Ari Zal and the Safed epidemic

Living in the 16th century in Safed, and born in Egypt, Rabbi Isaac Louria was the master of his generation in the teachings of the Zohar.
In Shibhey haAri, the biography of Ari, a story is told which says that in the middle of a teaching, Ari suddenly tells his students that an epidemic would quickly arrive in Safed, in the coming days if urgent action does not was not accomplished.
When his pupils asked him what action it was, the Ari replied that it was necessary to give Tzeddaka, charity, urgently to the most deprived. He ordered them to go to a poor man in the city whose name he told them and explained that this man was in distress and that his lament in Heaven could stir up judgments about the city. The students did what the Ari ordered, looking among the alleys of Safed where this man lived, and ended up finding his home. With charitable deeds and words to console him, they got him to forgive the city. As Ari had predicted, the epidemic reached the outskirts of Safed but stopped in the neighboring villages. The Tzedakah had saved the city of Safed. Unlike those who think that there is nothing else to do but accept the turning point of fate when an epidemic strikes, the Ari takes a proactive position and establishes a clear spiritual cause to tell us where to look under such circumstances. Ari does not hesitate to show us that the source of the scourge is social injustice, which is an earthly and practical reality, which the selfish mind refuses to face. The spiritual cause according to Ari is before our eyes, the neglected that society does not support, the elderly, the homeless, migrants of misery and war that are driven back to the borders, families separated by walls , the profit drawn from the labor of the poorest who manufacture in conditions close to the slavery of consumer products for the countries of their ex colonial masters, all these shows of flagrant and yet repressed injustice, create the danger of an epidemic devastating and blind, this is what this great master of the Zohar wants to teach us. According to him, and the other great masters of this Moroccan tradition, what happens to us as individuals or communities, is linked to our actions and to no external cause. Each event must lead us to this reflection, because it concerns our spiritual elevation, the reason for our existential experience.
Taking responsibility is not the same as cultivating guilt. The distinction is important to make: guilt passively accepts things, but responsibility is active and changes them.
The Ari tells us that misery and injustice cause the plagues of epidemics and other negative manifestations in our conscious space.
Consciousness is a word whose two meanings are inseparable: to be awake, as well as benevolent ethical morality.