I received (a call) this week from a baal teshuvah of decades’ standing. He told me that he finds himself terribly disillusioned by those whom he most respected, and that he is hearing the same from many friends who, like him, are baalei teshuvah of longstanding, and even from those who were born into religious families.
My caller — someone whom I have never met — and his friends were particularly upset by the communal response to COVID-19. He had a particular grievance, as he is a doctor who has treated many of the Torah scholars in his community and their families. And he has grown increasingly exasperated at being told, “The doctors don’t know what they are talking about [with respect to urging people to wear masks, especially inside, or maintaining social distancing].” He had always been taught that the halachah pesukah is to act in accord with the best consensus among doctors at that particular moment in history.
THAT PHONE CALL left me badly shaken…
I wish I could say I am
surprised by such a phone call. But I’m not. The phenomenon that doctor describes is not
limited to the Charedi world. It involves the entire Orthodox community. The
plain fact is that being religious does not make one more likely to make good
health choices in life. In that sense religious Jews are no different than non
Jews. Some of us make good decisions and some of us don’t. That is the reality.
It doesn’t even depend on how intelligent one is. Some of the most intelligent
people on earth make poor health decisions. Why that is the case is a mystery
to me. But it is nevertheless a fact.
The doctor who
posed that question apparently assumed that if one is religious and
intelligent, one will certainly follow the guidelines issued by the best health
experts on earth. Health experts are after all people whose are educated, trained and experienced in public health professionals. They have spent their lives studying and analyzing all the relevant data to
determent the best course of action to stay safe during a pandemic. One one think that is a no
brainer. But one
would be wrong in making that assessment.
To illustrate, I
have spoken to a number of respected doctors who scoff at wearing masks. They claim
that studies about their effectiveness in protecting one from contracting the
virus is at best inconclusive. When I asked them why the CDC and the vast
majority of health experts say it is effective, they say something to the effect that
it is a PR stunt for purposes of giving people a sense of doing something about
it… adding that the virus is so small that it can easily get past those masks
and infect the wearer. When I asked one doctor recently why surgeons wear masks, he said that it is
to protect the more patient undergoing surgery from the bacteria the
surgeon might be carrying. Not from any virus.
I have heard
similar arguments from some religious medical professionals who refuse to be vaccinated. They say COVID vaccines have not been
approved by the FDA. That’s because the long term effects have not been determined.
They couldn’t be because COVID vaccines have not been around long enough to find
out. They have only been approved for emergency as a means of combating a deadly and highly contagious pandemic.
I am dismayed at that kind of rationalizing. But it does not leave me disillusioned about my faith.
I can’t explain why some
people trust the best experts in the world and follow their advice while others
dismiss it as drivel. But the fact is that there are a lot of intelligent
people on both sides of the issue. My guess is
that the proportion of people in the Orthodox world that feel this way
matches the proportion of intelligent people in the non religious world. It has
nothing to do with their violating the Halachos of Pikuach
Nefesh. No matter how much some of us feel they are. (Which I clearly believe
is the case - as do many Poskim across the board of Orthodoxy from Charedi to
Modern Orthodox.) The fact is that there are outliers that actually believe they are not violating the Halochos of Pikuach Nefesh at all. And have respected doctors in their corner to defend
them.
It is impossible to
explain how one develops his belief system. Why does one intelligent religious
person choose to believe the expertsand follow those guidelines
meticulously while other intelligent realigiious person does not is a question
that I can’t answer. But it should not shake one’s faith.
What can shake one’s
faith is when the outliers refuse to respect those of us that believe what the
experts tells us. And either don’t wear masks at all, or wear them improperly
or react with indignity if they are told to follow the rules properly. It is
one thing to not believe in masks but still follow the rules. But it is another
to disregard those rules in the face of those that follow them. Just because
they don’t believe in masks does not give them the right to remove them when
others are around who believe masks protect them.
Jonathan and that doctor
who became disillusioned at the fact that so many devout and otherwise
intelligent Jews do not believe the experts should take solace in the fact that
when it comes to trusting medical experts, religious jews, even intelligent
ones, are no different than their non religious counterparts. But when those
views are put into action – it shows these supposedly devout Jews being
entirely selfish at the expense of their fellow Jews. That is reprehensible.
And that is what should disillusion him.
My two cents.
