The importance of a vaccinated minyan during the High Holy Days

The following is a response to Liel Leibovitz’s opinion piece on Tablet, calling on synagogues to open their doors on High Holy Days to the unvaccinated.

For the second year in a row, I will be spending the coming Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in a neighbor’s backyard, praying amid the sounds of lawnmowers and passing traffic. Although I had planned to be back in a shul this year, the Delta variant threw a wrench in my plans. After a discussion with my wife, Dorit, the choice was easy: less risk of exposure to airborne droplets while we sing, the ability to pray without wearing a mask and knowing that our entire minyan is vaccinated.

Many shuls around America are contending with similar choices in this summer of the highly transmissible Delta variant. Along with mask requirements (as required by California law), many are requiring proof of vaccination.

The idea that a prayer community would be closed to the unvaccinated has antagonized, among others, Liel Leibovitz, who calls such mandates “idolatry” (of science) on Tabletmag.com: “Any congregation,” he writes, “that takes any measure that bars any Jews from praying in communion on the Days of Awe is divesting itself from the very core of Jewish life.”

Leibovitz’s suggestion that vaccine mandates betray our tradition may be less hyperbolic than the folks posting yellow stars and tattooed arm images, but is similarly offensive and historically inaccurate. Jews have survived threats to our safety through the centuries precisely because we have adapted protective measures. I have found myself more than once in Jewish communities, such as Istanbul, where you can’t just show up unregistered on Shabbat and expect admission. This is a reality necessitated in places where unknown people are considered a potential threat. Restrictions for public health reasons also have a long pedigree. The Babylonian Talmud (Bava Kamma 60b) recounts, “If there is a plague in the city,” stay home. Rabbi Moses Isserles, the codifier of Ashkenazic practice in the 1500s, held it to be an appropriate response to flee a city when an epidemic arose.

[Liel] Leibovitz’s suggestion that vaccine mandates betray our tradition may be less hyperbolic than the folks posting yellow stars and tattooed arm images, but is similarly offensive and historically inaccurate.

Indeed, the influence of improving scientific understanding on rabbinic decrees is unmistakable in the modern period. In 1831, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, chief rabbi of Posen, decreed that Polish shuls should limit attendance to a maximum of 15 to prevent the spread of cholera. There are numerous similar examples of rabbis relying on the science of public health threats as a basis for their halachic rulings limiting access to public prayer. The primacy of saving lives (pikuach nefesh) — in reliance on science —  justified the limits imposed.

So why does Leibovitz feel so violated by vaccine mandates as the latest rabbinic public safety measure? While he considers the limitation on access tantamount to “creat[ing] spaces cleansed of everything complicated, including certain human beings,” the reality is that vaccine mandates are commonplace in other settings. Schools (as well as healthcare organizations) routinely require vaccination to prevent the spread of dangerous infectious diseases including  diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (DTaP), polio, measles, rubella and varicella (chickenpox). Courts have upheld these requirements. There is nothing “complicated” about the decision to impose mandates. These infectious diseases have wreaked havoc and cause unnecessary harm in the world. Mandates save lives, so why should synagogues, full of immunocompromised people looking for a safe environment and vaccinated people who just want to feel safe be denied the same right? Our minyan includes one family with a child immunocompromised by chemotherapy drugs being taken to treat cancer. Opening the doors wide to the unvaccinated also means making it less safe for this child’s parents. The unfortunate reality of infectious disease is a zero sum game: inviting in those who are unvaccinated creates risk for others.

Restrictions for public health reasons also have a long pedigree. Rabbi Moses Isserles, the codifier of Ashkenazic practice in the 1500s, held it to be an appropriate response to flee a city when an epidemic arose.

Contrary to the suggestion that this is some kind of barrier, the simple reality is a calculated public health safety measure. No one is forcing anyone to attend a particular place of worship or forcing all shuls to impose mandates. Here in Beverlywood, and in every major Jewish community across America, Leibovitz can find plenty of synagogues electing to ignore vaccination status and inviting the unvaccinated. He just won’t be allowed at a handful of places, including my outdoor minyan.

That’s the central point about vaccine mandates. For all the anger they engender, they are plainly working. Numbers of hospitalizations and deaths are down sharply for those who have been vaccinated. Meanwhile, the people who are opposed or are worried have the right to decline. Despite the evidence that the vaccines are reducing hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID, no one is being forced to do anything. All that is happening is that people who have been vaccinated are voting with their feet to go to places where they can reduce their risk. People who have been vaccinated should not be afraid to exercise their freedom of choice to protect themselves.

Harry Nelson is the founder and managing partner of Nelson Hardiman, a healthcare specialty law firm in Los Angeles. He also is the author of “The United States of Opioids: Liberating a Nation in Pain” and “From Obamacare to Trumpcare: Why You Should Care.”