Dwelling in a Time of Plagues — Kendell Pinkney
Dedicated to the memory of my paternal grandmother, Gwendolyn Pinkney. May her memory continue to be a blessing for all those who had the privilege to encounter her.
Last year, in the midst of an ever-expanding global lockdown, a group of Jewish arts organizations found a unique way to respond to the coronavirus by commissioning Jewish artists in several regions of the world to craft contemporary responses. These installations, aptly titled Dwelling in a Time of Plagues, artistically address matters ranging from the pandemic and institutional racism to global warming and the crises facing migrants and refugees. While a worthy artistic project in its own right (check it out here), I have found the title Dwelling in a Time of Plagues to be especially poignant this week as we move forward in the story of our Israelite ancestors.
In parashat bo, we find the Israelites still enslaved, and the land of Egypt beset with the final plagues of locusts, darkness, and the death of the firstborn. We often think of these plagues within the highly ritualized context of our Passover seders where we commemorate each plague with the symbolic dipping of our small finger into wine and then deposit said wine onto a plate. Ritual is great in that it provides a structured container for us to make meaning. However, ritual can also distance us from the deeply felt qualities of our lived experiences, or the lived experiences of others. To put it more directly, it is one thing to talk about “dwelling in a time of plagues” in either a ritual context, or a mythic story, and it is a completely different thing to actually dwell “in a time of plagues” for oneself.
Over the past week, as I have read this parasha of plagues and witnessed loved ones battle Covid from afar, I couldn’t help but think that I was “feeling” the story of the 10 plagues for the first time. I thought of how helpless and shocked the Israelites (and Egyptians, for that matter) must have felt while plague after plague after plague after plague after plague after plague after plague after plague after plague after plague rained down upon their lives. I imagine that through the worst of each plague, they must have been consumed with worry about their neighbors, their extended families, their friends. To know that there is so much suffering and relatively little that one can do to turn the tide of a plague other than to stop, sit, and dwell where you are is a special kind of heartbreaking. You want to move, do something bold, and physically draw close to others and embrace them, but instead, you find yourself on the other side of a videocall wishing - waiting - hoping - for the worst of the plague to pass-over.
The times we dwell in are strange, indeed, friends. What is more, they are often sad. To be sure, there are moments of joy and hope within the sadness that deserve to be held up and celebrated, but as the ever-wise Qohelet said: For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. This is all a long way of saying, wherever you find yourself on today, friends, be tender with yourselves. As we head into this shabbat, it is my prayer for each of us that we might receive exactly the kind of support needed to dwell safely and securely as we contend with plagues big and small.
Kendell Pinkney is the Rabbinic Fellow at Ammud: The Jews of Color Torah Academy
