Public health in Torah

Thisisnotmyreal

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 12:05 am

I'm waiting for the chagim to pass before I ask a Rav this burning question of mine on public health. So in the meantime I would really like to see some intelligent discussion here about this.

My question is public health vs individual health according to Jewish law and what consideration if any is given for individuals during a pandemic?

At what point does possible risk to my life take precedence over possible risk to the general publics lives? Who's the rodef when?

I don't see how everyone can clearly make the situation so black and white. I've watched videos on Jewish ethics and haven't yet understood how lockdowns can or can't be justified. If anyone can post links to any Rabbonim that address my question I'd greatly appreciate it. I'd also like to hear if anyone has any insight on the matter.

Last edited by Thisisnotmyreal on Mon, Oct 05 2020, 8:35 am; edited 1 time in total

youngishbear

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 1:14 am

As in everything in yiddishkeit, ask 2 Jews and you'll get 3 opinions.

There are general principles, like "your life comes first" - you're not allowed to give away your last bit of water if you're lost in a dessert - and the well-known value of preserving life, even for just a short while. There's venishmartem meod. There's lo sa'amod dam ra-echa.

There are also special considerations in times of a megaifa.

Then there are specific extenuating circumstances that alter general rulings for individuals.

TL;DR it's complicated.

Following because I'd appreciate good sources.

Thisisnotmyreal

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 1:23 am

youngishbear wrote:

There are also special considerations in times of a megaifa.

Good point about differences of opinions, I'm not turned off by that, but I'd just like to see opinions.

Re quoted, I heard that when there's a mageifa you should flee the city at the beginning and if its too late to run you should stay home to protect yourself. If the lashon is to protect yourself and not to protect others or vice versa then I wonder if that can shed insight.

youngishbear

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 1:49 am

Thisisnotmyreal wrote:

There's also something tickling the back of my brain about not conceiving children during a mageifa.

southernbubby

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 8:41 am

Rabbi J David Bliech of Yeshiva University apparently states that lockdowns are permitted until the conditions of the lockdown becomes more dangerous than the plague that they are supposed to suppress.

I saw an article in this week's Monsey Mevasser that said that people are allowed to take risks to their life in order to earn a living or in order to live a normal life (such as driving a car). It's preferable to earn a living in a safe way if possible but every shop owner risks getting robbed at gunpoint chas v'sholem. According to that, we are allowed to take some risks in order to live.

One of my sons told me that the reason that yeshivas opened during the pandemic was that students were falling spiritually so the decision was made to save the soul at the possible risk to the body.

My sister runs a Conservative synagogue and they have more participation on zoom than they ever had in person. Many people who wouldn't come to services if they had noone to go with now happily log on. The congregation has very few young families so the few kids that are in the congregation can also get a Jewish education on Zoom which is more convenient and the biggest worry was how the congregation would handle a bris but in the last 7 months, there hasn't been a bris.

Basically I brought that up because the frum community dies without personal connection and we can't do it electronically so rabbonim are likely to say that what is intrinsic to our survival isn't the same as for everyone else.

My personal view is that it's possible to have our religious life without causing danger to ourselves or the outside community or to invite more anti-Semitism but it doesn't appear that all rabbonim are advocating restrictions.

imasoftov

Mon, Oct 05 2020, 11:43 am

There have been posts here about R Akiva Eiger and the Yismach Moshe dealing with cholera. Here's a good post from elsewhere about what the former did - A Distinguished Rabbi Responds to the Thread of a Pandemic – in 1831, I also found an article about R Yisroel Salanter and a cholera outbreak in 1848. I didn't find a source for the Yismach Moshe, what was posted here is that it came from "a secular, Hungarian book"

I also posted that cholera is transmitted by human waste contaminating the water supply, not by airborne droplets, so their particular responses are not necessarily what should be done today. Also, that probably wasn't known at the time and the causes of disease in general were only beginning to be discovered so what they did then shouldn't be repeated exactly even if there's an outbreak of cholera, but these are examples of rabbis dealing with threats to public health.