Q&A: A Prayer Leader Maliciously Spreading Coronavirus
A Prayer Leader Maliciously Spreading Coronavirus
Question
I arranged with a dear Jew that he would serve as the prayer leader in my minyan.
Suddenly someone approached me and claimed that this prayer leader’s wife [really a full league above the norm] goes around bragging that her husband, even though he had coronavirus, went about as usual, and they also sent the children to school as usual, because in their view it’s all just nonsense…
The person told me that just as his wife boasts about this publicly in the garden without shame, that is what his own wife heard from her. a0
If so, he is spilling blood, and until he repents he must not be allowed to lead the prayers.
I went back home and asked my wife whether she too had heard this in the garden from the prayer leader’s wife. She hadn’t heard it [she wasn’t in the garden at that time?], but there are grounds for the suspicion, since she is a serial coronavirus denier, and it fits them.
Am I allowed to accept this slanderous speech? And if it is true, is someone who spills blood [through stupidity] disqualified from serving as a prayer leader?
Answer
Well, this is not really spilling blood. Let’s not exaggerate. I definitely think he is behaving recklessly and irresponsibly, but he is not a murderer. As long as quite a few people in the public think this way, it is hard to say that such a person cannot serve as the prayer leader. If he is unacceptable to the congregation (and not only to you), then of course you can choose not to appoint him as prayer leader.