Considering the growing fears that the spread of the coronavirus infection may turn into a global epidemic, Daniel Johnson reflects on the value of prayer:

In past times of plague, prayer was not only humanity’s last resort but often the only one. Today, fortunately, there is a great deal that we can do to prevent or mitigate the spread of the coronavirus. But we are also beginning to realize that in our globally interconnected era, there is a high price to be paid for any interruption in trade or travel. Our best laid plans are of limited effect; and the freedom of movement that we prize is now problematic.

Hence this is a time when the power of prayer comes into its own. Prayer does not presuppose faith. We do not all pray to the same God or gods. Many people who do not believe in any God, who never visit a church or mosque or temple or synagogue, nevertheless find comfort in prayer.

The Christian understanding of prayer, notes Johnson, draws on a Jewish belief that prayer is generally “not about asking God to do what we want.”

It is not given to us human beings to determine everything that befalls us in our lives. We must learn to accept our frailties and our insignificance in this often unforgiving world.

Yet through prayer we are reminded that none of us is alone. Our cries are heard, even if we do not know it. Faced with challenges that surpass our strength, we can take comfort in the idea that each and every one of us does matter, if only we open ourselves to the idea of something beyond ourselves. To pray is to be human; to be human is to pray.

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.