Living through a modern-day horror story of mass revocation of freedoms
Another lockdown looming this Friday, you say? I’m in Israel - a country in a permanent state of division, split by religion or politics, and most recently, by 'red,' 'yellow,' and 'green' zones. For the next three weeks, the country will be under a draconian lockdown - the only country in the world so far to impose a second national lockdown. I’ll never forget the first time I experienced collective punishment. In first grade, outside of Boston, our Jewish day school class had to sit with our heads down on our desks for several minutes because one of us had done something naughty. The injustice registered with me - “But I didn’t do anything wrong!” I didn’t know it at the time, but it was a lesson in collective responsibility. Jewish history is filled with examples of collective punishment: think of the Egyptians and the plagues, the entire Exodus generation that was barred from ever entering Canaan, and of course, Adam and Eve’s yet-unborn descendants, cast out from future enjoyment of the Garden of Eden for their parents’ misdeeds. In the absence of the Garden of Eden, humanity has, unsurprisingly, found numerous ways to derive joy from God’s green Earth. And what an instrument of joy our world can be, from the grandest vistas, to the simplest intergenerational family meal for the holidays, even a plain paper cup of hot coffee. Joy is free, and all human beings should have the right to the pursuit of happiness. But in a lockdown, these joys all disappear. This is particularly poignant during the holiday season. Growing up in the U.S., "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'" is a phrase that forms the foundation of our belief system, and is taught at a young age. Arguably the most famous line in the American Declaration of Independence, it says that governments exist to protect these rights. The concept is not unique to the U.S., it can even be found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which adds, “Freedom from fear and want.” Actions taken by governments in the year 2020 have brought plenty of fear, want, and suffering upon us, with wave after wave of collective punishment. With few exceptions, governments worldwide locked up their people at least once, reduced their movement to 'essential services,' and made it illegal to operate privately-owned businesses or participate in creative expression and cultural life. During the first lockdowns, many people consented to the mass revocation of their freedoms, like the freedom of movement, the freedom to travel abroad, the freedom to operate a private enterprise for a profit. All of a sudden, an experiment in totalitarianism was born in the name of public health. It was as if freedom didn’t matter, and we would accept an ever-diminishing standard of living. “The only thing that works in a pandemic is a totalitarian state,” laments my family friend, who grew up under Soviet rule.
But could another thing work, too - collective responsibility?
For the last six months, many people fastidiously masked, sanitized, scrubbed, and distanced. They followed the rules, and encouraged others to do the same. The logic is that the cost of social responsibility is low, so we should be willing to do something small to possibly make a big difference - even at the 'risk' being wrong about the effectiveness of measures. Rabbi Sacks of the U.K. put it best, “We know that there is a principle of collective responsibility in Jewish law: Kol Yisrael arevin zeh bazeh, ‘All Jews are sureties for one another.’” This also refers to the concept in Judaism of individuals being connected as one whole 'body.' Want a non-Jewish example? Just recall John Donne’s “No man is an island….” published in 1624.
In the end, this is a social disease, one that exposes how little regard many of our neighbors have for us - or we, for them.
Yet many others have turned up their noses at basic sanitation guidelines, let their noses hang out of their masks, or sniffed at social distancing. On my street, a man was protesting the fine for going bare-faced. Staff at my local cafe worked maskless. People I know said, “I’m not afraid of catching a bad flu.” In the end, this is a social disease, one that exposes how little regard many of our neighbors have for us - or we, for them.
Today, on the eve of yet another infuriating lockdown here in Israel, the government has forced us to bear responsibility for the other. Yes, including the other that rejected basic safety measures and in so doing, deferred our freedoms. In letting the disease spread, 'The Numbers' have provided justification for the embrace of the totalitarian experiment, warning us on TV to “All Do the Right Thing, or All Be Locked Down” (an ineffective fear-based campaign that set the bar way too high for any chance of compliance) and to choose our way of life for us.
This is where public service announcements could have stepped in and striven for a message of ‘do a little to help a lot' - just in case.
According to Anna Belkina, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of RT, "In part because the information and guidance from scientists and experts kept changing and at times contradicting itself, governments worldwide and of all political persuasions have struggled to communicate clearly, effectively and decisively to their people. As a result, it became a real challenge to make a simple choice unequivocally clear.
In a perfect world, in an Eden, we could have been living our fullest lives with added precautions like holding performances outdoors, socializing in masks, or celebrating in smaller groups. In our imperfect society, there is a snowball’s chance in hell of avoiding the collective punishment of our newly-if-temporarily-totalitarian states.
Benjamin Franklin said, at the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, “We shall all hang together, or we shall all hang separately.” What will it take for everyone in our society to do a little to help others a lot? Will we be able to do the mental work to correct our own behavior and thus maintain our freedom? Or will we act independently of the communal good, and thus hand the government an external hammer to strike us down and force us to comply? It’s too late for this high holiday season- we’ll all be locked up starting Friday, the eve of the Jewish New Year. We’ve given up our responsibility in the matter, which is why we will all bear the punishing cost to our livelihoods, mental health, cultural and artistic expression, and the well-being of our society as a whole.
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