Happy New Year (we hope)

It’s the five thousand, seven hundred and eighty second birthday of that fourteen-billion-year-old ball of rock and water we call home (see Happy Quantum New Year for the math).  The day is relevant to all humans, not just the Jews.  After a year like 5781, everyone should take it seriously.

It’s not just that the COVID pandemic is so intractable.  There’s also the inability of many to have a calm discussion about it.  “Follow the science,” but science isn’t on a single path.  At times, we have to rely on common sense, a resource that’s been sorely lacking this past year.

Now let’s take Afghanistan.  Oh, wait, it’s already been taken by the Taliban.  They’re now in possession of billions of dollars worth of abandoned high-tech weapons developed by western nations such as Britain, the US and Israel.  The Taliban aren’t our friends, and we can be sure that this technology will soon be in the hands of our enemies, such as Iran and China.

Choose Life

It’s an accepted principle in Judaism that our fate for the coming year is written in a book on Rosh Hashanah, the New Year.  But just before the holiday, we have a Bible reading that says “I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Choose life.”  Rabbi Ronnie Hasson cites the medieval sage Maimonides that the verse teaches that “anything that a person wants to do, he has the ability to do…” and God will not interfere.  We must take responsibility for all that happens to us.  God rewards and punishes precisely because we have free will… Our success is due to many factors including the effort we put in, the decisions we make, the opportunities we capture, etc. We can’t blame God for our failures if we haven’t made the appropriate choices.

The Canadian government chose to allow Chinese scientists (later expelled) to work at the virology lab in Winnipeg.  The Americans chose to fund the Wuhan lab.  Should we say the pandemic is God’s will, or the result of horrible human choices?  When our own weaponry is used against us, whether in acts of terrorism or acts of war, is it God’s will, or people’s (leaders’) stupidity that’s the cause?

5781 is over.  What will we choose in the year 5782?

I wish you a healthy year, I wish you a happy year.  I wish that you make the appropriate decisions, and choose life.

The post Happy New Year! appeared first on Quantum Cannibals.

Though answers may change, many questions stand.  Dr. Anthony Fauci made an important statement about the fluid responses to the Wuhan virus.

“So when you hear someone say something at one point and then two or three months later, if you stick with what you said at the original time when you had one-fifth of the data that you have now, I think that would be inappropriate.”

COVID is something new.  People panicked as it mutated into a global pandemic, not knowing what it is or how to respond.

Difficult questions

• Did COVID come from the lab or wet market in Wuhan?

  

• Was it deliberately enhanced by the Chinese government to make it more deadly?
• Did Xi Jinping (Chinese leader) deliberately spread the virus throughout the world?
• Is it Satan’s, Tam’s, Trump’s, Trudeau’s, Fauci’s, or the World Health Organization’s fault?
• Does closing borders help prevent the spread?
• Are lockdowns effective?
• Do medical grade masks help?
• Do dollar store grade masks help?
• Are the vaccines deadly, effective, or somewhere in between?
• Do ventilators help or harm patients?
• Is hydroxychloroquine a helpful treatment or a placebo?

So many questions.  So many deaths, so much suffering.  Not just from the illness, but from the disruption it caused.  So many people lost their livelihoods, so many other diseases went undiagnosed, untreated.

There are answers to all these questions.  The virus originated somewhere.  The ventilators had an effect.  Masks do something, but we don’t know where or how much.  We may never know.  The questions stand.

The Talmud, a book of Jewish law and tradition consists mostly of records of discussions between rabbis.  Sometimes they agree with each other, sometimes not.  The rabbis challenge each other with difficult questions.  There are many they cannot resolve, so they declare “Taiku.”  It’s an Aramaic word saying the questions stand unanswered.   It’s also popularly explained as an acronym for a declaration that Elijah the Prophet will answer all questions with the advent of the Messiah.  A declaration of “Taiku” is not an admission of failure.

The man Taiku

Taiku is also the name of a character in Quantum Cannibals.  As the chief of a thriving Bronze-Age village Taiku has to build roads, stop bandits,

calm ethnic hostility, and protect refugees, all the while facing an unfathomable foe that threatens to destroy his world.  He has many decisions, many questions, but his best source of answers has been murdered.

The invader follows its own version of the real 1999 People’s Liberation Army (China) military treatise “Unrestricted Warfare.” The authors of this

frightening work stress that there is no distinction between war and peace, and that all means should be used to defeat the enemy.

Taiku knows how to deal with most of the issues he faces, but on too many there is no clear answer.  The questions stand.

There are few clear answers regarding COVID, its origins or how to deal with it.  So much of what was assumed to be true at its outset has been proven false, and vice versa.  Politicians have to make informed guesses, relying on experts who for the most part, are also making informed guesses.  One says “left,” the other says “right.”  The questions stand, but the leaders cannot stand still; they are obliged to act.  In hindsight we know who to call brilliant, who to condemn for his foolishness.

We’re hopefully approaching the end of the COVID pandemic.  Would it have come quicker if our leaders had acted differently?  That’s another question that will stand.

Does Taiku get the answers he needs to save his world?  Read Quantum Cannibals to find out.

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