Returning to the Basics: Sukkot's message for fighting Corona

So many of us have found our lives truncated in some respect; be it socializing, the financial challenges Corona brings, the inability to see loved ones overseas, in so many ways Corona has hampered our ability to live the way we once did. 

I recall very vividly taking a nature hike at Machon Meir with Rabbi Dov Bigon, may he live and be well. He pointed out a plant that looked like a mere root. Lifeless, devoid of leaves and flowers, it literally looked if it had been desiccated, and sucked dry. I remember Rabbi Bigon saying that the plant was emblematic of the human experience. Come drought, the plant shrivels up, and looks anemic, and withered. But come times of plenty, the plant blossoms, sending forth beautiful flowers, verdant and majestic.

In so many ways what we're experiencing now is epitomized by that desert plant. We look now, when times are rough, when family cannot be seen - at least face-to-face, to focus on the loved ones we can see - and the few friends whose company is most dear to us. 

Sukkot teaches us to invite Hashem into our lives, but on His terms. Nature's terms. His hand interwoven in nature, the organic fabric of our lives. The height of sukkot is the beating of the aravot on Hoshana Rabba, when we smell the fragrant, natural scent of the hoshanot being broken on the ground. It's that recognition that the spiritual heights of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur reach fruition only when meeting the physicality of every day life that impels us and bolsters us to confront the very mundane and physical challenges we face throughout the year. 

In a similar sense, Corona hones that message; the tragedy is very great, but over and beyond how it has hurt so many, and endangered multitudes, it does cause us to make a reckoning of sorts as to what is most important. 

Now, is the time to focus on what is truly most important, what represents the nucleus and very essence of our lives, like the desert plant battered by nature's forces. Perhaps on a similar note, conceptually, the reason that women are exempt from time-bound mitzvot is that these mitzvot are deemed less essential to the Jewish experience. Certain things like praying, saying shema, loving your fellow man, and returning lost objects are mitzvot that are "timeless," relevant day in and day out. Women, who have the dual responsibility of raising children and teaching them Torah, would be encumbered in these two pursuits were they have to redirect their energies elsewhere - and therefore, when it comes to a mitzvah like shaking the lulav and etrog, because it only happens once a year, it is not seen as something that would be so detrimental for women to miss out on; not so, though, with the regular day-to-day mitzvot that bind men and women equally. 

Perhaps not perfectly analogous, but in a similar vein, what behooves each and every one of us now is to focus on those daily things that represent the core of our lives, our spouses, our children, learning Torah, praying etc. After all, we - and our kids - can survive if this chol hamoed we don't take them to the zoo, have a BBQ with friends, or even make it to the Kotel, now, unfortunately closed to visitors. 

Chag sameach!

Yoav