Yearning to Breathe Free

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..."

Is the right to "breathe free" no longer guaranteed in the so-called "Land of Liberty?"

Isn't my prerogative to "breathe free" protected by the Bill of Rights?

Isn't the freedom to breathe without obstruction implicit in the right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?"

Recently I was asked:

"Is there a 'religious exemption' to mandatory mask policy?"

I responded:

Ask better: should anyone even need an exemption?

What about bodily autonomy and the Nuremburg Code?

Who gave state the right to interfere with your breathing in the first place?

"It's to protect people," or so goes the official party line.

There may be some benefit to masks in curbing the spread of disease, but does this alleged benefit justify violating a healthy individual's personal autonomy?

No, it doesn't.

Mask proponents will counter: "How do you know that the individual is healthy? May she's an 'asymptomatic carrier?'"

Answer:

Maybe so, but there's nothing you can do about that, unless you can prove that this person is actively contagious or at least that she was recently exposed to someone who was actively contagious. Alternatively, you'd need to empirically demonstrate that a significant segment of the asymptomatic population is indeed contagious with a deadly disease.

Otherwise, keep your hands off her mouth and nose. And keep your hands off the Bill of Rights too while you're at it.

You have no right to interfere with my civil rights or bodily autonomy. My body, my choice.

The only way you may suspend my rights is if you can prove with strict scrutiny that I pose an actual risk to you or anyone else.

There has been no "strict scrutiny" with regards to mask mandates. It's all based on statistical models. It has never been scientifically proven that asymptomatic carriers are contagious in numerically significant cases, at least not nearly enough to give government sweeping powers that effectively deem every healthy person a "risk to society" as a "contagious asymptomatic carrier" by default.

It doesn't matter if some, many, or all virologists think societal masking is an effective way to stop the spread of virus in a population.

Bodily autonomy is sacrosanct.

People who are afraid are welcome to stay indoors, or wear N-95 protective ventilators before venturing out. They may NOT enforce ventilators on anyone else in the public domain (unless that person is known to be contagious).

All this aside, let's address the question I was asked above. Does the mandatory mask policy infringes in anyone's religious freedom?

Answer:

Yes, it violates a basic tenet of the world's original Abrahamic faith, Judaism.

Deuteronomy 4:16: "You shall guard your souls exceedingly well." This means that you are entrusted with the obligation to safeguard your own health. Yes, we also have communal responsibility towards others, but that is secondary.

Our sages taught: "Your life comes first before the life of your fellow."

Breathing is synonymous with life itself. The Biblical Hebrew term for your life-giving soul is nefesh, "breathing."

Another synonym for soul is neshamah, also "breathing."[1]

Breathing is sacrosanct. The term pikuach nefesh means saving lives, but literally it means "searching to save anyone who's still breathing" (i.e. in a collapsed building).

The world's most competent expert in your own well-being is... YOU.

The Code of Jewish Law[2] rules:

If it's Yom Kippur and a person says: "I need to eat," even if he doesn't claim his life might be endangered by not eating...he should immediately be given food until he says: "Enough."
We do not assume that he is a wicked person [who wishes to violate Yom Kippur]. Instead, the assumption is that he feels that he indeed requires this food, for a person’s own heart knows the bitterness of his soul. Therefore, even if a hundred doctors say that he does not need to eat, and even if they say that food will harm him, we listen to the patient. [It is assumed that] he certainly needs [to eat], because he knows that it is Yom Kippur, and he nevertheless requests food.

Takeaway:

I am the most reliable expert concerning my own life, i.e. my breathing.

If I feel that I cannot breathe properly with a mask, I am Biblically prohibited from keeping the mask on my face.

It is irrelevant if all the doctors on earth clinically observe me and insist that the mask does not impede my breathing. 

I am entitled to assert my need to unobstructed breathing, irrespective of any "professional" opinion. It's irrelevant if public health ideologues claim that my unhindered breathing poses some sort of statistical risk to society.

Like flight attendants always say, make sure you can breathe before worrying about the breathing of another.

How much more so when your breathing endangers no one except for an alleged statistic and political agenda.

So take off that mask and breathe freely with pride. You are observing G-d's law, and you're unabashedly asserting your religious freedom in the process.

Savor your freedom like a breath of fresh air.

Inhale air that's rich in oxygen, the only nutrient that government hasn't figured out a way to tax us for.

Exhale with joy. Know that you are embodying the last verse in Psalms, "Let every soul praise G-d, Hallelujah!" as interpreted phonetically by our sages, "With every breath of air that you breathe you are praising your Creator."[3]

Don't let anyone force a mask over that divine act of lauding your Creator.

To sum it up, current "mandatory mask policy" threatens to destroy the very fabric of our republic and jeopardizes the freedoms we all hold dear. 

When these unjust policies are policed, we no longer live in a free society, but in a police state.

"Give me your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" cried Lady Liberty of old. That's all ancient history now.

Today's USA mercilessly forces masks onto the faces of her citizens.

"I can't breathe" cries the individuals who are gasping for a breath of freedom.

"Too bad, stop being selfish!" yells public health police. "Your breathing is 'endangering' others! Your freedoms endanger 'public health'!" they shriek menacingly. "No more freedom for you."

Today's USA is creating new "huddled masses" of citizens who yearn to breathe free.

The medical tyranny of today's America has marginalized an emerging population nationwide. These despised individuals are tempest-tossed, wretched, and downtrodden by media, state, and medical elites, the "ruling class" of contemporary society. These families are the huddled masses who dare to defy the robber barons of our era, the omnipotent pharmaceutical industry and their government enablers.

They are reviled simply because they brazenly insist on taking ownership of their own health and medical choices. These are the brave men, women and children who refuse to bow down to the idol of 'public health.' No, they will not be masked or muzzled.

Welcome to the "huddled masses" of 2020, hated and persecuted for their outrageous desire to "breathe free."



Notes:

[1] Also ruach, "wind."
[2] Orach Chayim 318:1
[3] Bereshis Rabbah 14:9, based on Psalms 150:6 -- "על כל נשימה ונשימה שאדם נושם"