HaRav Yeruchom Levovitz zt"l
The Mirrer Mashgiach HaRav Yeruchom ("Daas Torah" on Mishpotim) clarifies very meaningfully the subject of epidemic, teaching us a straightforward objective Torah truth:
We always thought that disease in general visits a person because of a certain flaw in his makeup. It is more true to think that illness strikes a person with a definite purpose, each one disparately.
We see that sicknesses are not arbitrary but come with a significant design; they are 'true to their (Divine) mission.' There are groups upon groups of emissaries, divisions upon divisions with special missions. 'They execute the will of their Sender through dread.' It is altogether fallacious to think that if a sickness perseveres, it is the fault and failing of the doctor, because a sickness will not budge until it his performed its purpose.
The best physicians today would maintain that this one is a kind of bacteria and would provide it with a scientific name... and the savants of today would surely attribute it to climate or other reasons.
Be it as it may, there is a fundamental principle which we must believe and sense tangibly that they are all reliable emissaries which 'execute the will of their Creator through fear.'
There is nothing happening in this world because of sheer circumstance but rather, there are [Heaven sent] clusters upon clusters, divisions upon divisions of all kinds, coming with special uniforms, standing alert without changing of the guards, not relenting until they have completed their mission. If so, of what use are medicines and prescriptions against messengers who are so true to their purpose?
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Yet, in the very midst of this epidemic, we lack the right spectacles. Our eyes are covered with a film. Each one of us is busy with his own affairs. Himself! His family! His friends, neighbors, his city. And he is afraid.
Why don't we feel the correct sensations within our own sensitive soul? Why doesn't our spiritual radar register the signs from the Divine Providence?
"Suffering," explained HaRav Avrohom Grodzensky, Menahel Ruchani of Yeshivas Slobodka (Toras Avrohom essay on "Nevua veyisurrim"), "are not a punishment for a past sin but a study and road sign to avoid a future sin. Suffering is a messenger from Hashem to highlight our past errors and illuminate the path of the future."
Suffering comes to fill a gaping void. In a generation which does not have prophets, they speak to us, and yet, our ears are stopped up. They explain to us, and still, the openings of the heart are sealed tight.
Suffering offers us a ladder for ascent. They plead with us that we climb its rungs. But mankind, we, continue along our way, and the chastising voice of the prophet of our times, those ailments, are stifled in the groaning of the sick ones, in the pain of the families, the fear in our environment, and worst of all, the silence of the deceased.
The day-to-day in its unending flow, sweeps everything out distance places. We become immunized through inertia. And even if we rally en masse to the call of our rabbonim, our shepherds, and participate in a day of prayer, a Yom Kippur Koton, on the day after, routine again dulls our arousal.
And then, instead of commiserating in the pain of our fellow man and crying out, we merely heave a sigh of instant reaction, and cleanse ourselves in the soap-and-water of calm days whose tomorrow is veiled in shadow.
