Most of the time, December hits and I don’t even consider it to be the end of the year. We’re still smack in the middle of the school year, it’s cold outside and there is no sense of anything ending. This year, almost everyone I know feels completely differently. It’s as if January and February of 2020 didn’t exist and we want straight into corona life. While many are so very grateful that we have made so much progress since those scary days of March and April, this global pandemic is not over yet. We still know people who are sick and others who are very much still navigating the repercussions of those early months. I am thankful that the pandemic has had minimal personal impact on my life, which I am eternally grateful to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But there is one thing that seems to persist: too much information.

In those very weeks I had immersed myself to adjusting to my new work life, organizing closets, and embracing the streaming services that were available to me with the click of a button. I did not watch the news, read the news, or listen to the news. I didn’t check the New Jersey COVID tracker daily, check the Misaskim website for levaya notices, or add myself to Tehillim chats. Nor did I listen to the countless shiurim that were now available to me or read every community-wide update email. I simply kept myself in a bubble. Despite achieving some level of isolation from the rest of the world, I still had plenty of time to judge. I knew which families were makpid on social distancing and who was being careful about not touching the Amazon packages for three days. It was as if I was being paid to be a contact tracer, and when I would spot someone in the grocery store who I was “told” had a family member with COVID, I would immediately call a friend with the latest news and blame others for potentially infecting me. (Side note: I think I’m the last person who has never gotten a COVID test.) As the discussions about camp came about, it lent itself to even more judging, as if I felt I was in charge of seeing everyone’s inconsistencies.

I don’t think I’m alone in comfortably admitting that I’m a “judger.” Along with a life-threatening virus came information that I was able to shut myself out from while there were other details about people’s personal lives that was suddenly available to me. It was as if the texts were pre-written and all we had to do was insert a person’s name and click send. Months later, this remains the one thing about this pandemic that is the same. Even with the vaccine in our foreseeable future, this tekufah in our lives is far from over. Asking, “Well, do they have antibodies?” or making comments like “Well, no one trusts a rapid” is part of our everyday vernacular. Simultaneously, for peers who choose to be more “makpid” than others, we aim to find inconsistencies among their family members. Maybe I’m the only one who’s this obnoxious, but I get the vibe that I’m not the only one.

So what do I want to see end in 2020? Just let everyone be. Well, I’m no fool, and of course, I know myself and others can’t change our behavior to stop judging. And I know that now that we have a vaccine, there will be even more discussions. But I do want to find the strength to just not care as much. 2020 had so much information. It was nearly impossible to decipher what was the emes. Too many subjective opinions—not just from the media, but from family members, neighbors, our shuls and our schools. It’s rare that as a nation we are all facing the same nisayon, and here we are all facing and powering through that challenge incredibly differently. While most of our lives are personal, all of us are making assumptions about others without knowing all the circumstances—so who do we think we are in making such assumptions? The information is not going away. As much as I dream, I’m in la-la land if I think we can all just go about our personal lives and actually keep them personal. It’s not even about social media anymore—or even the media. It’s how we see people wearing masks, it’s overhearing your kid’s friend saying they went to a Chanukah party with their cousins from Long Island and getting nasty looks when people hear you took a plane. I pray that I will be able to judge less in 2021—and I truly hope this sticks for the rest of my life. Everyone is entitled to internalize or ignore the information; just let people be in 2021.

Rachel Zamist is a proud Passaic resident.