I recently read an article by Rabbi Dan Ain in Tablet titled "The Four Questions of the Pandemic." I thought the premise had potential and I opened the article expecting a nuanced and thoughtful piece about what it means to lead and make community in these difficult times. As an active member of my Jewish community, a Jewish parent, and a Jewish professional, I knew that Rabbi Ain would be taking on tough issues with no easy answers. To my surprise and frustration, the article I read had neither nuance nor deep thought. Instead, Rabbi Ain took 1000 words to essentially say "I'm done."
So I'd like to take a few moments to unpack some of Rabbi Ain's accusations about the Jewish response to the pandemic and attempt to offer something of the nuance and thought I'd been hoping to find. Let's begin with Rabbi Ain's first accusation.
"If I can place my finger on the pulse of what’s been so dizzying to me—among an array of upside-downness—it is the refusal to ask questions. It is as though Jewish leaders took an oath of silence regarding pandemic measures, when Judaism itself is built on a foundation of inquiry and engagement."
First, I would suggest that Rabbi Ain needs to reach out to more people in the Jewish community and Jewish communal leadership. Plenty of people are asking questions. I am in three separate Facebook groups specifically dedicated to conversations among Jewish professionals about Covid, in addition to the regular questions about Covid in pre-existing Jewish professional groups. Just within the synagogue world Rabbi Ain and I inhabit (let's leave aside other Jewish organizations like JCCs for now), these groups include rabbis and cantors, religious school educators, executive directors and program directors, and parents, all looking for ways to balance the competing Jewish values of communal gathering and public safety. On a more local level, congregants are definitely asking their synagogues what the health guidance is and when their favorite or most-needed aspects of the community will return in a mode meaningful to them (whether in-person, multi-access/hybrid, or virtual). Most synagogues I know have convened committees and task forces dedicated to asking questions and reevaluating the ever-changing guidance about Covid. Rabbis, directors, educators, and programmers are talking to our counterpoints at other shuls to compare notes. When synagogues make changes to their mask or vaccine policies, they send detailed information about the changes and are often transparent about the source of their policy (whether it is guidance from the CDC, their local health department, doctors within their membership, or a combination). Jewish leaders love to cite our sources, after all. If these are not questions that Rabbi Ain's community is asking him or steps that he and his leadership are taking, perhaps he should be asking himself why that is and how he can encourage that, rather than accusing the Jewish community at large of silence.
