Urgent Questions

The current outbreak of corona virus has taken the world by storm.

While there is certainly valid cause for concern, the panic and extreme reaction that this virus has generated is truly unprecedented and somewhat perplexing.

As a truth-seeker and lifelong student of Jewish law, I must raise the following honest and legitimate questions. 

[If questions that challenge the status quo disturb you, please stop reading.]

Adherents to halachic Judaism have a different system of ethics and morality than that of the rest of the world. Physicians are entitled to offer medical advice and even determine medical policy, but a Jew defers to the Code of Jewish Law whenever this policy runs counter to Judaic tenets.

As such, serious clarification is required with regard to recent school and synagogue closings in Jewish communities throughout Israel and the Diaspora.

Who sanctioned such extreme actions? And did these rabbis provide written ruling with sources, rationale and precedent?

I have not seen any such ruling. If any exist, please send it my way.

Some rabbis sent letters to their communities announcing their decision to shut down synagogues and/or schools, and to prohibit private minyanim or gatherings at individuals' homes, but none did so in the form of an authoritative psak. Some rabbis issued letters exhorting their adherents to obey all directives of their state's Dept. of Health (or Ministry of Health in Israel), but no rationale or source was provided for closing schools, yeshivos, or eliminating tefilah b'tzibur.

This is rather alarming given such a high-handed, dramatic and unprecedented psak, truly the first of its kind in millennia.

In contrast, the foremost Posek of the generation, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, ruled precisely the opposite, that yeshivos may NOT be closed under present circumstances.

Not one single rabbi of Rav Kanievsky's caliber (or anywhere close) countered his ruling. The eminent rabbanim of Lakewood ruled accordingly.

Please understand. I am not arguing that schools and/or shuls ought to remain open. I'm simply asking a valid question that DEMANDS to be asked:

Who has taken halachic responsibility for bitul Torah of thousands of Jewish children in these communities?

Let's examine the stated rationale of the closings:

"COVID-19 is highly contagious and can present serious danger to senior citizens and immunocompromised people. By implementing isolation and social distancing, we can slow or delay the rapid spread of the virus, potentially saving lives of those most vulnerable."

While this might make sense at first glance, we must remember that halacha does not necessarily conform with conventional wisdom.

Let's agree on a few basic points:

COVID-19 poses little risk to school-age children and to the vast majority of adults.

Closing schools assumes a halachic obligation to sequester healthy people and/or keep them out of the public in order to theoretically or statistically protect others who might eventually contract the disease.

It further assumes that it is preferable (and therefore obligatory) to isolate the healthy individuals than to confine only the vulnerable individuals. It presupposes that if the public cannot be safe for everyone, then there can be no public for anyone.

Of course, even the state acknowledges that essential services must be provided, and that food stores and even other businesses may remain open to the public. However, school closings assume that the Torah education of children is NON-essential, or not as essential as, say, convenience stores.

And here is where we have problems. Torah education is of primary importance in Judaic law. It is the highest priority of a Jewish community. It is surely on par with most -- if not all -- other businesses that are allowed to remain open to public.

The Code of Jewish law acknowledges situations in which a child's education ought to be interrupted. During a local outbreak of dangerous illness, Jewish Law requires a parent to evacuate his children from the city. However, this is stated with regard to shielding one's own children from harm[1]. No where does halacha require a parent to remove his healthy children from the public in order to shield someone else from potential harm. Instead, the onus of public withdrawal presumably lies on the vulnerable party.

A child who is infected with a contagious disease should obviously be quarantined since s/he poses active risk to others. Likewise, an otherwise-healthy child who was demonstrably exposed to the contagion might arguably be quarantined during such an outbreak, since there is credible cause to suspect that he is an active asymptomatic carrier of disease right now, depending on the incubation period.

However, do we posit that an entire population of children and adults are to be viewed as if they had been exposed to disease in advance to actual exposure? May we treat them as asymptomatic carriers of disease a priori and preemptively ban them from school?

Perhaps the case might be made with regards to non-essential public activities, but as mentioned above, school is by no means non-essential. The mitzva of Talmud Torah is paramount. Every day a child is banned from school is an irreplaceable loss. Moreover, keeping children home from school often causes monetary loss to parents who now need to pay for daycare or stay home from work.

