Q&A: Corona
Corona
Question
Does the Rabbi still hold that the Haredi public’s behavior regarding the coronavirus stems from stupidity rather than from a lack of solidarity?
Or is it now already clear that their whole conduct, even retroactively, also came from a lack of solidarity?
Answer
Social phenomena have complex explanations, and clearly all the explanations can be true. I think that usually this is a matter of ignorance, stupidity, and disconnection from their surroundings. After all, they themselves are also harmed by it, so solidarity here is not the essential point.
This stupidity stems from a primitive religious worldview, as I explained in the column I wrote about this, from a childish attitude toward the “great ones of the generation” (and especially toward deciding who they are), and also from lack of information and ignorance. They were not educated and do not know how things work, and they do not even read newspapers or follow the media, so they have no way to fill in their educational gaps. And I have not yet mentioned the poverty and overcrowding, which are also part of that same conduct and those same values. So too the distress (they feel a constant threat from their surroundings, a terrible lack of confidence—though of course justified—in their way of life and worldview. When a person or group lacks confidence in something, in many cases they cover for it by displaying excessive confidence).
I just read an article by Shlomo Pyotrkovsky in Makor Rishon from this Sabbath, which explained this behavior in terms of the idea of double causality (everything has a natural cause and a divine-theological cause). Since that conception is a logical contradiction, as I showed in my trilogy (and everyone jumped on me and got upset), here you can see the results. How long can people keep swallowing the nonsense that what happens to them is really the result of prayers and commandments, while at the same time making natural “efforts”? The public is not buying this idiotic line, even though all the luminaries of the generation keep trying again and again to defend it against the terrible poison of heresy that I spread, and rightly so. The results are before our eyes.
As I wrote in my column there, the conduct regarding corona is not incidental but an inevitable result of their worldview and their basic mode of conduct. Of the very principles of their faith. So in my opinion this is mainly ignorance and stupidity.
Discussion on Answer
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/opinion/307135/
With God’s help, 12 Shevat 5781
Since most elderly people have been vaccinated and many have already recovered from corona and developed antibodies to it, in my humble opinion it would have been possible to adopt the framework proposed by Ron Huldai, that whoever is already vaccinated should be able to participate freely in cultural events.
This would help the Haredi population because many of them have already been infected with corona and are therefore immune. Instead of raiding wedding halls and synagogues, where it turns out that most if not all of those attending are immune, they should conduct serological tests for the entire population and issue “green passports” to everyone who is immune, and all will be well with Israel.
Best regards, Yaron Fishel Ordner
Another point causing high infection rates in the Haredi public is crowded public transportation. The number of bus lines needs to be doubled so that passengers will not be packed together, and along with masks, open windows, and with God’s help, the possibility of infection will be greatly reduced.
With God’s help, 12 Shevat 5781
The case of the late Moshe Harazi, who died when the ventilator he was connected to became disconnected without the medical staff noticing, once again shows the need for a constant family presence at the patient’s bedside. What is always true is doubly true for corona, which can deteriorate suddenly.
Now that there is a vaccine, family members who will stay by the patient’s bed can be vaccinated, so they can watch over him and encourage him, and thereby increase his chances of recovery, with God’s help.
Best regards, may his healing come speedily,
“And they do not even read newspapers or follow the media, so they have no way to fill in their educational gaps.”
I seriously hesitated over whether this sentence was meant seriously or not.
With God’s help, 12 Shevat 5781
One could say that exposure to the media is what leads to complacency. You hear the media and get the impression that a terrible plague is raging, and then you look around and don’t see the plague, so you start doubting the media’s credibility.
This Sabbath I happened to read Merkaz HaInyanim, which published verbatim the “panic numbers” of those infected and those who died in Haredi concentrations. After Sabbath I took a calculator and calculated the percentage of deaths over all the days of the epidemic relative to the total population. And I found that the percentage (in Jerusalem and Bnei Brak) is about 0.08%—less than one in a thousand… That is to say: you do not really see a raging plague, so one can understand the doubters.
It seems to me it would have been far more convincing to urge caution without trying to create fear and panic. They could have said that the situation requires taking reasonable precautions while preserving normal life. They could have opened businesses and educational institutions while insisting on masks, preventing crowding, maintaining distance, and keeping windows open.
