HaGaon HaGadol Rav Yitzchak Sorotzkin Shlita is just about the biggest Talmid Chochom on the planet. His wealth, breadth and depth of knowledge are staggering and mind-boggling. He has written over 70 sefarim, many of them on topics that almost nobody else wrote about, filled with incredible chiddushim. So we have to have tremendous Derech Eretz for him.
That being said - I listened to this talk and want to comment that I am not sure that his analysis is completely correct [one is allowed to ask questions on the Chumash and the Gemara and certainly on contemporary Rabbonim. תורה היא וללמוד אני צריך].
1] The whole Corona is b/c we are too immersed in Olam Hazeh? Maybe, but I can think of some other explicit aveiros that many of us do. Let's see: Sinas Chinam, Machlokes, Lashon Hara, Chillul Hashem and the list goes on and on. So OF COURSE we should scale down our gashmiyus but there is a lot more to fix and it is hard to attribute excessive gashmiyus alone as the source for this megeifa [UNLESS one is a Navi and received a Divine communication].
2] The Goyim are making evil גזירות to stop us from learning and davening? Nobody is stopping anyone from learning or davening. The regulations are in order to protect our health. The attitude of "us against them" is in my opinion, anachronistic. There is anti-semitism today but trying to stop Corona is not an expression of it. There are plenty of Chashuv Talmidei Chachomim who don't view the regulations as גזירות against religious observance but rather encourage everyone to follow them.
3] So much talk about the SPIRITUAL korbanos of the pandemic but nary a word about all of the physical suffering and death. What about all of the orphans and widows? Shouldn't we be feeling their pain?? Is the only thing that matters the soul? Rav Yisrael Salanter famously taught that "yenems gashmiyus is my ruchniyus". When a person suffers physically that should be a cause of great distress for me - not ONLY when he suffers spiritually. That is why we have a mitzva to give tzdaka which involves PHYSICAL MONEY or hachnosos orchim which involves physically feeling and otherwise attending to the bodily needs of others.
And what about the fact that every single person who got sick or died was infected by another PERSON. So who killed Rav Dovid Soloveitchik? Who killed Rav Yitzchak Scheiner? Who killed the Novominsker Rebbe? We can't know but Hashem knows and we have a LOT of [albeit unwitting] killers among us. A LOTTTT!!!
And what about all of those who weren't careful and were partially guilty of their own illness and/or death. That TOO, is a huuuuuge aveirah.
