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Public Health and the Jewish Tradition
25 Plays5 years ago
What does Jewish law and tradition teach about protecting individuals and communities during a pandemic? Rabbi Michael Broyde explains why religious communities should be treated fairly under quarantine restrictions, why religious practitioners shouldn’t disobey public health orders – even for pious reasons – and what role medical and public health experts should play in regulating religious observances. For similar topics visit our Covid series at https://canopyforum.org/covid-19/. And see more from Rabbi Michael Broyde's at www.broydeblog.net.
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Transcript
Jewish Perspective on Public Health Mandates
00:00:05
Speaker
When you say, well, maybe the risks aren't so great and we should violate the public health mandate on occasion for quick prayer every once in a while, just among the faithful who could never get ill because God will certainly protect the faithful in prayer, the Jewish tradition looks at you and says, well, that's a bad idea. That's Professor Michael Broid, a professor of law at Emory University and an expert in Jewish law, sharing a Jewish perspective on public health laws.
00:00:35
Speaker
The Interactions podcast explores how law and religion interact in today's world through the eyes of lawyers, scholars, clergy, and more. I'm Haley Stevenson, and in this episode of Interactions, Michael Broid lays out his case for leaving the science of public health to the experts, while insisting that religious communities be treated fairly amid the ongoing pandemic. Now, join me as we listen to Michael Broid's discussion of public health and the Jewish tradition.
Expertise in Jewish Tradition: Health and Military
00:01:06
Speaker
Professor Broid, let's jump right in. How does Jewish law approach questions like public health? The Jewish tradition is different than many other religious traditions in the following regard. As Rabbi Soloveitchik famously expressed almost 50 years ago, when it comes to matters of public health and policy, the Jewish tradition didn't really think
00:01:34
Speaker
that Jewish law authorities were supposed to express their own personal views. Rabbi Soloveitchik was adamant that when you approached him about matters of security, he said, consult with the generals. And when you asked him what did he think, he smiled and said, he thinks you should consult with the generals. It's important to articulate what religion can really contribute.
00:01:59
Speaker
religion cannot really contribute to a scientific conversation about the needs of public health. Certainly, the Jewish tradition doesn't think it's the role of professors who work in Judaism, great Jewish law authorities, even law professors who work in Jewish law to have a serious opinion on what public health matters should be. Rather, what the Jewish tradition wants is it wants
00:02:28
Speaker
experts to be sensitive to Jewish values and not treat religious values or the needs of the Jewish tradition any less seriously than it treats any other reasonable and secular values. So we Jews like engaging in communal prayer in which there are groups of 10.
Public Health Mandates vs Religious Practices
00:02:49
Speaker
When somebody says to me, bowling in groups of 10 is okay in the current situation, but prayer is bad, the Jewish nation says, no, that's not the right approach. That reflects an undervaluation of religion. But when you say to me that the public health authorities think all gatherings of more than six are a public health, bad idea,
00:03:13
Speaker
and ought to be prohibited, the Jewish tradition says communal prayer in groups of 10 is thus prohibited. And when you say, well, maybe the risks aren't so great and we should violate the public health mandate on occasion for quick prayer every once in a while, just among the faithful who could never get ill because God will certainly protect the faithful in prayer, the Jewish tradition looks at you and says, well, that's a bad idea.
00:03:41
Speaker
So it's a bad idea to violate public health mandates. But does that somehow treat public health experts like religious authorities? What is the role of public health experts in shaping religious practice? The purpose of public health experts is to provide the Jewish tradition with the proper advice as to how to conduct itself in times of crisis, no different than the purpose of generals to provide guidance to the public in times of
00:04:10
Speaker
military crisis, and it's the job of doctors to tell us when we're supposed to eat on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when we customarily fast. When somebody asks me, should I fast on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I smile at them nicely and I say, I think you should ask a doctor. And when they come back to me and say, well, the doctor said, it's very dangerous to fast. Should I fast anyway?
00:04:40
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So I look at them and I say, no, you should not fast. And they say, well, is it pious to fast? Is it better to fast? So I say, no, it's a categorical direct violation of Jewish law to fast. If your doctor has said to you, it's dangerous to your health to fast. It's not pious. It's silly and unwise. And then I smile nicely and I say, and it's a sin as well.
Preservation of Life in Jewish Law
00:05:09
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The Jewish tradition mandates that the highest of values is the preservation of life. The only things that allow the risk to human life are risk to other human life, so I can't kill another person to save my own life unless they're guilty and threatening me.
