Lessons and Gifts of Covid Times

This was a reflection on the lessons and gifts of Covid times, from October 3, 2020.

At a time like this, when so much is changing, it makes sense to personally and collectively take stock, and re-examine our order of priorities. It seems obvious to me that our standards should be solidarity and care – again that same term I mentioned last week, care, to simply take care of each other. To take special care of the weak, including patients who need someone to care for them, adults in risk groups both from Covid and from deadly loneliness, families in overcrowded apartments, people who have lost their livelihood but still have to pay rent, those who struggle even in normal times, the already overburdened medical teams, and above all those who die alone, a situation that should be unthinkable. If all of these were a collective priority, everything would look different, and more importantly, feel different.

Back when the first lockdown was announced, it felt so wrong. But on the other hand, a great deal of what closed was problematic to begin with. To drastically reduce the number of flights, trips, consumption – that’s good. To close an education system with large, overcrowded classes, which turns out to be necessary mainly to allow parents to work and receive a measure of respite and support in child care – it’s all messed up from the start. And regarding “social distance” – a very unfortunate term in my opinion, because socially one needs to get closer – but learning to respect a reasonable amount of personal space seems to me like a healthy corrective for Israelis.

Along with the difficulties, most of the people who are close to me, “my tribe”, experienced this last period as miraculous, with accelerated growth in unexpected directions, sudden empowerment and the creation or renewal of inspiring relationships. Myself as well. I know I’m very privileged, but it feels to me like a paradoxical period that invites us to think differently on all levels – personal, collective, economic, political, health… joint creation. The beginning of a huge change, in which answers emerge from many questions like stars in the hazy city sky.

I experience the Covid time as a slowdown. Slow down for a culture that races way too fast into very dangerous turns. We’ve discovered that it is indeed possible to stop and change direction sharply on a large scale when we deem it necessary, and this is a hopeful lesson, because it is much more necessary than most of us are willing to admit. Many people also understood the meaning and the danger of exponential growth for the first time, another critical lesson for humanity.

We need this slowing down – it is not possible to listen when we move at the pace that society demands, a pace that only accelerates. We need to slow down and stop to both listen to each other and let what we’ve heard sink in. We must also slow down to listen to ourselves, to notice what is happening to us, to process things. It’s a perfect time to slow down – both holidays and a lockdown, and the heat is finally loosening its grip. I don’t always succeed either, but I try now to remember to slow down and listen – to myself, to others, and also to this strange time and what it asks of me.