Are They Both Right?
I was impressed both by Mrs. Shani Bechhofer’s “Be a Mench, Wear a Mask” and by Rabbi Michoel Green’s “Mask Mandates Are Part of an Anti-Jewish Assault.”
I wonder if the age-old statement, “Elu v’elu divrei Elokim chayim” doesn’t apply in this case. Might it be possible that the spread of the Covid-19 in communities of mask-avoiders contributes to herd immunity, resulting in the emergence of progressively weaker strains of the virus?
Ed Yitshaq Levenson
Delray Beach, FL
Wear a Mask! (I)
I never thought I would write this as the child of Holocaust survivors, but by spreading Covid-19 in religious neighborhoods, we Jews are creating the seeds for anti-Semitism of the type Joseph Goebbels portrayed in his propaganda movies. It has gotten out of hand.
I don’t care if anyone is insulted by me writing this, but when you don’t wear a mask, when you don’t keep your distance from others, when you attend funerals, prayer services, or weddings in large numbers – especially indoors – you are not only killing yourself but spreading the virus and killing the rest of us.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard Rosenberg
Wear a Mask! (II)
I was disturbed to see Rabbi Michoel Green’s article against wearing masks last week. His so-called halachic viewpoint is based on extrapolations from unrelated circumstances.
He argues that masks hide one’s tzelem Elokim. Fine. He is welcome to forbid people from wearing ski masks in the winter and playful masks on Purim if he’d like. But to then say that one shouldn’t protect oneself with a mask from a deadly pandemic is quite a leap.
The very title of his piece, “Masks Are Part of an Anti-Jewish Assault,” seems to reflect paranoia. Mask mandates are designed to protect our health, not attack Jews.
Jack Becker
West Orange, NJ
Do Masks Kill?
I enjoyed reading Rabbi Michoel Green’s anti-mask article last week. I would add the following, though:
Masks contribute to the public’s hysteria about Covid-19, which has led to mass lockdowns. These lockdowns kill people – literally. It has been well-documented that the number of suicides, drug overdoses, incidents of alcohol addiction, child abuse, divorce, and undetected cancers have gone up significantly since the onset of these lockdowns.
Tens of millions have also lost their jobs, which causes stress – severe stress if one is struggling financially – which in turn directly leads to early death.
Additionally, the United Nations estimates that 130 million(!) people in poor countries are at risk of starving to death because of the lockdowns.
So wearing a mask is not harmless. It actually is arguably extremely harmful.
Finally, I would ask readers to consider: All experts agreed in February that masks don’t work. In March and April, the media argued passionately that everyone should wear masks. After that, suddenly, most (though not all) experts changed their mind. Is it really plausible to think these experts did new research that suddenly overturned decades’ worth of science? Or is it more plausible to think that politics are at play here – as they so often are nowadays?
(And a word to mask advocates: Your primary argument for wearing a mask applies even more strongly to wearing hazmat suits. So I ask you: Why don’t you wear a hazmat suit when you go outside? Don’t you care about other people’s lives?)
Joshua Bernstein
Brooklyn, NY
Fond Memories
Kudos to Marc Gronich for writing a warm tribute to Rabbi David Halpern two weeks ago. Rabbi Halperin was the first to assume the duties of mora d’asra of the Flatbush Park Jewish Center, and Gronich’s piece awakened some fond memories.
Rabbi Halpern was a true Renaissance man. He was comfortable discussing the Talmud as well as The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer and the opera “Don Giovanni.” He demonstrated that one can be well versed religiously and secularly.
During one of the rabbi’s weekly sermons, he used the literary term “denouement.” As an instructor of English and American literature, I asked Rabbi Halpern how he came upon the rarely-used noun. He said his eclectic vocabulary was the result of the education he received at Torah Vodaath and Yeshiva University.
Rabbi Halpern was there for both devout and secular Jews. All were beneficiaries of this gracious, selfless man of G-d.
Ronald Neal Goldman
Brooklyn, NY
Please Share Your memories
With the approach of the yahrzeit of my sister, Rebbetzin Edith Bloch, a”h, I – on behalf of her family – am reaching out to everyone whose lives may have intersected with hers. (She of course served as a Bais Yaakov Chumash teacher, the director of the Shalom Senior Citizen Center, and the organizer of the Women’s Friday Night Torah Study Group.)
We are, im yirtzeh Hashem, planning to put together a booklet for her yahrzeit le’ilui nishmasah and are seeking contributions in the form of letters, essays, and notes from those who knew her. We would be especially appreciative of submissions from people describing the influence Rebbetzin Bloch had on their lives.
Please send contributions to [email protected].
Chana Levy
Unfounded Accusations
Last week, several media outlets ran a piece on Rabbi Moshe Lichtenstein under the title, “Modern Orthodox Rabbi in Israel Hits Out At ‘Mentally Disturbed’ Trump.”
Rabbi Lichtenstein says the “U.S. president doesn’t recognize the concepts of truth and falsehoods” and says people “don’t stop for a moment to think about the moral damage that he inflicts on the United States, or even on the world.”
Rabbi Lichtenstein, however, fails to provide a single statement to back up these assertions. I would recommend that he read The Case for Trump by Victor Davis Hanson. In it appears the following wise statement:
“[Trump’s] past tawdriness was regrettable and at times he had found himself in legal trouble. But Trump had not yet abused the people’s trust by acting unethically while in office…. Voters in 2016 preferred an authentic bad boy of the private sector to the public’s disingenuous good girl.”
Alex Rose
Ashkelon, Israel