I just found out I know people who have tested positive for coronavirus.  By and large, thank God, they are okay. They are quarantined. It put real faces on this graph and numbers story I've been watching.  It reminds me of a classic version of the "trolley" conundrum.  If you are standing at the trolley switch and it is headed straight for ten people you don't know what do you do? If you pull the lever the trolley will change tracks but on the other track is one person you know well.  who do you save? In other words, why does it matter if you know the person? Isn't a life a life.  Here are my three thoughts.

1. Maimonides makes clear that it is a mitzvah commandment of the highest importance to use every effort to extend someone's life, even for a few breaths.  If a building falls on shabbat and you think maybe someone is under he argues you have to violate all of shabbat on the hint that maybe someone is there. This might seem obvious to some of you reading this but to the rabbis this is a radical declaration.  Shabbat is one of the ten commandments explicitly laid out in the Torah. From this I learn that it should not matter if you know the person or not. 

2. OF COURSE IT MATTERS! All of western civilization, every movie that I love, any one's moral compass tell us that you save the one you love first. That putting a personal face on a problem makes the problem real and visceral in a way that affects how we act.  From a Creation standpoint this is a terrible way to create people.  Shouldn't God have made us equally compassionate for all? Yet there is something essential to human existence that we pick people to be our people, and that we stick up for them over others. 

3. It seems to me if you focus only on one or the other you get lost.  If you completely focus on the collective you will lose your sense of humanity.  You are the general that callously orders soldiers to their death without understanding the terrible sacrifice.  but, if you are the person that only looks out for your people and everyone else be damned you help create a system of those who matter and those who don't.  Yes, it makes the virus more real, but I hope it only reminds me how important the big picture is.  I hope I can hold onto the idea that the overall plan and saving the whole society is what matters but that I can doubly share myself and my heart with those that I know.

Kol Tuv,
RJF