We Are In This Together: A Shabbat Reflection on the Coronavirus

March 13, 2020
Acts of solidarity and love.

Over the past week, we have seen communities and societies radically transform.

In the cracks between panic-buying and falling into the myth of rugged individualism, other governments have enacted widespread rent and bill moratoriums. Community and social leaders are cancelling events and enacting social distancing at great personal sacrifice. Schools and convenings are being moved online at a speed that people would have deemed impossible a week ago.

We are reminded that we do not choose the historic moment we live in, but we do get to choose how we respond.

Every neighbor we help, every demand we make for the government to protect the most vulnerable is an act of solidarity. Every act of social distancing is an act of love.

At the same time, this virus has laid bare the dangerous incompetencies, insufficiencies, and misplaced priorities of this administration. To avoid any accountability, they are deliberately misleading the public, scapegoating foreign countries, and bailing out industries instead of people. Their authoritarianism puts both our health, and our democracy, at grave risk.

As a Jewish movement rooted in justice, equity, and compassion, we join our allies to take political action for a multiracial democracy where everyone has healthcare, paid sick leave, safety, food, and security.

Resistance and survival are our birthright. Our ancestors have survived plagues and fascists before. Another world is not only possible, but this moment is revealing exactly how necessary it is. We will build it together.