Are social shabbat meals permitted in COVID times?
I wrote this for IsraelB and wanted also to post it here, as COVID is spreading in the Katamon and Baka areas. Also, the UK mutation has been detected in Yerushalayim.
For singles, one can eat with roommates or if you live alone, I think one can eat with a friend in a responsible way – on an extended table, with space between people, in a well ventilated room – even wearing masks when not eating. If not raining, you can also eat outside. I see no reason to eat absolutely alone.
However, to attend big, social type meals, with guests you don’t know, cramped around a table, I think is totally forbidden at the moment, according to halacha, for the following reasons:
1) The MOH regulations at the moment say you can’t host people. The halacha is you need to follow the law of the country you live in.
2) Ha’Rav Osher Weiss says in a number of his psakim that you look at the reality – the ‘metziyut’ of what is going on and that defines the halacha. In this context-are people infecting and being infected at shabbat meals? The answer is, “yes“. I know of several cases of where either people have been infected with COVID or have been sent to bidud from shabbat meals. This is enough to make them forbidden as in halacha it is forbidden to put yourself in a situation of even ‘safek sakanah‘ With the new UK-COVID mutation spreading in Israel – particularly in religious circles, this makes the need to be careful even greater.
3) There is a mitzvah to listen to our chachamim – from rabbis Edelstein and Kanievsky to leading religious zionist poskim, they have all said we need to be careful at the moment and limit social gatherings.
4) Ha’Rav Mordechi Willig when discussing various halachot pertaining to COVID quotes the last bear hagolah in yoreh deah, who uses the halacha of maakeh – that one should fix a fence around the top of a building to protect people and shows from this mitzveh and others, that we have a responsibility to protect those around us. As has been proven, COVID is spread by social gatherings, and therefore we have an obligation to behave in a socially responsible way.
5) The Rambam in Hilchot Taanit writes that we need to feel the pain of the community if they are in pain. When people are suffering from COVID and 10,000’s are in bidud, our own personal behaviour needs to empathize with the pain of those around us.
6) As religious Jews where the sanctity of life is the highest value in the Torah – we need to behave in a way that reflects this and create a kiddush hashem and not chillul hashem.
So, to conclude, I see no reason to eat alone over Shabbat – one can sit with a friend in a safe way – but to attend big, social type shabbat meals at the moment -with COVID cases rising and hospitals not being able to cope – is totally forbidden.
??? ?? ???? ??????!