Rabbi's Blog

Dear OZ family,

The experience described in the second of this week’s Torah readings has been shared by practically everyone on the planet this past year. It’s called quarantine. The word stems from a root that refers to the number 4, or in the case of its source, the number 40. When immigrants came to the shores of New York in the mid-19^th  century, if they exhibited any type of sickness or disease, they were whisked away to spend time in horrible conditions until those symptoms were no longer apparent. The authorities decided that the proper amount of time for such seclusion was 40 days based on the amount of time it took in Bereshit to cleanse the world while Noach and his family survived in the ark that they built, hence the word “quarantine”.

Many places in the world are still struggling with quarantine and many places are beginning to open up. Israel’s very successful roll out of the vaccine has put it in a very good place, and this Sunday people will once again be able to see full faces in the streets (you still have to carry a mask in your pocket). For years, an immigrants first stop at Ellis Island was to see a doctor who would send someone right back on the return ship if there was anything wrong. In contrast, when Yirmiyahu refers to the return to Israel, he says that the first ones to be brought home will be the blind and the lame (31:8). Indeed when Israel carried thousands of Ethiopians to her shores they took the most vulnerable first.

What causes quarantine in the Torah is Lashon Hara. Let’s see only the good in others, and remember an important Mussar Moment : “Great people talk about ideas, mediocre people talk about things, little people talk about other people”.

Be safe.  Be healthy.  Be excellent.

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Rabbi Allen Schwartz

Congregation Ohab Zedek

118 West 95^th Street | New York, NY  10025-6604

Phone 212.749-5150, ext 200 | Fax 212.663-3635

E-mail ras@ozny.org

Website:  www.ozny.org