Q&A: Lockdown During the Holidays
Lockdown During the Holidays
Question
Hello Rabbi,
1. In your opinion, is Litzman right in his claim that they waited with the lockdown until the holidays because the state does not care about the harm to prayer services, and that it would have been proper to impose the lockdown earlier?
2. In your opinion, is there justification for the exceptions they made for prayer services (dozens of people in a closed building if it is large enough), while the rest of the restrictions are very severe?
Answer
I don’t know. I have no information. It is only natural that those making the decisions do so on the basis of their understanding and their values. So it is certainly possible that the decision-makers do not give prayer the kind of weight that Litzman gives it (personally, I suspect that he too does not really give it significant weight. He has political interests and constraints. It seems to me that religious people too, even those who are not Lithuanians like me, would survive just fine even if they were forbidden to pray with a congregation on Rosh Hashanah. Don’t tell anyone, but in my opinion some of them would even breathe a sigh of relief).
But the feelings of deprivation that the Haredim constantly project have no basis. The reason is that there are no Haredim in the places where decisions are made because the Haredim do not engage in such matters. Beyond that, a lot of people are getting screwed over and shut in, but the Haredim are always sure that they are the ones getting screwed more than everyone else. That is a common sport in defensive sub-societies.
The way the state is conducting itself, not only with regard to prayers, is a bad joke. My impression is that there is a total loss of composure there and no policy at all. The memes currently circulating on WhatsApp about the calculations needed to run prayer services this coming Rosh Hashanah testify to that.
Discussion on Answer
What do you recommend (or would rule) to do on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? Pray outside? At home?
I don’t understand what my recommendations have to do with it. If you have a minyan outside or inside according to the rules, you can pray there. Certainly when there is shofar blowing.
In my humble opinion (and this really is my personal opinion, so if anyone has comments on my comments I’d be happy to hear them), from the standpoint of state policy considerations, logic requires imposing the lockdown during the holidays for two main reasons: first, there is less damage to the economy at that time (because fewer people work then). Second, during the holidays people tend to gather with many people (and at such large multi-participant events, they also usually eat, which increases the chances of infection). In any case, it is clear to me that the government did not do this because it is anti-religious. The state reached a catastrophic situation, and it makes sense to impose a lockdown. In my opinion, Litzman’s behavior was very unprofessional (and that is putting it mildly).
Correction: on the sixth line, “to all” = “according to everyone.”
And maybe the lockdown during the holidays is an initiative of the religious, in order to prevent travel and the opening of malls on Sabbaths and holidays? 🙂
Best regards, “the impoverished religionization commentator”
In my humble opinion, the reason there is no concern about coronavirus at demonstrations is that brazenness is “sovereignty without a crown,” kingship without a crown — which in the foreign tongue is Corona. And if so, at demonstrations full of “brazenness” — there cannot be Corona 🙂
Best regards, Shatzius Latinus