By Rabbi Julie Schonfeld
Author
Religion News Service
For those of us steeped in faith traditions, it is impossible not to see the current pandemic through the world religions’ great parables. A plague is ravaging the land, sickening people and upending social structures that promote survival. All the while, strife and bitterness triumph precisely when love and caring should prevail.
Into this parable comes a miracle in the form of a vaccine. Through a lens of faith, we can recognize that the human insight, wisdom and creativity that allows us to invent a vaccine is a sign of God’s infinite power and compassion working through us. Over the past centuries, in ways most miraculous, vaccines have spared the lives and ensured the health of countless people.
In the smallpox outbreaks in the 18th and 19th centuries, clergy such as Cotton Mather were crucial in convincing dubious Americans in Boston and New York to submit to variolation and vaccination. Faith leaders can have a similar role to play in bringing an end to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The promise of vaccines has recently been challenged by fear, mistrust and discord. Some surveys show that vaccine hesitancy may lead as few as 50% of Americans, far short of the estimated minimum 70% threshold needed, to accept a vaccine.