Camus’ Wisdom for how we confront the Coronavirus
By Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel
CHULA VISTA, California — As the coronavirus is spreading throughout the world, I am social-distancing myself from the rest of the outside world. In quiet but worrisome times like this I enjoy reading literature from history’s most thought-provoking answers—and that is how I decided to re-read Albert Camus’ 1947 short story, The Plague, about a bubonic plague ravaging the people of a North African coastal city of Oran; it is considered to be a classic of twentieth-century literature.
As thousands of rats infest the city, hysteria grips the population. The local papers demand swift action, but as people start falling ill with a strange fever, only then does it become obvious that the illness is the bubonic plague. Only after it becomes impossible to deny that a serious epidemic is ravaging Oran, do the authorities enact strict sanitation measures. The entire city was placed under quarantine.
The reaction of the people during the plague is instructive. Families worry about their loved ones who are confined to Oran. Hysteria grips the nation. The authorities finally arrange for the daily collection and cremation of the rats.
Father Paneloux gave a scolding sermon, declaring how God is punishing Oran for its many sins.
But Paneloux’s attitude changes after one of his congregants excoriates the priest for suffering such a long and agonizing death from the plague. Confronted by the death of an innocent child, the priest delivers a second sermon where he admits, the inexplicable death of innocents must force the Christian to choose whether one believing everything or believing nothing about God. But the priest ultimately took ill, and as he was dying, he held fast to his crucifix. Nobody knew for certain whether he died from the plague or from something else.
Paneloux’s attitude is in marked contrast to Dr. Rieux, one of the main protagonists of the story who chronicles the story of the plague. In a conversation with one of his friends, Jean Tarrou engages Rieux with some scintillating questions.
Tarrou’s gray eyes met the doctor’s gaze serenely.
“What did you think of Paneloux’s sermon, doctor?” The question was asked in a quite ordinary tone, and Rieux answered in the same tone. “I’ve seen too much of hospitals to relish any idea of collective punishment. But, as you know, Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it. They’re better than they seem.” ”
However, you think, like Paneloux, that the plague has its good side; it opens men’s eyes and forces them to take thought?”
The doctor tossed his head impatiently. “So does every ill that flesh is heir to. What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you’d need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague.”
Rieux had hardly raised his voice at all; but Tarrou made a slight gesture as if to calm him. He was smiling. “Yes.” Rieux shrugged his shoulders. “But you haven’t answered my question yet. Have you weighed the consequences?” Tarrou squared his shoulders against the back of the chair, then moved his head forward into the light.
Rieux’s response is precious. Too many religious people act passively in the face of human suffering and evil. They seek to exonerate God rather than come to the aid of the suffering community. Defending God above all else is the fundamentalist’s greatest and important concern.
Tarrou ask Rieux another penetrating but personal question:
“Do you believe in God, doctor?”
Again the question was put in an ordinary tone. But this time Rieux took longer to find his answer.
“No—but what does that really mean? I’m fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I’ve long ceased finding that original.”
“Isn’t that it—the gulf between Paneloux and you?”
“I doubt it. Paneloux is a man of learning, a scholar. He hasn’t come in contact with death; that’s why he can speak with such assurance of the truth—with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishioners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He’d try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence.”
Rieux stood up; his face was now in shadow. “Let’s drop the subject,” he said, “as you won’t answer.” Tarrou remained seated in his chair; he was smiling again.
Tarrou is also an atheist, but his atheism is more tied in to his philosophical and moral beliefs about human responsibility. Like Rieux, he did not see any intrinsic or moral value in death and suffering. According to him (reflecting the philosophical beliefs of Camus, who uses him as his persona mouthpiece) human beings must realize they are engaged in losing but noble struggle against death and suffering. Nevertheless, by living nobly, human beings can give a nobility to their efforts, perhaps reflecting the cynicism of Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). To his credit, Tarrou did whatever he could to alleviate the people’s suffering.
By the time the quarantine ends, the people of Oran lose their obsession about personal suffering. Instead they have a new realization that the impact of the plague is everybody’s concern. All the people have a new understanding about their mutual responsibility in combating the dreaded disease.
Yet, as everything returns to normal; the town returns to its old routine. They soon forget about the human suffering they endured.
Rieux felt chastened by the plague, despite the joy he now hears rising from the streets. He is mindful “that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks, and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city.”
Camus’ brilliant short story contains many valuable lessons for both the religious and secular communities to take to heart. Rather than giving in to the hysteria and fear of this dreaded but new mysterious pandemic, we must work for the achieving the common good and adhere to the numerous safety precautions that can reduce the plague’s severity.
In a paradoxical sort of way, the coronavirus presents us with a challenge to confront our mortality and realize that all of us—regardless of our race, creeds, ethnicity and culture—are profoundly interconnected; our destinies flow together. Let this be the time for us to emulate God’s first act of creation by creating light from the bowels of darkness; and creation from the depths of non-being and lifelessness.
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Rabbi Dr. Michael Leo Samuel is spiritual leader of Temple Beth Shalom in Chula Vista. He may be contacted via michael.samuel@sdjewishworld.com
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This article by Rabbi Samuel, as well as his previous article on hand washing in Judaism ,are Informative and timely…they help to bring some perspective to the cUrrent corona virus pandemic.