This past weekend, a lot of us received a test in our commitment to our values about how to behave towards those who are ill and who might be our political opponents. Some of us did better than others.
I refer, of course, to the news that President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, tested positive for COVID-19 with the president being hospitalized. After three nights at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the president has returned to the White House, and it appears that the nation has been spared a possible crisis in which the commander-in-chief was incapacitated. Reactions to the announcement, however, have been something like a national ethics test where we were asked to put aside our political opinions and exhibit what in the Jewish world we commonly call menschlichkeit or a sense of humanity.
The good news is that most people in public life passed the test. That was true of former Vice President Joe Biden, who, along with his wife, issued a gracious statement saying that they were “praying for the health and safety of the president and his family.” Just as important, he reminded his followers that “this is not about politics.”
The Bidens weren’t alone in saying that. Many people in public life—left, right and in the middle—did the same, giving us a heartening lesson that disagreeing with someone, even vehement disagreement, shouldn’t cause us to lose our own humanity in wishing them ill, especially in the middle of a pandemic.
Not everyone, however, met that same high standard. While Trump was in the hospital, social media was a cesspool of vile invective and hateful rhetoric illustrating the anger of many of the president’s detractors in language that was inappropriate and gave the lie to their claim to the moral high ground.
