Make no mistake. The Coronavirus is a serious problem and one that the larger percentage of people recognize as being something that needs to be taken seriously. Everyone reacts to things differently and everyone is frightened by different things. Some more than others. Fear or lack thereof in a situation such as this one is not what distinguishes cowards from heroes. It is the actions in light of those fears that speaks more to a person’s character. Part of my reason for saying that is because despite my relative lack of concern for my own well-being, my behaviors are more out of a communal sense of responsibility and decency towards others, I say without any degree of false modesty that I am no hero. But my lack of panic or fear has made me ask why I feel this way. Although there are many others who share my approach for different reasons, I believe mine comes from an education I received at home from a young age from my parents.
There is a difference between scaring people and giving them perspective. I attempt to do the latter. To consciously try to sensationalize and scare people at a time like this is not only destructive, it is unethical. So the lessons I learned I pass on in the hope that it helps people deal better with this situation moving forward.
As someone who has studied and written about what my parents experienced in Holland between 1940-1945, I’ve learned to look at things more as they are than how I think they could be or how I would like them to be. Yes, it is great to dream. The best line from the movie Flashdance, in my opinion, was the line, “if you lose your dreams, you die”. That being said, looking at things as they truly are and understanding the reality, is critical at a time like this. So first I look at the aspect of isolation and the true extent of the discomfort or inconvenience that it causes. Once when I was about 16 years old, I found myself depressed over the silly nonsense that is likely to depress someone of that age. And back then, as someone who was living in London away from my parents who were in Holland, much of my communication with my parents was through written letters. In one letter my father wrote to me one of the most poignant and helpful things he would ever share with me. He told me that even though I may see my problems as not that large compared to “real” problems, since they were my problems they were the most serious to me. I share that because that comfort and understanding given to me by my father, someone who had survived the Holocaust, needs to be understood by those who might say to you, relax, it could be worse. Whatever it is you are going through today, and I hope and pray it stops short of health issues for you or your loved ones, it is your most serious problem. But that still doesn’t have to stop any of us from using the experiences of previous generations as a perspective check, one that might just make it easier for us to handle during these difficult time.
I live alone. I am not saying that out of self-pity or in search of attention. I say that because I consider myself fortunate. I have electricity, heat, running water, enough food, contact with the outside world, and as long as my actions do not put others in jeopardy, freedom of movement. I also say that because the isolation people are asked to apply to their lives, is, assuming people respect it and with God’s help, a relatively temporary measure. So I look to a 16 month period of my mother’s life for perspective. The last 16 months in Holland, at the end of World War II. During this time my mother slept every night in a small room underground and probably in a space no bigger than many people’s bathrooms. She had a candle and a bucket, and when the weather turned bad, rising water that she had to walk through and a damp unpleasant room that she slept in. Every night, Lubertus te Kiefte, the righteous man who together with his wonderful and equally righteous wife Geeske, gave my mother a relatively safe environment and food to survive, would take my mother to the back of his workplace where he had built her this room. Once she was in the underground, he would put sandbags on top of the entrance to hide the room’s existence. This was necessary because on any given day the possibility existed that the Nazis would raid people’s homes.
We all would love to go to work, go to gatherings, eat at restaurants, go to school or pray in our houses of worship. I get it. But perspective helps. And considering what my mother dealt with for 16 months in cold, dark and unhealthy conditions, conditions that when relieved were replaced with the constant fear of being caught by the Nazis, maybe those us who need a perspective check and are miserable over having to stay home in conditions that offer us most of our basic needs over a time period that has not even hit 16 days, need to consider what my mother experienced during that time. But maybe most importantly we all need to know that, even with the losses she suffered and the pain she experienced, she went on to live to be 95, build a family, and other than missing her husband, my father, died a happy woman.
The uncertainty we feel, the feeling we feel is so devastating, I put into perspective by understanding, to the best of my limited abilities, my father’s 5 years in Nazi-occupied Holland. Before the war my father was on track to live a life as a Judaic scholar. His knowledge of Judaism and his involvement in the community were the core of his upbringing. Then came the war, and a 5 year period in which he was an active member of the Dutch resistance and someone constantly on the move, living through that time with a false identity, and, for lack of any other way of saying it, putting his Jewish life on complete hold. For 5 years. Let’s use that as a perspective check before we panic about having to put our lives on hold for 5 weeks or even 5 months. Why? Because when the war was over, my father married my mother, became a Rabbi and went on to live a rich and fulfilling life.
Everyone has their stories. Some worse than others, some better. This is not a competition. This post is not designed to belittle anyone’s pain or fear. What it is meant to do is offer some added perspective. Not just as to how much worse things can get in life, but more importantly as to how we can not only move on, but if we are fortunate enough and resilient enough, maybe even restart the lives that we have.
I have often said that the basis for my personal happiness is the teaching from Pirkei Avot, Ethics of our Fathers, about who is a happy person. It is someone who is happy with their portion. That lesson has never been a more important one than it is today. When things are going the way you would like them to go it is easy to be happy with what you have. But during times of struggle and hardship, that teaching becomes even more important. Look to what you have in life and be grateful for it. Let it make you happy. If that doesn’t work, than hopefully some of these lessons on perspective will. The reality is what the reality is. Your way of looking at it is entirely up to you.
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Holland's Heroes 