We don’t know what to expect out of life after COVID-19, but it’s got to be better than what came before. We can’t just go back, because now we realize that what we had was not nearly good enough. We’re going forward and upward, and we’re going to find better because we just don’t like what we see. What was is not worthy to go back to and certainly doesn’t justify the pain that we have been going through. For there to be any justice in the world, what is coming has to be a whole lot better than the best we had until now.  When you have a problem that is overwhelming and confusing beyond imagination, then the good that comes from it also has to be overwhelmingly good and beyond imagination. 

Making a Life instead of a Living

If we go back to work at our old jobs in the old companies and offices and workplaces. it has to have a different feel. You’re not there just to make money. We’ve got to put that behind us. Living in order to make money so that you can buy the stuff you need for a living is a vicious cycle. Going to work has to be a moral project: we go to work so that we meet people who we can help who we can grow with or from. It’s the people not the money, not not the career, not the prestige. Work is about the opportunity to make the world better.

When you have what to eat then you can be useful to everyone around you. Having what to eat is not a privilege. – it’s not a compliment from God, it’s more of a job and a mission. If you have what to eat and you’re not distracted by the need to make a living that means that you are now responsible for others. Make sure they have what to eat both physically and spiritually. If you have meaning in life, if you have something that you can teach or some wisdom that you can share it’s certainly not meant just for you. We have to be conscious of not just how to survive but what the purpose of life is. 

Instead of being focused on how much we need in life when we start to think who needs me, whom can I serve, whom can I help, how can I make things better – then you have a life. When you’re sitting home you can make the world better by becoming better yourself. When an individual becomes better, to some degree the entire human race has become better.

The more powerful effect comes from when you actually interact with others. That way you have two people getting better and together and that itself is a great is a great moral power. Now that we’ve seen that a virus can be a global event, it kind of unites us in a negative sense. Now we have to find a way and find those things that are as powerful that can unite us in a positive way.

For more of Rabbi Manis Friedman’s wisdom, you can join his private, interactive Torah classes geared toward a small VIP community. For more information, please click here.