00:05:31
Speaker
I can't worship idols to save my life, mostly because idol worship can never do anything to protect my life. And I can't engage in illicit sexual relationships. I'm not going to discuss with you why you can't for right now. Suffice it to note that there's no suggestion that illicit sexual relations can preserve us from the public health violations, the public health matters that are at play here.
00:06:00
Speaker
That's a fascinating way to apply religious norms in a context like the one we're facing today. What do you think Jewish tradition can contribute to the present moment? What the Jewish tradition can contribute here is a reinforcement of important values. We have centers for disease control. We have many very smart, worthwhile people who are focusing on the current situation in America. What the Jewish tradition says
00:06:29
Speaker
loud and clear and directly is that it's the religiously proper thing to listen to the public health authorities in our time and our place and in our location and to obey what they say. The Jewish tradition thinks that you should not cut corners and you should not defy the public health authorities to engage in prayer,
00:06:57
Speaker
even communal prayer. And you should not say to yourself, God protects people who are engaging in divine worship or the simple who faithfully believe. The Jewish tradition tells us that we should obey the public health authorities who are sensitive and aware of religious traditions and treating religion no differently than they would treat bowling or mixed dancing, as they say.
00:07:26
Speaker
In a society like ours, where the fear that a public health crisis would be used as an excuse to generate anti-Semitic legislation, which certainly was a problem in medieval times a thousand years ago, where somebody would say, oh, the black death is coming. What we need to do is kill the Jews, and then the black death will go away. So you have to always be wary of public health crises as an excuse to generate
00:07:54
Speaker
more antisemitism. This is a far-fetched fear in the United States and what the Jewish tradition says in a very loud and clear direct way is it's incumbent upon people to obey the public health authorities in their time and in their place and to follow the rules faithfully and directly without any cutting of corners.
00:08:25
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Is there a difference in how this applies to an individual versus how it applies to a community?
Responsibility to Protect Others During a Pandemic
00:08:31
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The Jewish tradition says defiance of the public health authorities is worse than defiance of medical authorities. It's one thing to foolishly fast when the doctor has said to you, your fasting will jeopardize your own life. That's very foolish conduct that jeopardizes your own life.
00:08:53
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and you will go to a bad place where you'll be punished for jeopardizing your own life. But jeopardizing your own life is not the problem now. The fear is that healthy people who are carriers of the virus will walk around in public and they will kill the elderly and the sick and the frail. And it's not just your blood that's on your hands. It's not that you will engage
00:09:22
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in unwise or reckless conduct and you will suffer the consequences. The real fear here in the Jewish tradition is the young and healthy who feel that nothing bad will happen to them will be carriers of the virus and they will jeopardize their elderly grandparents or parents.
00:09:42
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or the elderly stranger in Kroger's who they've never met, but whose blood will be on their hands. Here, you can't even be pious and say to yourself, I wish to be foolishly pious and endanger my own life. Because if you're young and healthy, it's not your life that's at stake, and it's not your life that you're endangering. What you are endangering is the elderly and the frail
00:10:11
Speaker
the weak among us. And it's an incredible violation of Jewish law, an incredible violation of Jewish law for a person to risk his own life for the sake of a religious activity. It's a more severe and more profound violation of Jewish law to piously endanger the life of somebody else so that you can fulfill a good deed.
00:10:39
Speaker
To engage in communal prayer and endanger your own life is foolish, unwise, and sinful. To engage in communal prayer and endanger the life of somebody else, well, that's an unimaginable sin that the Jewish tradition could never countenance. People need to be aware of the fact that the mortality rate among the elderly and the sick and the compromised and the frail
00:11:09
Speaker
sometimes approaches 20% and it's never fallen below 10% in any reasonable society. The Jewish tradition says, protect your own life. And even more importantly, it says protect the lives of the frail around you in the most serious way. We should all be blessed to live in a healthy and safe society. But right now we're in the situation that we're in.
00:11:39
Speaker
And we need to be careful to protect the lives of the weak around us. That's the message of the Jewish tradition. Be safe out there. Thank you so much, Professor Boyd, for sharing this perspective. It's been a pleasure talking to you, and I know our listeners appreciate the opportunity to learn more about Jewish law and its applications during the ongoing pandemic.
Conclusion and Podcast Subscription Reminder
00:12:09
Speaker
That was Michael Brod discussing public health in the Jewish tradition. The Interactions podcast is produced by the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University and in collaboration with CanopyForum.org. Please leave your comments and subscribe to the podcast to learn more about how law and religion interact in today's world.