Perhaps a good Mashal for what we are experiencing now in quarantine would be the experience of a caterpillar in its cocoon. For the first part of its life a caterpillar experiences a lot of freedom. It wanders around, eats what it wants, interacts with other caterpillars and has a general sense of liberty. Suddenly it finds itself wound up tightly in a cocoon and cannot go anywhere. It sits there for a few weeks and then it emerges into the open air. But its existence is now completely different from anything it experienced before. Prior to being cocooned it was free to roam about on the tree it was born on but that was it. Now, it flutters about and can roam for miles (monarchs will actually migrate hundreds of miles, from California to Mexico). So while the caterpillar is completely clueless as to what is happening to it, and might even complain about being cramped in, it is in reality being prepared for something much bigger and better than it could ever have imagined.
Quarantine has a feeling to it like a cocoon. Only three weeks ago we wandered about, hither and tither, feeling very busy and occupied with what were overwhelmingly important schedules. Suddenly it became illegal to do just that. We are now confined to our homes by the law of the land, only allowed out to shop for food, pharmaceuticals and exercise. We cannot Daven with a Minyan, learn together as a Tzibbur, or teach our children Torah in our painstakingly built schools. We are bewildered and bereft and do not have a clue as to what happened to us. But there is something that we do know.
There is something happening now that is much greater than us. HaKadosh Baruch Hu has ground the entire globe to a halt. There is a feeling of anticipation in the air, though we do not know what is to come next. For millenia we have Davened for Mashiach to come. Our hopes have been excited time and again, yet we were never Zoche to have them fulfilled. We do not know whether we will be Zoche to see them fulfilled now, but it certainly seems like a time which is Mesugal for Mashiach. Who knows if we are not being cocooned in right now in preparation for a far greater existence when we are released. If that is true, (and even if tragically it were not), we need to use our time now correctly. The caterpillar which does not develop in the cocoon will not have wings or colors when it comes out. We need to use this time wisely. What a tragedy it would be if rather than working on ourselves we sat back and wasted the time needed for self-development on watching movies! Now is the time to put in all the effort we can to perfect our Avodas HaShem. If we do that, then we will be equipped to enter into a world which will perforce be very different than the one we left.
But that is only one aspect of the cocoon. For thousands of years silk makers have boiled the cocoons and unwound them to spin silk thread from them and weave beautiful fabrics from them. Whatever the end of this saga is, one thing is certain and that is that it will result in a tremendous Kiddush HaShem. As such, we are all actors on a global stage. The curtain is up, and we in our houses are playing our individual parts, threads in an 8 billion thread count fabric tapestry. It is exceedingly heartbreaking and difficult to read the news and hear of the hundreds and thousands of people suffering in the hospitals and Lo Aleinu giving up their lives to COVid-19. Much of this falls under the category of ???? ??? ??, ??? ???? ?? the answer to which lies far above our paygrade. Our job is to maintain our Emuna and Bitachon in the knowledge that this is good. We know that to be a fact because the Ribono Shel Olam is a ?????. He created this world solely to do good to man, and since nothing happens without His willing it to be, if it happened it is good, regardless of whether little me can understand it . Knowing that it is there, waiting only to be uncovered, let us look for the good in every aspect of these times; accepting as we do that there will be much that we don't understand. Let us rejoice in being chosen to play a part in such an amazing script, while simultaneously mourning those who have played a much harder role. Above all let us prepare ourselves for what is to come, by putting our every last ounce of energy into Davening, begging HaShem to end this terrible plague, with a Shofar and not merely a vaccine. Too many lives have been lost already, let us wake up to HaShem's call before we lose any more.
