By the Grace of G-d
Dear Friend,
How things can change so quickly.
Not long ago, Thailand was one of the top countries in terms of the management of Covid.
Alas, now Thailand is at the bottom of the list.
What happened? And more importantly what can we learn from it.
And how, for all of us in Thailand and in other countries which are going through the throes of additional waves of Covid, are we to cope with the panic and fear around us.
Let me digress and first of all, share the blessed-for-us news that we arrived back to ‘our place of Shlichut’ ‘Amazing Thailand’ yesterday.
It wasn’t so simple.
Oy vey. At the very beginning of the week, after a weekend in LA with Nechama’s parents, we arrived to the airport in LA all hyped up and excited to have our Certificates of Entry to Phuket. When Singapore Airlines asked us for our PCR tests our faces fell. We didn’t have them.
Now before you judge us for overlooking such a rudimentary requisite, hear me out. From the Thailand side I was told we didn’t need it, ‘check with the airlines if they need it’ they told me. With all the papers that were needed we had assumed that perhaps we need the PCR test as well. But regulations don’t always seem to make sense. So instead of just wasting time and spending money, possibly unnecessarily, to get the tests, we did what we thought was smart. We called the airline to ask. The Indian accented agent was not sure, he kept us on hold for fifteen minutes as he checked with a superior. His answer was we didn’t need it.
The flight manager told us that we must have reached an outsourced ‘call center’ perhaps in India and that we were not the first to get this misinformation. (Upon arrival to Thailand they also asked us for PCR test and so clearly we were mistaken and for entry to Thailand the test is required). We immediately ran to get our PCR test right near the airport, (even though it looked hopeless, but one always has to try), but we didn’t get back in time.
What a disappointment. After midnight, instead of being on a flight to our Asian side of the world, we were shlepping our many pieces of luggage to go back to my in-laws home who were very gracious (and secretly happy) about having us there for two days more.
In my mind I knew it was all Divinely ordained. After all, I had just given a class all about this very topic.
But wait a second, was it fair to ‘blame’ G-d for this? This was OUR mistake, wasn’t it? Immediately after we were asked for the PCR tests we felt so foolish for not having realized that in todays Covid19 environment OF COURSE we needed the negative PCR test.
Is it fair to place this on G-d when really it was just our oversight?
Yes. A RESOUNDING YES.
In a class that I had taped on that very day a few hours before heading to the airport (a one-hour in depth class teaching the Rebbe’s presentation of the journey of the Jews in the desert. Click here) focused exactly on that. That all journeys are from G-d even if they are brought about by the bad choices of humans.
This week’s Parsha teaches that the Jews sojourned in the desert on their way to Israel for forty years and spells it out in detail. There were forty-two stops along the way. ‘They traveled from here… and encamped there…’. About all of those encampments and journeys the Torah says that they were by the word of G-d.
Now, there were a number of those journeys that came about because of the sinful choices of the Jewish people. Our Sages even tell us that if the Jews would have been worthy, they would have had three journeys and then proceeded to Israel directly. Without the additional journeys. This means that most of their travels were caused by their ‘unworthiness’.
If these journeys happened because of a ‘change of plans’ based on their improper choices, were they too by the word of G-d?
The answer is no and yes.
No, Hashem didn’t tell them to do the bad thing. It was THEIR bad choice.
Yes, once that thing was done and they found themselves post-sin in a particular geographical location or in a particular state of mind, they needed to know that they were EXACTLY where G-d had intended that they be.
How do those things reconcile? If G-d gives us choice and let’s say we chose unwisely, differently than He instructed us to choose, how then can we say that we are in the exact space that He intended us to be in. If we would have followed His instructions, we wouldn’t be here.
Its really impossible as mortals to fully understand but here is the general concept.
When a person sins G-d forbid, it is by their own choice. This ‘free choice’ idea is one of the most fundamental beliefs of Judaism. For if we don’t have free choice, we can’t possibly be held accountable for our deeds.
A tiger cannot be blamed for mauling a fellow creature. A person is definitely held accountable for injuring someone else.
