The coronavirus will have no long-term material impact on humanity, but it may have a spiritual influence, being the first time humanity has approached the Jewish messianic ideal that humans have always aspired to, and which is supposed to conclude all of creation: the eternal Sabbath. And one who has tasted Hungarian wine - the world will no longer deceive them. On the new class division - and on the endless Yom Kippur of people without meaning
The old joke about the World to Come describes it as a yeshiva [Jewish religious school], where, of course, they study Talmud. For those who studied Torah in this world - it's paradise. For those who didn't - it's hell. Similarly, the coronavirus, which is the greatest Sabbath humanity has ever experienced, and the closest thing to the World to Come that has existed in this world so far - a day that is all Sabbath and rest for eternal life - divides humanity into two old classes. The world of coronavirus, which is a kind of World to Come - described in the Midrash as "a world that is all long" and characterized as "a world that is all Sabbath" - is entirely the cessation of matter and action, in favor of spirit and virtuality, and therefore it has winners and losers. The coronavirus line divides humanity between those who live in spirit and those who live in matter. For those whose lives have inner meaning - lockdown is paradise on earth, allowing freedom to read and relax, to delight and be delighted, to learn and teach, to create and engage in matters of Torah - "and call the Sabbath a delight". And for those who lack such meaning - it's hell.
The coronavirus has created a utopian reality where the world is shut down and suspended, and where material reality has become irrelevant (due to a temporary malfunction in material reality), just like the spiritual-temporal space that the Sabbath creates for the Jew every week. The prohibition (and not the permissible!) is the gateway to holiness, and even to freedom itself - suddenly no work can be done. The streets resemble Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] all over the globe. Nothing can be done in the world (not even "for" the world! - the refuge of all the purposeful moralists who tend to cry out that "something must be done") - "it is Sabbath from crying out" and "there is nothing to do". And whoever toiled on the eve of Sabbath - and prepared for themselves material and spiritual provisions - will eat on the Sabbath. And whoever did not toil on the eve of Sabbath...
Of course, Facebook, instead of being a yeshiva of below (as it could have been in a world of spirit), constitutes a gathering of idlers for all the narcissists, extroverts, neurotics, and nagging complainers in the whole world - all the miserable people on earth - and it is full of the anxiety of the holy day and of public Sabbath desecrators (namely secularists, in the sense of those devoid of any spirit, who long ago forgot the standing posture before "the great thing", and each of them is a prime minister even on normal days). But the truly God-fearing world, fearful for Torah and the world of spirit, enjoys every moment. The polluted and lowly material world, with all its rat-race and pig-like businesses, with its constant consumption and screaming, with its sub-culture industry - rests from all its work, is freed from the curse of the original sin of "by the sweat of your brow you shall eat bread", and approaches the messianic reality we have always yearned for. When there is no material purpose - this is freedom. The great vacation has arrived - and in a big way. My God, my God, may it never end.
The Facebook anxiety patients have of course decided to wage war on everything that has brought the whole world a taste of the goodness of Sabbath, of the warm Jewish home and its dense family life, of the delightful bed uses - monogamous sexuality, intimacy, rest, sleep and dreaming - and of learning for its own sake. As a kind of substitute for the pathetic preoccupation with salary and expense amounts, they have developed a perverse preoccupation with numbers and death mathematics, instead of asking themselves: how many books have you read since the beginning of the lockdown? (and perhaps finally consider reading their shelf ornaments, which they bought at a weight of four for a hundred shekels). Instead of gratitude, they proclaim the death of everything that brought them this good: capitalism (which, if it just continues to work until the end of the century, there will be no hungry or poor person in the world, and no one will be forced to work anymore, certainly not in agriculture or industry, namely in the production of matter, in the age of industrial printing), technology, or globalization, and all this precisely at the moment of their great victory.
After all, it is only thanks to capitalism that humanity has become rich enough to afford the sabbatical year (whose possibility is a sign of blessing - from the Torah!), it is only thanks to technology that we have any ability to live full spiritual lives without leaving the bed (lectures by Nobel laureates and world giants on YouTube! Sites like Maburat, Quanta, Alaxon, The Degeneration of the Nation...), it is only thanks to science that we need not fear death (if only we act according to Boccaccio's proven method: literature against viruses). And this is, of course, globalization's finest hour - and its first great spiritual and cognitive victory (which of course comes after its material victory), and it is - surprisingly! - impressive and awe-inspiring. We are privileged to live in the first global event in human history and one of its most beautiful historical hours - an event that unites nations and races, religions and enemies - and behold, it is not a nuclear war, a third world war, a global terrorist attack, or a man-made catastrophe, but a utopian event of saving lives, of healing the soul and healing the body, of human overcoming of nature that has been cruel since time immemorial, and of Sabbath and of peace. Shabbat Shalom [Peaceful Sabbath]!
Part 1 - Virality: The Coronavirus as Network Stupidity