Rabbi Mark H. Levin: This coronavirus crisis is also an opportunity for the fortunate

Our world — our political leaders, our thinkers, our artists — all seem to be focused on the coronavirus threat. It’s united us worldwide. Every person’s health is threatened, from out of nowhere. We are almost equally unprepared, and many feel attacked.

But I think it’s the wrong focus.

No, don’t get me wrong. We are authentically confronting a massive medical challenge. It’s overwhelming, a tsunami offshore and headed in our direction, and many believe there’s not enough time to reach higher ground. Many will drown.

And yet I am taken with the religious response: Not what is the threat, but how do I react?

My first impulse may be to take care of myself — my health, the health of those I love. But then I check internally to see what else, other than my life, feels threatened. Will I have the necessities of life: shelter, food, clothing, water, air, meaning?

It is interesting that our first reaction to this pandemic, this plague, has been universal. None can easily escape. The solution, too, must be communal. We are all in this together.

But the other issues I silently check off in my head are those same equally universal concerns: shelter, food, clothing, water, air, meaning. Yet they are not equally threatened. The question arises from the same source: the virus. But some of us have means, and some have not, and some are uncertain.

Now the question: How do I react? The medical problem is universal, and its medical solution will be universal. But all will not have equal access to that solution, just as we don’t have equal access to shelter, food, clothing, water, air and meaning.

If we have discovered our human condition together, all of us susceptible to the virus, why do we not see that the resultant problems are also a matter of the commonality of our humanity?

Palestinians and Israelis are cooperating, working together, to solve the problems the virus poses. They have set aside their political differences in the face of a common threat.

Then why do we not all do the same? Why, in the face of this common threat, do we not realize that the solutions — medical care, shelter, food, clothing, water, air, meaning — are also human issues that require a united human solution?

How wonderful would it be if in the face of this terror, this universal threat, this overwhelming challenge that unites us, we also discovered that our common humanity lies at the base of all of our major life concerns, and that solutions for some must be solutions for all?

For those with means — the 1% or the 0.1% — there is a special obligation. You can make the future possible for scores of people. You can save the servers in your restaurants, the small businesspeople who make our cities run, the hospital workers who keep you healthy, the home health care workers who may well care for you in your old age. You can enable this nation to get through this crisis. You have it in your power to save thousands of people.

If you do, you’ll help save the economy, and will get your money back in a few years. This is the special responsibility of those who have been blessed with wealth. This is your time.

Think about the possibility inherent in the moment, here in greater Kansas City: Might we begin fulfilling the message of this virus — that we are all human? We all face the same threats and the same solutions. If only we could continue to acknowledge the universality of our condition, what a world this would be. What a blessing this virus would become.

Think about it, because right now, in the face of a new reality, you might help to change the world.

This story was originally published April 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Rabbi Mark H. Levin: This coronavirus crisis is also an opportunity for the fortunate."