Next to Normal

We can’t go back to “normal.”  The Covid-19 plague will abate but our society and nation will not go back to the old normal. Yes, we will live with inconvenient masks and gloves. But the next normal must be fundamentally and not merely sartorially different.

The time before the pandemic was actually abnormal say many progressives, channeling sentiments about inequality in America.  I am hoping for a “next normal,” guided by Torah. First let’s look at the problem.

In the past decade since the last economic crisis, wealth disparity metastasized. Before the pandemic, 69% of Americans said they had less than $1,000 in savings. More shockingly, about 45% said they have $0 in savings.  Most Americans are not profligate spenders. They are living paycheck to paycheck. And tens of millions just lost their jobs.

Before the pandemic, 28 million non-elderly people had no health insurance. Not surprisingly, people without insurance coverage have worse access to care than people who are insured. One in five uninsured adults in 2018 went without needed medical care due to cost.  In a time of pandemic we learn that all should receive both preventative and continuous health care. And many unemployed people just lost their health insurance.

Before the pandemic, 40 million Americans including 12.5 million children faced food insecurity and hunger every day in America. Food banks are strapped while farmers are dumping tons of food. More people are going to bed hungry tonight.

So, what does it mean to go back to normal? Normal was millions of Americans with no financial cushion, no health care, and not enough food.  Is that the America we wish to resurrect?

In Torah this week, parshat Emor, we are reminded not to reap all the way to the edges of our fields, or gather the missed gleanings of our harvest; but to leave them for the poor and the stranger. Why? Because the LORD is your God. So important is this precept that it is stated twice in Leviticus. Holiness is taking care of every person in financial distress, even if unknown to us.

We must now follow this teaching, create a next normal modeled on Torah. The next normal should be a world in which we promote democratic and free market principals while promoting a living wage for all, universal health insurance, and the elimination of hunger. That’s what Torah demands. It doesn’t demand that the farmer disinvest herself of her fields and transfer them to those who are landless. Torah demands that we share sufficiently to keep all people in our country safe, healthy and fed. 

The Government just proved we could do this. Our nation can afford to provide health care, support a living wage and feed every person. And it will cost less than bailing out big businesses yet again, twice within a dozen years. 

We anxiously wait for that time when we emerge from our physical confinement to fully reengage in the next normal society. In the meantime, we can prepare ourselves spiritually for the Torah inspired country that we should be.

Rabbi Evan J. Krame