JUSTICE - No. 65

21 Fall 2020 In another letter written about a month later, Rabbi Eiger warned his community to carefully adhere to the physicians’ instructions, and to ensure that the impoverished who were not able to pay for medical services and medicines would nonetheless receive appropriate medical treatment. He repeatedly admonished all those who made light of the guidelines they were given: I have many times admonished, in warning after warning, that their habits in eating and drinking should be in accordance with what has been set forth and what the doctors have determined to caution about, and they should stay away from them at the distance of an arrow that is shot as if they were prohibited foods and they should not transgress against their words even to the slightest degree, and included in this they must be careful to adhere to everything, such as that a person should not leave his house in the morning with an empty stomach, and the necessity of drinking hot water first, and anyone who transgresses the doctors’ orders in his habits, sins grievously against God because the danger of the prohibited action is great particularly in a place of danger to himself and to others that will cause, Heaven forbid, the spread of the illness in the city and his transgression is too great to bear [and these were Cain’s words after he murdered (!) his brother Abel], and this is what has sustained us, the prayers and the righteous acts so that God’s mercy has come over us, so that the illness has not taken over so much in our city, thank God. According to one narrative, passed down from generation to generation, Rabbi Israel Salanter forbade the members of his community to fast on Yom Kippur in 1849 in order to prevent endangering their lives at the time of an epidemic. A description of cholera in Jerusalem can be found in Shmuel Yosef Agnon’s novel, Only Ye st erday . 6 Many viral diseases identified in Jewish law have collective names, such as “dever,” (pestilence) “negef,” “shechin,”(boils)“tzara’at”(a skin disease) 7 and“mageifa” (plague). 8 Each disease has its own power, scope and dangers. In view of the“religious”nature of much of the source material of Jewish law, first and foremost the Bible, it must be taken into consideration that some of the plagues that appear in a “religious” context, are presented as miraculous events that occur as punishment for a particular sin, and not as natural epidemiological phenomena. In any case, the means used to supposedly heal the victims (e.g. through the use of incense) are perceived as miraculous methods and are not considered to be the result of a natural medical process. 9 Nevertheless, some of the descriptions of plagues in early sources, as well as the ways of dealing with them, were derived from — and influenced by — the prevalent medical knowledge at the time. One must be cautious about drawing analogies from the past to the current situation. The Bible relates stories of epidemics —“mageifot” in Hebrew — that could claim many victims, including animals. One example is“dever” [pestilence], one of the ten plagues visited upon the Egyptians. This can be seen in the “incident of the curses” in Leviticus: “And I will bring a sword upon you that shall execute the vengeance of the Covenant: and you shall be gathered together within your cities; and I will send the pestilence [“dever”] among you; and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy (Leviticus 26:25).” 10 The commentators did not identify this “pestilence” with a particular disease. For example, Onkelus translates it as a“disease that carries with it a risk of ‘death’,” like the sword mentioned in the same verse, but he does not 6. Shmuel Yosef Agnon, O NLY Y ESTERDAY (Princeton Univ. Press, 2002, trans. Barbara Harshav). 7. Regarding“tzara’at”and viewing it as a contagious disease against which a variety of means, including legal ones, must be used in order to avoid contagion, supra note 3; Aviad Hacohen,“’He Sat Alone Outside the Encampment of his Settlement’: On Tzara’at, Metzuraim and the Attitude towards ‘The Other’,”P ARASHAT H ASHAVUA , no. 117 (2003) [Hebrew], site of the Israel Ministry of Justice. 8. Such as in the prayer“Avinu Malkeinu,”which includes the supplication “prevent megeifa among your inheritance.” 9. See e.g. Numbers 17:11-15; supra note 3, Avraham Steinberg, vol. 4, pp. 405-6. 10. This relationship between the sword and “dever” can also be seen in Ezekiel 7:15: “The sword outside and the dever and hunger within, such that in the field he shall die by the sword and in the city hunger and dever shall devour him.”