Introduction

This chapter focuses on the reality and construction of human identity as communal beings as well as reasons for isolation and distance from others. It makes a positive contribution toward mitigating the pandemic’s immediate and imminent consequences by visiting different religious groups and communities around the globe. The chapter explores the theory and practice of human contact versus distance within the matrix of religion, gender, and ethnicity and in situations of disease and pandemics including the demands on pedagogy. Unique Hindu responses to the pandemic became apparent. In particular, a picture circulated on social media in which there were two men in masks—one appeared to be a devotee, the other a priest. The pandemic has, ever since then, lost some of its devastating power around the globe, although it still remains a threat to vulnerable populations. During crises, both Judaism and emerging Christianity have adapted worship to changed circumstances through a process of ritual transference.