“I did nothing that any other Jew would not have done for his mother”
The protagonist of the following story — a Satmar chassid from Williamsburg — spoke with me at length, only agreeing to my retelling it on the condition that I not name him or the hospital in which his mother was treated for coronavirus for over three months. (She has since recovered and has returned home.)
He explained his reticence: “I did nothing that any other Jew would not have done for his mother.” And perhaps he is right. If so, nothing could reflect more positively on our community.
Just before Pesach, his mother, who is in her early seventies, started to experience shortness of breath, even though she and her husband had been in almost full quarantine already for four weeks. The afternoon of Erev Pesach, he had his mother checked by two emergency medical technicians. The oxygen levels in her blood were not good, but not yet dire enough to mandate hospitalization.
That night the son led an expedited first Seder, and as soon as the afikomen was eaten, he told his assembled family to carry on without him — he had to go check on his mother. As he hurried to his parents’ apartment, he encountered his nephew, who lives in the same building as they do, running to summon him.
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