Saving lives top of mind

Re: Orthodox Jews challenge coronavirus shutdown, May 30

This article included a reference to a letter sent by four Toronto rabbis challenging the law that caps gatherings to five people, which makes praying in a quorum of 10 men impossible. The author did not share the names of these rabbis and interestingly only sought their comment on Friday, May 29, which was Shavuot, a Jewish holiday on which Orthodox Jews do not use phones or computers. More importantly, this article misrepresented the response of the religious Jewish community and our leaders to the restrictions imposed on society in order to keep everyone safer during the coronavirus pandemic.

Your readers should rest assured that the response of the rabbis, administrators and lay leaders of the l argest Orthodox synagogues in Ontario from the onset of the crisis has been to wholeheartedly accept all the measures to keep their congregants at home. These leaders have also been quick to censure anyone in our communities who flouts the isolation measures in the name of gathering to observe ritual laws. Our rabbis are motivated by the Jewish legal principal that saving a life takes precedence over religious observance.

Moreover, although it has been painful for the community and its leaders to close the synagogue doors as communal prayer, studying and socializing are an integral part of Jewish life, our leaders have taken the opportunity to use these COVID restrictions as a way to find new ways for the community to engage religiously and socially, and they have done so with enthusiasm, creativity and great positivity.

We all look forward to the days when synagogues, churches and mosques open again, but religious people with their training and habituation of ritual observance, enhanced with the blessings of technology are successfully finding ways to use this at- home time to find new paths to be people of faith. Miriam Snowbell, Thornhill, Ont.