Q&A: The Meaning of Death in the Shadow of Coronavirus
The Meaning of Death in the Shadow of Coronavirus
Question
Rabbi, hello.
The public reaction to coronavirus victims among the elderly population (80 and up) raised two related questions for me, one psychological-sociological and the other philosophical.
1. Does the attitude toward death in this age range, say around the average age of death in Israel, become more extreme because of the circumstances? That is, if we suppose there were a mysterious extreme rise in the number of deaths among the elderly (without there being an illness), would it receive the same alarmed reaction? I’m not asking sarcastically.
2. Is the death of a person at the average age of death, due to a viral disease, more serious / worse / more deserving of mourning than the death of a person at the average age of death due to normative circumstances?
Thanks in advance
T
Answer
- I assume there would have been similar hysteria, and perhaps even more, because then people wouldn’t know the cause or what to do against it. But these are psychological questions, not value questions.
- It isn’t really defined that way. Death from any cause is sad. The assumption with someone who dies from coronavirus is that without it, he would not have died. So why does it matter whether his age is average or not? Does a person who dies after the average age not make us sad? You need to distinguish between the question of a particular person’s death and the phenomenon of many people dying. And likewise between sadness over a person who died and sadness over the phenomenon of people dying in general.