Yet, although there is free choice, the result that the sin caused, is not a different result than G-d intended from the very beginning. Which means to say that in a roundabout way G-d did kinda take into account that the person would ‘freely choose’ to do the sin.
Dangerous concepts if taken out of context.
But critical to internalize on some level.
Because although as I will emphasize once more, when we stand before two choices, one good and one bad, we DO absolutely have the choice to choose good.
Yet, when one wakes up ‘the morning after’ in the proverbial ‘mud’ and is tempted to fall into a depression because they are unredeemable off the course of life that G-d had intended for them, the response is that it is one million percent not the case. Even if one reached his destination through a mistake, they are exactly where G-d intended them to be.
The intention generally being the catapulting closer to G-d as a result of the fall. In relationships, the greatest closeness comes after a temporary separateness.
Waking up in the ‘spiritual muck’ that is represented by sin is intended to cause a humungous thirst for closeness to G-d. The kind of thirst and desire that would never be felt if not for the distance created by sin. It is the ultimate closeness that is G-d’s intention. Thus the seemingly ‘mistaken turn’ turns out to be not mistaken.
The Midrash refers to this as a Divine ‘set-up’. Impossible for us humans to really understand wrap our heads around.
In the words of the Kabbalistic mystic ‘if I could comprehend Him, I would be Him’.
Let me put it into a relatable application:
When we were denied boarding and found ourselves schlepping our baggage in the middle of the night to spend another two days in L.A. which we were not psychologically prepared for and initially seemed ‘off-course’, we realized that as believing Jews we were EXACTLY on the course that Hashem had set out for us, albeit unbeknownst to us. And albeit that we had caused this veering off course through our avoidable naivete.
My dear friends,
Thailand made certain choices regarding their management of the pandemic.
Arguably they may have been mistakenly short sighted. Lacking the long-term vision that is so needed by governments to bring this scourge under control. However, as I just pointed out, the outcome of mistakes is also intended that way by G-d in the enigmatic scheme of Divine Providence.
So while we need to learn a lesson (I think that I will have to leave the lesson for next week as this article is already not short…) and we need to try and CHANGE the dismal reality, by making the right changes and choices, at the same time, the situation in Thailand is exactly what G-d intended it to be.
There is no reason to panic. G-d is at the steering wheel. Act prudently and take precautions and get a reliable vaccine as soon as you possibly can. But do so with a determined spirit not with the emotion of being hopelessly overwhelmed and paralyzed like ‘a deer in the headlights’.
I say this especially to my dear friends and congregants, fellow Jews and fellow humans who live here in Thailand and are facing the incredibly fast spreading mutations and variants of Covid. As expatriates, many don’t seem eligible to be granted a vaccine in the early stages which to many seems unfair making it even harder emotionally. Thailand seemed so welcoming to expatriates, yet many feel abandoned. It is a frightful situation that is for sure.
But we need to retain our faith and optimism. It is critical to remember at this time that G-d is still in charge. He always has been, and always will be.
G-d’s instruction in the Torah are: determinedly do what you can to help yourself and G-d will bless your efforts.
If you are need of advice, help, or just a listening ear, please reach out to me or Nechama. We are now in Thailand, in the local time zone and acutely feeling the anxiety that is pervading our country right now.
With blessings for HEALTH, sustenance, nachas and everything else your heart prays for.
Shabbat Shalom
Chodesh Tov
Rabbi Yosef Kantor
PS could it be that if we arrived on Tuesday as initially intended, we would have been affected by the Covid positive passenger who arrived from Dubai on that same day and caused all his fellow travelers to be moved to quarantine? I don’t know if the timing is exact (we were supposed to arrive at 9:25 am while the EK flight from Dubai arrived three hours later). But I do know that on a personal note it gives an added perspective to our thanksgiving to G-d for all the little details of our homecoming that went smoothly without us even knowing the miraculousness of it.
Let me say it here in public:
Thank you Hashem for all Your kindness to us!!!