When the demands are reasonable, the chance that they will be followed increases. By contrast, when they stir up panic without enough factual basis, and bring about the destruction of economic, social, and educational life—whose psychological and health damages are far greater than the damages of corona.
In short: caution—yes; panic—no!
Best regards, Akiva Yosef Halevi Radetzky
“And they do not even read newspapers or follow the media, so they have no way to fill in their educational gaps.”
I seriously hesitated over whether this sentence was meant seriously or not.
Sad, but it explains a lot about the atmosphere of the “pandemic” that ensnared great sages…
An Innocent Man and Alex, if only to remove the sadness from your gloomy faces, I thought it would still be worthwhile to explain what I said. Apparently your biases do not allow you to read and understand simple things.
It is hard to ignore my criticism of the media and the level of discourse conducted in it. So to accuse me of being overly complimentary toward the media is to ignore the facts (not at all surprisingly). Here I was speaking about supplementing one’s education, not about information and punditry. When Haredi people do not complete first-grade arithmetic, and their decision-makers are at the level of understanding and thinking of a child in the lower grades of elementary school, it is vital that they hear on the media about the concept of exponential spread, for example, or about various epidemiological processes. True, this is a popularized level and not always precise, but perhaps Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky and those who follow him, if they read Yedioth Ahronoth, will stop behaving like idiots. One should remember that they have no other source, and the media is not a bad source for filling in these holes in their education.
Since it was quite easy to understand this from what I wrote, I can only conclude (what was obvious from the start) that both of you are biased by your agenda and therefore incapable of understanding such simple things. Indeed, the pandemic has ensnared a great many people who behave like the blind groping in a chimney and are unable to see simple facts. Too bad.
Except that it is worth sharpening the point that familiarity with the basic idea of exponential spread is not enough to know how actually to evaluate models of spread in a diverse population.
With God’s help, 16 Shevat 5781
After asking forgiveness from the exponential calculations—when people keep their distance, wear a mask, and make sure to be in an open place, there should supposedly be only a very slight chance that the virus will spread.
Accordingly, the obvious conclusion is that it is preferable for students to be in an educational framework where masks, distancing, and ventilation can be supervised, whereas without such a framework the children will roam the streets with no possibility of supervising whether they keep the hygiene rules.
The greater risk of infection is on crowded public transportation. Only today the Ministry of Transportation came up with the idea that bus lines should be reinforced so there will not be people “standing packed together.” One should judge the “policy makers” favorably—they probably have not boarded a bus in decades.
Best regards, Otto Bush
“The media is not a bad source for filling in these holes in their education.”
In my humble opinion, that is exactly the root of the problem.
If I attribute any credibility to the media and assume as a basic premise that they are at least trying to bring true data—then there is something to the claim.
But if the assumption is that truth and accuracy are the last parameters guiding the media, then every minute spent reading and listening to their nonsense and lies is a waste.
For example—if they keep pumping out the Health Ministry’s falsehoods about 4,000 corona “deaths,” that does not make it any more true.
And now even members of the “experts’ cabinet,” who stood behind imposing the lockdowns, are beginning to rethink things, saying that perhaps a new way of dealing with the virus needs to be developed. Their remarks are quoted in the article “Prof. Galia Rahav: The British mutation has reshuffled the deck” (on the Arutz 7 website).
Prof. Rahav suggests waiting another week in the hope that the lockdown and the vaccines will begin significantly lowering morbidity, “and at the same time being flexible in our thinking. [If] despite the lockdown and the vaccines there is no decline as we would have expected—then we need to think of other possibilities, of something else.”
Dr. Adi Niv-Yagoda as well, a health-policy expert and member of the cabinet, said that “the moment is approaching when there will be no choice but to open the economy broadly, though responsibly, even if morbidity does not decline. This is the default in light of the severe harm Israel is experiencing in the economy, in education, in health, and in national resilience.”
I hereby call on Meretz to publish pictures of Prof. Rahav and Dr. Niv-Yagoda as well, with the caption: “Dangerous to the public” 🙂
Best regards, Exponentio Ergo Sum
Interesting why the government’s conduct at Ben-Gurion Airport is not stupidity and ignorance, likewise the value of democracy that dissolves all the efficiency of social discipline in every sector. There is a crisis of trust in the whole society, people are tired, and of course everyone is normal and the Haredim are stupid.