WHAT WOULD MOSHE DO?

This week, we begin the fourth book of the Torah known as Numbers, or in the Hebrew, B’midbar. B’midbar means desert. At the heart of this word is a three-letter root, dalet, bet, reesh or just think DBR. It is a root which means “word” and gives us the Hebrew for the Ten Commandments or more accurately, the Ten Words, Aseret HaDibrot. But the root should also trigger another verbal formulation with which you are familiar from the seder. That would be the word dever, which means pestilence, that is, a fatal epidemic disease. Is it possible that the same root which gives us the word “word,” is the same root that gives us the word, disease or pestilence? There are many linguists who think the meanings so diverse that the two words must stem from different roots. But the phonetic similarity is so strong that the two words, davar and dever, demand our attention and in the very least, some meaning, even if only mystical, that would bind the two together.

We are all in some sort of wilderness right now, beset with difficult questions. How do we move forward? Do we dare move forward? What risks are we willing to assume in opening New York too soon? What risks are we willing to carry in remaining closed too long? Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, recently pointed out that with declining GDP comes a decrease in life expectancy. So although it is clear that there is a connection between pestilence and one’s health, there is no denying the connection between the economy and one's health.

We should all feel for those whose paychecks suddenly dissipated, virtually overnight, and have been left with a host of anxieties about how to pay the mortgage, or for food, the Internet, electricity, academic tuition, and so forth. An unwelcome and dreaded party crasher has turned our lives upside down and thrown us into a wilderness and the question is will we find dever, pestilence, or davar, the words that guide us through the wilderness, this unprecedented crisis, this midbar?

Michael Schlank, president of Midway Jewish Center, and Mark Gelfand, chair of the Board of Trustees, have come up with a slogan to help us navigate life at this time. It is this: What
Would Moshe Do? Think of the acronym WWMD: What Would Moshe Do?

W          Wash your hands.

W          Wear your mask.

M          Manage the risks. We can't bring them down to zero, but the precautions we take will minimize the risks we face. And

 D          Distance yourself from others.

The way to survive the wilderness, the midbar, is to avoid the dever, the pestilence, but find the davar, the guiding word. We can do this. Just ask yourself “What Would Moshe Do?” and each of us will make it through the wilderness we now find ourselves in. Covid-19 isn’t going away so quickly. But we are going to have to continue living our lives. We will do that and we will find the way to cross this wilderness to get to the Promised Land.

Shabbat Shalom, everyone, and take care of yourselves.