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This Lag BaOmer eve, I reflect on how different this night is from all other Lag BaOmer nights, as so many things are different these days. You see, while Lag BaOmer is special all over the world, here in the Galilee, less than ten miles from Meron, things usually go to a different level. For at least a week before, and a few days after, there are enormous traffic jams as hundreds of thousands come to be near the grave of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The truth is, even in standard years, cars cannot get anywhere near there. Down the road from where I live, in Karmiel, a huge parking lot is created on an empty field, and buses run from there to Meron every five minutes, 24 hours a day, for about three days.

There sure has been a V’nahafoch Hu since Purim: The world in which we are living seems to be totally changed and turned over – but it is hard to see how it is for the better. Coronavirus has had a devastating worldwide impact, and according to many scientists and epidemiologists, we ain’t seen nothing yet. Some have dire predictions of millions dying, industries collapsing, and health care systems being overwhelmed with no end in sight – and there are reminders of the devastation that the Spanish flu caused just about a century ago. Just about everyone knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone – chavra d’chavra) who has tested positive for the virus, which so far has no vaccine, although the mortality rate is “only” about three-to-four percent. It is hard to remember that we are still in the month of Adar.

The odds are very high that there will not be any sermons delivered in shuls this coming Shabbos. However, if sermons were to be delivered, the odds are even higher that they would center around the quarantine that is imposed on a m’tzora, the central topic of this week’s double sidrah.

Hyper-partisanship has claimed yet another victim – this time a person who – in normal times – would be considered a tzadik, a saintly man. And while the vultures crow over their misbegotten victory, we are all the sadder for it.

The Rebbe began by citing the verse in Yeshayahu (26:20-21):

Go, my people; enter your chambers and lock your doors behind you. Hide but a short while, until the anger passes. For Hashem shall come forth from His place to punish the dwellers of the earth for their sins, and the earth shall disclose its bloodshed and shall no longer conceal its slain.

Apparently, it is one of the most important mitzvos. There is no other mitzvah for which we have an absolute annual Torah-level obligation to hear directly from the Torah, and one of only six that we are required to think about at least once a day. But frankly, at least from the perspective of Jewish outreach, it is one of the most difficult for us to relate to. We are required to remember what Amaleik did to us as we left Egypt, and therefore never to forget to exterminate the nation of Amaleik from under the Heavens. No matter that according to most poskim the nation of Amaleik no longer exists as a discernible entity, after the extensive transfers of population by Sancheiriv; no matter that in virtually any practical case of meeting an actual Amalekite we would refrain from performing this mitzvah due to the enmity and anti-Semitism it would cause; no matter how difficult this would be for virtually any Jew to perform – the obligation to concentrate on this mitzvah remains in place.