Talk has turned toward the eventual return to the normal - whenever that will be. We anxiously anticipate the opportunity to, like, go out and, like, see people and stuff, and maybe daven together or go see a movie. Shop without fear of infecting people. etc.
And amidst the very real pain, this time has granted us an (over)abundance of time to observe the systems and patterns that constitute our local realities. Without the usual distractions, and with the constant repetition of days, we see all too clearly who we are as people, how we function in relationship, what happens when we hold on to bad moods, how we reach for distractions when things get too intense, what moves us, what stimulates us, etc. Many of us have seen the nature and quantity of stuff that has accumulated in our homes over the years. We get a glimpse of how we manage time. Money. Space. We now know more about who and what we miss and don’t miss. We now likely recognize that there is a difference between essential and non-essential goods. We see how irrelevant the opinions of many celebrities are.
Many of us are also looking at larger scales - how our choice of news sources has real effect in our lives and the lives of others. How we think about people with whom we disagree. How different models of leadership impact the health and well-being of the leaders’ constituents. How countries do and don’t cooperate to manage common threats. How economic systems interact with the people who operate within them. How commerce pushes people to make difficult choices between health and earning a living. How the state of the environment has been impacted by collective human behaviors.
More startling and important and foundational than any particular observation we might have been granted is the bare realization that all of them are based upon choices. Every pattern that we are now seeing features a choice, made by us or by someone else. Someone is choosing. And someone is affected by those choices.
As we prepare for our eventual release back into the wild, we confront the reality that all of these - our political and economic choices, our individual and collective habits of consumption, our actions and our attitudes - actually operate as variables. If they were done differently, then things would be different. Choices are being made, and different choices could be made, with different outcomes.
Choices are being made. And different choices could be made.
And as we tentatively consider thinking about the possibility of maybe eventually returning to “normal”, many of us are committed to not returning to “normal.” We want to choose differently. On the smallest scales, we are now more aware that regular exercise is good, and diet matters, and schedule matters, and relationships matter, and we must choose to invest more in those aspects of our lives than we did B.C. (before corona).
And on the largest scales, some of us are hoping that big change is at hand, with governments far more deeply invested in the well-being of their citizens, with collective worldwide cooperation on issues that affect us all, like pandemics and the health of the environment. We are hoping that people with power will make different choices. We might even choose to do something about it.
But what’s going to make it so we don’t just fall back into old patterns? Consider the reentry that is is choreographed in this week’s parshiot - Tazria/Metzorah. A person has sinned - ostensibly through unnecessarily speaking badly of others - and they have been kicked out of the community. Having seen the error of their ways, they have gone through their teshuva process and are ready to re-enter the community from which they were expelled. This is a long process, with several stages and a startling array of offerings and rituals, many of which mimic other offerings and rituals. The rituals are deep and rich: shaving the whole body; waiting outside the tent for a week; shaving again; blood-initiation. But there is one ritual that is unique to this particular situation. In this sequence, two birds are taken up. One bird is killed. The other bird is dipped into the blood of the first bird and then set free.
This is the Torah’s representation of the person who sinned: choices were made. People were hurt. You have another chance. Choose well. And know that momentum and force of habit are not on your side.
A bird covered in blood is easy prey. Any half-decent predator could smell it a mile away. And this serves well as a stand-in for the slanderer who wishes to reenter the community that includes people he has slandered. How do you not fall back into the same pattern? The only way in which old patterns and bad choices can help us make better choices in the future is to carry a reminder of their dangers everywhere we go.
Like that bird, we are given another chance, but we - as individuals and as communities and societies and nations - know the odds are stacked against us. We know where we have been. We know that damage has been done. We know something else is possible, but it will require vigilance and conscious defiance on engrained habits.