Savor the Taste of a Mitzvah

Following the outbreak of COVID-19, Jews around the world witnessed the painful closure of shuls and yeshivos. The community, the center of our religious lives, was suddenly taken from us. Now, as many kehillos return to relatively normal life, the temptation is to thank Hashem that the nightmare is over and try to forget about it. But it would be a grave mistake to simply move on as if nothing happened. We don’t know why Hashem sent us coronavirus, but one thing is certain: Nothing we went through was incidental. Every detail was orchestrated by Hashem to teach us something. There’s a lesson in avodas Hashem we need to learn and take with us forever, even after the suffering has passed.

Whenever life presents challenges to our avodas Hashem, the problem itself reveals the avodah Hashem wants from us. For instance, sometimes an avreich goes through a situation which prevents him from sitting and learning for any significant amount of time. Instead of bemoaning his troubles and giving up on learning till the problem goes away, he should try to find a different way of being a “masmid” that fits his circumstances. Unfortunately, we often feel that the difficult times are just impasses we have to wait out. Instead of contemplating what new avodah Hashem might want from us, we just hold on till the difficulty passes and, with a sigh of relief, we can resume our normal routine.

If Hashem put us in such an abnormal state of isolation, forcing us to serve Him on our own, it stands to reason that He wants us to learn a new approach in our avodas Hashem that even a lone individual can do. Of course, the community will always remain the foundation of Jewish life. But we discovered in the past months that we can’t rely solely on community. We need to enrich our repertoire with another approach that’s based on our own individual lives.

If our religious lives in general are based on the community, the Yamim Noraim are especially so. Every year, most of us daven in large minyanim, where the atmosphere is electric and the tefillos are inspiring. Being part of a massive team, united in a common effort, is exhilarating. Most of us can’t imagine going through Rosh Hashanah on our own.