Beyond our appropriate somber mood over new quarantine restrictions in the midst of holiday season, we were informed of other dire developments in recent days: about the loss of solidarity, the disintegrating sense of mutual responsibility for one another and the synagogues at the center of the public's ire, here in the Jewish state of all places.
The people of Israel are no strangers to battles. From the dawn of our inception we've warded off enemies internal and external, sometimes with the upper hand and other times not as much, and even when we argued and fought – we remained united. Our shared values were stronger than all else, capable of overcoming. Those same values that held the Jewish people together throughout history, through all the calamities, challenges and disputes.
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Today, however, there are those who wish to tear this all down, demolish the foundations of our home and equate the protests against the government with prayer services in the synagogues. And when are they choosing to do this, of all times? On the eve of Yom Kippur, the day when millions normally attend services. In Israel, and millions more across the globe.
Because the question is not whether the principle of saving a life supersedes worshipping in the synagogue. This question was answered centuries ago by our Torah sages and is abundantly clear and unequivocal. Saving a life is above all else. Not just prayers in a minyan – a quorum of 10 – on Yom Kippur but also the fast itself. In the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, when it was obvious to all that the government was the authoritative source, no one disputed this principle and the masses of prayergoers stayed home.
Now, however, during the second wave, questions and doubts are justifiably beginning to surface: Is the government really authorized to determine that the principle of saving a life applies? Perhaps political considerations are at play? The fact is protesters have received permission. If this were truly a life and death situation, they would be barred from even approaching the Prime Minister's Residence on Balfour Street in Jerusalem.
Whether or not the protesters are anarchists hasn't been determined yet, but one thing is already clear: the protesters have contributed to the anarchy. As long as the weekly demonstrations in Jerusalem persist, Israel will continue being a "red" country. It has nothing to do with the number of daily infections, but to the growing and corrosive lack of trust, and the shared values slipping between our fingers. In this regard, sadly, it must be said, the protesters have achieved their goal.
Indeed, while public influencers in the Haredi sector, from the chief rabbi to the Shas chairman to MK Bezalel Smotrich declared on Wednesday that Yom Kippur services should be canceled across the country due to the infection rates, anti-government activists making the rounds in the television studios stated that regardless of the government's decision on the matter, demonstrations will proceed as planned.
In the new religion conceived on Balfour St. there are no rules, no personal example and not a shred of solidarity. Protesting is so sacrosanct that it also supersedes the principle of saving a life. In a properly functioning, sane society, the government should never have even had to discuss the legality of the demonstrations, because the organizers themselves would have suspended them of their own volition. Just as the worshippers, rabbis and Haredi public officials did.
The situation whereby it is practically illegitimate to ask to pray in public on Yom Kippur, in the Jewish state, is inconceivable and is another byproduct of the rotten fruit produced by the organizers of the current protests. Regretfully, unlike the general public that is fed up with their wanton destruction of our values, the government itself is consistently proving its impotence in stopping them. If their ardent supporters in Blue and White and the State Attorney's Office don't sober up and cease their destructive crusade, the social rifts will continue ripping us to shreds. But Yom Kippur is a day of atonement and awakening, and we can hope this will indeed be the case this year.
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