The Lakewood initiative that put Pesach in arm’s reach

Boxed In

Around the Jewish world, this past Purim was celebrated with a tinge of anxiety. Was COVID-19 really a world crisis? And anyway, how bad could it be?

But when the usual pre-Pesach bustle was upended by spreading illness, growing Tehillim lists, and statewide lockdowns, community activists, realizing the extent of the catastrophe, knew they had to step up to the plate. Lakewood askanim recognized the need for unprecedented action on behalf of the kehillah, and Beth Medrash Govoha president and CEO Rabbi Aaron Kotler, charged with the safekeeping of 6,800 talmidim and their families, and, by extension, the huge community associated with it, knew the yeshivah had to act.

“Close to 90 percent of households in Lakewood are yeshivah talmidim or alumni, and that placed us in a central role,” Rabbi Kotler shares. “After China, we saw the virus hitting Italy, and we knew that fast action would save countless lives and that this was no time for hesitation.”

As heroic physicians, Hatzolah leaders and Bikur Cholim askanim organized the medical responses, Rabbi Kotler and a team of BMG’s board of governors, including Eli Tabak, Eli Liberman, and Moishe Tress, rallied to develop creative solutions to a situation Lakewood had never faced before. For the community’s health and physical safety — it was urgent to enable people to stay home — the first thing they created was ESS, Emergency Supper Service, literally overnight.

ESS addressed the basic food needs for those who couldn’t shop or cook — people who were sick, caring for sick relatives, or in quarantine — by providing suppers below cost and delivered in a sterile manner by Chaveirim volunteers.

Yet the greater challenge was yet to come. Pesach is a time of massive travel for the Lakewood community. Young families join their extended families across the United States. Bochurim return to their home communities, and parents and grandparents join their married children in Lakewood. While the mixing and moving between cities is usually a time of family bonding, with a pandemic raging, it was a recipe for disaster. And so BMG, networking with rabbanim and leaders across the country, sent out the clear message: “Save lives, stay home.”

This extraordinary decision would limit the spread of the virus. But now what?