Kamtza and Bar Kamtza

Instead of heading for a big mental breakdown, I decided to have a small breakdown every Tuesday evening.

― Graham Parke

We are more than halfway through 2020, if this makes anyone feel better. 

Every morning, when I arrive at work, people - nice people, caring people, bored people - ask me how I am. 

I always answer 'good good, all is good'. 

Because really, all is fine. I have a job, there's food in the fridge, cookies in the cupboard, my office is air conditioned, and we have unlimited internet at home, so I can watch all the episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Supernatural I want. 

Oh, and I and my family are all, thank God, healthy. 

So all is GOOD. 

Until I saw this meme. 

It was like, 'oh right, that stuff'. 

Five months into it, this world-wide pandemic has taken its toll. 

It's fashionable to blame Covid-19, but the truth is, there is always something that causes me to be on the verge of a mental breakdown and drink too much coffee. Sometimes, it's a toddler who poops on the floor, and sometimes it's rockets falling on my house. Occasionally, it's something as serious as being told that a new, time-consuming recipe I tried out is 'interesting'. 

These days, however, I feel my mental health slipping every time I go into a supermarket. There, I'm confronted by people - both employees and shoppers - who think they are living in 2019, but the latest fashions, instead of being bucket hats and over-sized clothing, are chin guards, and dangling cloth earrings. 

There are others who are too hip, too cool, too fashioned-oriented, too beautiful, to wear even a chin guard, even on their wrist. After all, a tiny Coronavirus couldn't possibly stand a chance against the hipness, coolness, and fashionableness of the young lady who stood next to me in line, breathing down my neck - and who was horrified when I asked her to please stand back as she's not wearing a mask. She was wearing skinny jeans and tiny little shirt; a mask just wouldn't suit the look. What was I thinking?

There was one dude who entered the supermarket, masked and gloved. He took advantage of the disinfectant wipes the store provides and wiped down every inch of his trolley. Each rod - front, back and sides - the handle bar, and even the small extra bit at the bottom where you put the toilet paper was carefully and scrupulously wiped down. I watched it all, mostly because he was blocking the entry aisle and I couldn't pass. But hey.

He finally finished sanitizing his shopping trolley. It probably hadn't been so clean since it was a wee wagon back in the Old Country. He began his journey into the store. 

And then, the dude suddenly stopped, 

tugged his mask off, 

and sneezed. 

On his shopping trolley. 

But hey.

At work, I sit in a sort of semi Adolf Eichmann glass booth, with plexiglass on two sides of me, and a wall on the third. Behind me is empty space where colleagues sneak up on me to ask for coffee cups and paper clips. 

In theory, due to the 'situation', there is no reception, i.e., no outsiders are supposed to come into the office. That is largely the case (outside communication is done via whatsapp, email, fax, and [gasp] phone calls - depending on the communicators' ages), but there are instances when people come in - the postman, the computer guy, the supermarket delivery kids. Each time someone enters, I eye them, safe inside my Eichmann cubbyhole, to see if they are suitably masked. Sometimes they are;  usually they are not. And plexiglass or not, my mental health slips another notch. 

"Please put a mask on," I frequently request - depending on the size of the person and how long they intend on staying.

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they look annoyed. They never look embarrassed. They always, always, look surprised. 

But hey. 

I'm at a loss. My social media feed, the newspapers I read, the news I watch are all filled with articles and stories and videos of the importance of wearing a mask. Coronavirus is airborne. We breathe it in. The cells multiply in our noses. When we exhale - or worse, cough or (heaven help us) sneeze - the virus is flung into the air where it is inhaled by the next person. 

THE MASKS, if worn correctly on mouth and nose, STOP THIS CHAIN OF EVENTS. 

It really isn't rocket science. And I know what rocket science is. I work in a University. 

In all the wars and uprisings and terrorist attacks I've lived through, I always experienced substantial fear and uncertainty. I have been distressed and anxious and utterly heartbroken far too many times.  I have suffered from more than my share of sleepless nights over the years. 

But I always had trust and faith in the Israeli army to defend us; in my fellow citizens and the Jewish nation as a whole to support and help each other; and complete belief that God was overseeing us all. 

We are now in the middle of the 'nine days' - the days from the First of the Jewish month of Av until the 9th of the month. These days are traditionally set aside as 'days of mourning', when we grieve the destruction of our Holy Temples and the exile from our Holy Land. We mourn the millions who have been murdered, throughout the millennia, martyred sanctifying God's name. 

Our sages tell us that the Temples were destroyed due to discord between the people. 

Because of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza, Jerusalem was destroyed.

Our sages further tell us:

"There are four Midot (levels) among people: one who says "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" that's an average Midah. Some say that is the Midah of Sodom. "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine" is an am ha'arets (ignoramus). "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours" is a pious person. "What is yours is mine, and what is mine is mine" is a wicked person."  Pirkei Avot (Ethics of our Fathers) 5:10

Because people were not kind, or thoughtful, or generous to one another, the Temple was destroyed and the Land ravaged. The nation was scattered to the four corners of the earth. We are only now, 2000 years later, beginning our miraculous return to our Land. 

Most of us, good, caring, bored people, are at the level of "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours." This, according to our sages, was the level of Sodom - and we all know what happened to Sodom. 

Our goal, we are told, is to put others before ourselves. "What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours." 

Maybe what we are going through is a test. Today's situation puts not only my mental health, but my very life - even from the inside of my Eichmann glass booth - and the lives of my family, to whom I go home, at, to borrow a phrase, the mercy of strangers (and even friends); people who 'can't be bothered', 'who have had enough', who find it 'too difficult', who insist that 'life must go on'. 

In these days of political unrest, of inept and corrupt leaders, of economic meltdown, of disease and famine and death, maybe now the time has come, finally, to think of others before ourselves; to put our friends' and neighbours' concerns ahead of our own comfort; to be kind and generous and compassionate. 

Hey.  

It really is in our hands.