Do we impose monetary loss on healthy unexposed individuals in order to prevent potential/future exposure to vulnerable individuals instead of simply isolating the latter?

And even if one could argue in the affirmative, do we impose incalculable spiritual risk on klal yisrael by banning Torah study of children? [2]

Let's recall the timeless lesson from the Talmud:

Once, the wicked government [of Rome] decreed that the Jewish people were forbidden to study Torah. Pappus ben Judah saw Rabbi Akiva convening gatherings in public and studying Torah [with them]. Said he to him: “Akiva, are you not afraid of the government?”
Said [Rabbi Akiva] to him: “I’ll give you a parable.
“A fox was walking along a river and saw fish rushing to and fro. Said he to them: ‘What are you fleeing?’
“Said they to him: ‘The nets that the humans spread for us.’
“Said he to them: ‘Why don’t you come out onto the dry land? We’ll live together, as my ancestors lived with your ancestors.’
“Said they to him: ‘Are you the one of whom it is said that you are the wisest of animals? You’re not wise, but foolish! If, in our environment of life we have cause for fear, how much more so in the environment of our death!’
“The same applies to us. If now, when we sit and study the Torah, of which it is said, ‘For it is your life and the lengthening of your days[3],’ such is our situation, how much more so if we neglect it . . .” [4] 

Torah study is our lifeblood. The very existence of our people and of the entire world depends on it [5]. Never in Jewish history have yeshivos ceased [6]. Banning it during an outbreak constitutes extraordinary measures. It cannot be done flippantly without authoritative and comprehensive ruling from competent posek.

Instructions to obey state's health department are not sufficient. Rabbi Akiva didn't see dina d'malchusa (government rule) as sufficient grounds to ban Torah study.

Surely our rabbis can do better than that.


Addendum:

Curiously, the same rabbis who have permitted current school closings also sanctioned banning unvaccinated children from school during last year's measles outbreak, even though measles poses little risk to school-age children. Furthermore, many of these same rabbis also tolerated state laws banning unvaccinated children from school this entire school year even when there was no outbreak. (And not surprisingly, Rav Chaim Kanievsky ruled that unvaccinated children must be permitted to attend school).

My question is: is anyone holding these rabbis responsible to justify their rather extreme positions?

Have these rabbis ceded halachic authority carte blanch to medical policy makers?

Disturbingly, Jewish schools announced closures in Crown Heights (Brooklyn) well before public schools did. These schools claimed to have been doing so with rabbinic imprimatur. Can it be that the rabbis of Crown Heights deem Jewish education as less essential than the mayor of NY deems public school education!? Or were these rabbis acting with greater vigilance to protect the vulnerable than the City of NY deemed necessary (at that time)?  Surely dina d'malchusa cannot be the explanation. These rabbis have much explaining to do, with all due respect. Rabbis are not "above the law." Every community member has a right (and an obligation, in this case) to petition these rabbis and demand: "מהיכן דנתוני -- please provide the source and rationale for your ruling."


Notes:

[1] See Magen Avraham Orach Chaim 576:3: "כשאבעבועות פורחין בתינוקות ומתים...דכל אחד יבריח בניו מן העיר בעת הזאת ואם לא עשו זאת הן חייבין בנפשותם" -- "When lesions (i.e. measles, see Pri Megadim Eishel Avraham) breaks out in young children and causes deaths... every one should evacuate his children from the city at that time, and if they didn't, they are responsible for (their children's) own deaths."

[2] See recent letter by Dr. Paul Offit: "The precautionary principle dictates caution to prevent harm. But the precautionary principle also dictates that you don't cause harm in the name of preventing harm." Banning children from school... and bringing society to a standstill... is harm.

[3] Deuteronomy 30:20
[4] Berachos 61b.
[5] Shabbos 119b: "The world exists solely because of the Torah studies of tinokos shel beis rabban.
[6] Yuma 28b: “Since the days of our forefathers, the Yeshivos have never ceased [to be active] from them.