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| Sar HaTorah - R Chaim Kanievsky |
Does that mean that vaccines are counterproductive? Are the antivaxxers right after all? The answer is an unequivocal NO! This is a prime example where actual statistics can be misused to ‘prove’ a false claim. The fact is that the opposite is true. The vast majority of COVID deaths since vaccines were available were by people that were not vaccinated. How’s that for a statistic?!
But that is the nature of people with an agenda. They will use actual statistics selectively to make their argument. And in this case a lot of people are thereby duped into believing that vaccines are more dangerous than COVID. They then refuse to be vaccinated. I would not be surprised if most of the people that died from COVID this year bought into this false narrative. If it weren’t so tragic, I would say that it’s poetic justice.
Why then are there more people who died from COVID this year than last year? That is because of the highly contagious Delta variant. There are still millions of people that have no gotten inoculated. THEY are the population base that gets infected and hospitalized. And the most vulnerable among them – die! And they are also more responsible for the spread of the disease.
Why these plain and simple facts don’t sway them into getting the shot makes absolutely no sense to me. But that is the reality. And it is why I keep talking about this issue. Hammering away at the absolute necessity of getting vaccinated – trying to disabuse my coreligionists of notions like - vaccines are more dangerous that COVID. (Tell that to the families of 800,000 mostly unvaccinated COVID patients that died.)
I wish I could say that at least Orthodox Jews are not among the fools that buy into the antivaxx arguments. But I can’t. This seems especially true among Charedim. There are more than a few antivaxx Charedim. Those of us that strongly support vaccinations (as I do) are virulently attacked by the antivaxers - accusing us of ignorance of the facts... and relying too much on health officials who they accuse of getting kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies. And rely on politicians who they say back vaccines because of the huge political donations they get from them.
I have called these people stupid and selfish. And in effect responsible for contracting and spreading the disease while being asymptomatic and yet highly contagious. Clearly the unvaccinated are far more susceptible to getting COVID and spreading it than those of us that are vaccinated. Because even though ‘breakthrough’ infections are possible, they are still a lot less likely to occur in vaccinated people that they are in unvaccinated people. That’s just plain common sense.
But one thing I have not said is that it is a Halachic requirement to get vaccinated - although that is implied by my comments. But somebody else did say that. A man far more trustworthy in the Charedi world that I. He was shown the data and he believes the science. From Ha’aretz:
Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky… endorsed Israel's children COVID vaccine drive, stating that getting inoculated was mandatory under Torah law.
Let me repeat and emphasize that last line: MANDATORY UNDER TORAH LAW.
I challenge Charedi antivaxxers to dispute a man whose views they otherwise completely defend. Arguing that R’ Chaim’s views are basically the Torah’s views. Even if we don’t understand why he feels that way. They will say that we must listen to him when he makes a matter of fact statement about Halacha.
Is his lying? Is he being duped by false statistics? Is his grandson misleading him?
When R’ Chaim was criticized about some of his other decisions by non Charedim who made some of these same arguments, they were accused of being impudent – and insulting to a Gadol of that stature. Accused of even being ant Torah! How dare anyone question the Sar HaTorah (as he is referred to by much of the Charedi world).
Well I got two words for you people: ‘goose’ and ‘gander’.
Making matters a lot worse is the following:
Anti-vaccine activists have launched a campaign of harassment and intimidation against an Israeli Rabbi, one of the ultra-Orthodox world’s most revered spiritual leaders, with some going so far as to threaten to murder him and rape his great-grandchildren over his public support for vaccinating children against the coronavirus…
According to a report in Hebrew daily Yedioth Ahronoth, members of the rabbi’s household have received threats on the streets, with vaccine opponents telling his grandson, Yanky, that he had “the blood of children on your hands” and that they would “rape your children.”
Fortunately R’ Chaim is a man of conviction. Agree with him or not - he stands by his beliefs. No matter how unpopular they might be. Even when his life is threatened because of them:
Meir Gross, an associate of the rabbi who also serves as his body guard, said that he had to bolster security around Kanievsky due to the threats he was receiving and dubbed the incident "very grave."
One may ask, How do I know that Charedim are attacking him this way (along with secular antivaxxers) ? Here is the answer to that question:
Israel Cohen, a prominent ultra-Orthodox political commentator who is close to rabbi Kanievsky, told Haaretz that he believes the threats are coming from both ultra-Orthodox and secular anti-vaxxers noting that while some of the calls used Biblical imagery and terminology commonly used by Haredim, others came from numbers which identified their users as owners of non-“kosher” phones eschewed by many in the community.
To be sure, R’ Kanievky’s views do not always match my own. I have differences with him on certain things based on my own Rebbeim. (Or more precisely what they inculcated in me.) But I am not Charedi. Many of those attacking him here this way on this issue – are!
Makes you kind of wonder if adherence to a Gadol’s Psak Halacha (on a bibical level - no less) is only adhered to when it doesn’t interfere with one’s own biases. I think this story shows that this is exactly the case. What makes it so terrible here is that lives are at stake.