Shabbat shalom.

In the past three weeks I’ve been back in New Orleans,

you can feel a real change happening in the air. Where weeks ago I wouldn’t have
dared enter a grocery store, a restaurant, or bar without a mask, now it is
suddenly the new culture that mask wearers are decidedly in the minority. Where
a month ago, if someone reached out their hand to try to shake mine, I would
definitely have balked; now, at least at shul, I politely reach back.
This is not a bad thing. While everyone is returning at their own pace and
taking their own precautions, the vaccine has enabled this return to more
normalcy. And while our guards are still naturally up, we can feel a shift in our
world beginning.
When the pandemic began, numerous prayers were developed in support
of medical workers. And while their structure and style varied, most of them
seemed to contain a reference to this week’s parsha. “And Aaron stood between
the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed”. Here we are over a year
since those prayers were developed and we’re starting to finally experience our
moment of staying the plague.
And what enabled Aaron to stop this plague was not just the action of
standing; rather, it was the ketoret, the incense, that Aaron burned that was the
active ingredient to ending the plague. The text reads:

‫ׂשים קְט ֶֹרת וְהֹולְֵך‬

ִ ‫וַּי ֹאמֶ ר מ ֹׁשֶה אֶל־ַאהֲר ֹן קַח אֶת־הַּמַ חְּתָ ה וְתֶ ן־ ָעלֶי ָה אֵׁש מֵ עַל ַה ִּמזְ ֵּב ַח ְו‬
‫מְ ה ֵָרה אֶל־ ָהעֵדָ ה ְו ַכּפֵר ֲעלֵיהֶם ּכִי־יָצָא הַּקֶ צֶף מִ ִּל ְפנֵי י ְהֹוָה ֵהחֵל ַהּנָגֶף׃‬

Rashi brings an explanation from the midrashic text, Mechilta d’rabi yishmael,
which asks “why was it the incense that was used to cure the plague?”
 ‫ְלפִי ׁשֶ הָיּו י ִׂשְ ָראֵל מְ לִיז ִים ּומְ ַרּנְנִים ַאחַר הַּקְט ֶֹרת לֹומַ ר סַם ַה ָּמוֶת הּוא — עַל יָדֹו מֵתּו נָדָ ב‬
‫ׁשעֹוצֵר מַ ֵּגפָה הּוא‬
ֶ ‫ ּתִ ְראּו‬,‫ עַל י ָדֹו נִׂשְ ְרפּו חֲמִ ּׁשִ ים ּומָאתַ י ִם אִ יׁש — ָאמַ ר ַה ָּקּבָ"ה‬,‫וַאֲ בִיהּוא‬
‫ְו ַה ֵחטְא הּוא הַּמֵ מִ ית‬
In this way, the use of the ketoret was to restore its reputation from what people
perceived of it of late—as a concoction of death—to what it always was meant to
be: a vehicle for life-saving atonement.
Even though we feel the return to normalcy, many of us are acutely aware
that we live in a state with one of lowest vaccination rates in the country. As of
today, 36.6% of Louisianans have at least one dose of the vaccine, while in New
Orleans we’re just below 50%. In a big way a significant group of people in our
state and the country see the vaccine as a “sam hamavet” rather than an elixir of
life.
What is our role then, in moving forward? As we know, we cannot convince
people who are firmly decided to not get vaccinated to do so. That is a losing
proposition. But the larger group, at least of unvaccinated New Orleanians, is not
determined to never get the vaccine, rather is simply concerned about its safety
and efficacy. For those of our friends and family in that category, we must
highlight the ways that getting vaccinated has freed us to feel so much more safe,
and enabled the reopening of life all around us. We must also emphasize the ways
in which getting vaccinated makes everyone in the community more safe,
especially in the face of concerning Covid variants that are even more infectious
and deadly.
 Each of us, then, are like Aaron: standing between the death of this past
year and the life starting to emerge on the other side. We have the curative ready
to do its work, we just have to continue to advocate for its effectiveness, the way
it protects others, and the freedom it brings if we are to fully prevent the plague. I
bless us that we will each be able to do our small part to making that future a
reality. Shabbat shalom.