Some theological ruminations on #coronavirus by way of reflections on the laws of Shabbat.
Rabbinic tradition posits that there are 39 archetypal forms of prohibited labor on Sabbath.
The first of these 39 to be discussed in the Mishna and Talmud in the most counter-intuitive, namely, carrying (from one domain to another).
In contrast to cooking, writing, sorting, and the other archetypes, carrying is not apparently a form of "creation."
And yet, disciplines from literary theory to chemistry to physics, remind us that the substance of something does change when it's context changes. Whereas, most forms of prohibited labor change the physical composition of an object, carrying merely changes its locale.
Like Duchamp's upside down urinal, carrying teaches that 'framing' or 'presentation' matter as much to what a thing is as the thing itself.
In Heidegger's terms, "Thing things world. World worlds thing." The movement of a thing therefore is a kind of recreation of the world of which it is a microcosm.
Clifford Geertz claims that the anthropologist can understand an entire culture by simply taking one object from it, a rug, or a jug, a tablecloth, etc. and meditating on it.
Which brings us to #coronavirus. A virus cannot move unless it has "carriers."
Our age of rapid global travel is one in which, arguably, the greatest labor is no longer manufacturing, but transportation. (The question of zoom, virtual communication and teleportation, needs to be approached from this point of view, too.)
I.e., what if using phone or email should be generally counted as labor, not on the grounds that they use electricity (cooking), or that they are a form of writing, but on the grounds that they move data from one realm to another (carrying).
#Socialdistancing is the practicing of refraining from carrying (that is, carrying the virus from domain to domain). Thus, to contain and ultimately mitigate the virus requires a mass coordination of shabbat/sabbath consciousness.
Eruv is a form of self-quarantine, a zone in which we can carry, because we presume that we are as one unit; there can be carrying from entity to entity, but not within one entity.
A drastic measure such as the absolute closing of a national border is a kind of Eruv.
Anyone who protests such a measure on pragmatic or moral grounds should therefore be interested in the arguments against eruv, as well as the limits placed upon it.
A final thought: could the earth itself constitute one village, one mass quarantine of 7 billion people? Perhaps. This is the idea of herd immunity, the notion that the virus can no longer spread, because we no longer view ourselves as separate, but as one.
A virus can only spread because we are separated, individuals, with a sense of distinction and personal liberty; and, it can only spread because we are connected, under the influence (Influenza/flu) of each other.
