Rav Shimon Ragobay, the director of the Mazor medical consultation organization and a senior medical advisor in the Chareidi community in Israel, called for all shuls in Israel to be closed in light of the increasing uptick in coronavirus cases, strongly asserting that outdoor minyanim should be resumed instead.
“We rushed into opening the shuls and now the virus rate is increasing,” R’ Ragobay said. “The only option is to revert back to outdoor minyanim.”
“We don’t play around with pikuach nefesh. It’s possible to daven in a minyan outdoors. We’re involved in dinei nefashos. Who allows us to be lenient?”
R’ Ragovay also recommended that each person daven in the same minyan every day to decrease the chance of spreading infections.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
We rushed into opening the shuls Such an inaccurate statement. Misrad haChinuch rushed into opening public schools, and this solely & exclusively caused the uptick in Corona, and Misrad haChinuch has unbelievable amount of blood on their hand for their greed to reopen schools so fast.
Senior Chareidi Medical Advisor: “Close All Shuls, Not even fractionally as savvy as President Donald Trump, who so well comprehends that “Houses of Worship” are essential services which must & shall remain open, and certainly more so than liquor stores.
300 deaths over 6 months is not pikuach hanefesh. These medical advisors think there’s one mitzvah in the Torah. It’s all they talk about pikuach hanefesh, pikuach hanefesh.
It’s hard to StayCalm in the face of someone who seems eager to finesse pikuah nefesh into mere blabbermouthing. Never mind the gruesome nature of those deaths, let along the hundreds of damaged lives that stand behind each of them. Never mind the risk of hundreds if not thousands of additional fatalities if strict care isn’t taken. What other mitzvah in the Torah do you have in mind? Summer camps?