Rabbi naftali citron biography

Inside the shul on the hill sits Rabbi Naftali Citron, gold-sprinkled blue yarmulke on his head, tzitzit dangling from his white collared shirt, as he explains what Judaism relates about such tragedies as the coronavirus. “There’s a verse that we say regarding the giving of the Torah,” the rabbi of The Carlebach Shul on the Upper West Side says. “‘There was a cloud on the mountain, and everyone stood from a distance. And Moshe entered into the cloud and there was G-d.’”

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, he continues, “interprets this verse in the following way: he says the cloud represents depression or sadness, and the people who saw the darkness and the sadness went away from the cloud. But Moshe realized that G-d is even in the sadness and went into the sadness and found G-d there.”

Just one text amongst thousands that speaks to a plague like the coronavirus, this quote that the rabbi offers stems from the Jewish tradition but has wisdom that can resonate even with the faithless: someone or something, whether it be G-d or something else entirely, is there, in th

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