JUSTICE - No. 65

24 No. 65 JUSTICE himself in his house in the city will not help, because with this illness of cholera the fear and panic will harm him and the disease will take hold of him due to the fear … therefore, it is good to flee to a faraway place. The halakhic scholars also considered medical advances and their influence. For example, RabbiYehiel Michel Epstein, the author of“Arukh Hashulkhan”(Orach Chaim 576, 12), one of the scholars of Belarus in the 19 th century wrote: When pox appear on infants and they die, a fast must be declared. Everyone is obliged to distance his small sons and daughters from the city and if he does not do so, he is responsible for their deaths … and in the Gemara it says,“an epidemic in the city, keep your feet inside.”But the pox is a contagious disease and therefore there is an obligation to distance them from the city. But now this is not the case because for 150 years the doctors have found a way to make available to every baby boy and girl of one year or older a vaccine and in this manner, they escape this disease as it is known. In later sources, there is a discussion of the obligation of every person to be immunized against contagious diseases or to receive medical care that is likely to reduce the risk of other people contracting the disease. This obligation is derived fromTorah commandments such as: “Take good heed unto yourselves” (Deuteronomy 4:15) and“so that you bring not blood upon your house” (Deuteronomy 22:8). The latter serves as a source for the duty to avoid damage to the public. Likewise, the commandment to return a lost item is interpreted to include the duty to physically save another person and not just his property. Fleeing a Dangerous Area and the Legal Implications As emphasized above, when studying Jewish law sources, there is a need to distinguish between instructions or guidelines issued as positive advice, recommendations, and the establishment of binding legal norms. Many provisions regarding the ways of dealing with an epidemic appeared in the wake of the 19. Responsa of the Maharil, siman 50 (in other editions siman 41) [Hebrew]. 20. A comprehensive discussion of this approach is also found in the responsa of the Rashbash, Rabbi Shlomo (ben Rabbi Shimon, the author of the Tashbetz) Doran (Algeria, 15 th century), siman 195, who was asked whether or not it would be useful to a person to move from place to place in times of pestilence, because if he has been inscribed in advance for death on Rosh Hashana, the question is whether or not the flight would indeed help him or whether staying in place would be better. 21. Testimonies of large-scale epidemics in Italy that claimed many lives can be found in other Jewish sources: See e.g. by the author of the S EFER Y UCHSIN , 6 th ma’amar: “And in this year, there was a big epidemic throughout the world and more so for the people of Liguria, the Genovese and they would hear voices at night during the epidemic and they were senseless.”Note that Liguria, a coastal region of northwest Italy, was hit particularly hard by the corona virus in 2020. Black Death that claimed many victims in Europe in the mid-14 th century. One of the common provisions in Jewish legal literature during times of epidemics labelled as a“recommendation”or as a binding obligation, is to flee the area of danger. This suggestion is alluded to in the words of the Prophet Jeremiah (21:9): “He that abideth in this city shall die by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence: but he that goeth out and falleth to the Chaldeans that besiege you, he shall live and his life shall be unto him for a prey.” Indeed, other sages adopted a deterministic approach, according to which a person’s fate is predetermined, and fleeing to another place would be futile. The existence of such an approach appears in the responsa of the Maharil, 19 RabbiYaakov Molin (Ashkenaz, 15 th century), to a sage, Rabbi Leiva [Yehuda], who was inclined to prohibit fleeing the city. 20 The Maharil himself took exception to this approach and brought proof texts to refute it, and stated: It is proven in Sefer Hasidim that it is good to flee, and there is an important reason for this, because sometimes it has been decreed on one city or land … and this is customary in Lombardy (northern Italy). 21 And we also say, “A person should not remain in a place of danger, etc.”… from all of these we instruct that it is not good