Credit: “Hasidic Family Scene” Adam Jones (CC BY 4.0)
At my secular psychotherapy office in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, we have moved all staff meetings and client sessions online to help slow down the spread of Covid-19. We are working from home with exceptions only for TMS brain stimulation treatment. Yet just a few blocks away in my Hasidic community, the schools only recently closed, wedding halls were packed up until the very last moment, and hundreds of people still flock to the alleyways, parks and dining rooms for religious services three times a day.
As a member of the Hasidic community, I understand how natural it is to believe “Only God can help us,” when most aspects of day-to-day life are governed by our religious practices and not by any secular authority. As a mental health counseling student, I also understand the unconscious motivations of people facing severe and unprecedented catastrophes.
When we take a closer look at our unique experiences, we can gain the perspective and the courage to rely both on practicing safer behaviors like social distancing—and our reservoir of faith and conviction that God will help us get through this.
Lack of trust in government sanctions can be a natural reaction to intergenerational trauma. Jews have been targets of mass pogroms and persecutions by governments who enabled and facilitated violence against us for centuries, including the Black Plague, Tsarist Russia, and Nazi Germany. Memories of such persecutions may still be embedded in hearts and minds, and a declaration from the government that the Hasidic community cannot congregate in houses of worship or religious schools can wake up generational trauma and raises questions about whether the government is acting in the community’s best interest.
The Hasidic community is uniquely intellectual and well educated, but does not generally study the science of infectious diseases. Studying Talmud does require a skillful and unique way of thinking, but it doesn’t necessarily overlap with conventional secular academic thinking. When a community tries to apply their rules to secular social customs and the statistics of disease transmission, it’s easy to mistakenly believe that Covid-19 isn’t really dangerous and the guidelines are inaccurate.
As an added stressor, we’re in the month before Passover – the time of the year that we are religiously obligated to thoroughly clean our homes from all leavened bread in preparation for the holiday. Our school systems and other support systems make it possible to manage the greater workload mothers and fathers take on for Passover preparations, and of those systems falling apart can make us feel hopeless. But we do not have to do this alone.
The secular psychology world has shown what many of us experience: prayers and religious beliefs are linked to lower levels of anxiety and a healthier lifestyle. However, we must also abide by CDC guidelines in regards to social distancing, hand-washing, and listen to secular medical experts who are trying to help our community survive. We do this not just for ourselves, but to flatten the curve of new infections and lessen the burden on our hospitals and caregivers.
Denying that the Covid-19 virus is at our doorstep is a common way to cope, but denial endangers the lives and institutions of our community members, lives that we have worked so hard to build together. Now over shabbos, I urge you to reflect on the Torah verse וחי בהם (Vchai Buhem) (Leviticus 18:5) as it is translated by the rabbis: “God gave us the commandments to live by them, and not to die by them.”
