Op-Ed: How Should We Relate To Pictures From The Mass Funeral Of Rabbi Soloveitchik?

JERUSALEM (VINnews) — If Rabbi Meshulam Dovid Soloveitchik had passed away exactly a year ago, the pictures from his funeral would have been inspiring and uplifting. The fact that tens of thousands of people show their last respects to a rabbi who was so advanced in years demonstrates the honor that people convey towards Torah scholarship, piety and holiness. No secular figure could ever marshal such a large number of mourners, whatever he had accomplished. However the spectre of thousands of maskless mourners gathered tightly together after nearly a year of crushing losses to an invisible, inexorable killer made many religious people uncomfortable and infuriated huge numbers of secular Israelis.

The standard defense mounted by chareidi spokesmen is to focus on the numerous violations of health regulations perpetrated at demonstrations and at Arab religious events. Somehow these infringements fall under the radar, as demonstrations are legitimate irrespective of the number of participants and the density of the crowds.

Indeed, the almost daily scenes of demonstrations outside Prime Minister Netanyahu’s residence with little or no police intervention have infuriated many chareidim who are targeted for censure whenever they conduct outdoor events which are not demonstrations irrespective of whether regulations were being maintained. Moreover thousands of Arabs continue to gather every Friday on Temple Mount with no attempt made by police to restrict the crowding and no news outlet daring to criticize the mass prayers. Last week there was even a mass Arab funeral which went almost unnoticed by the media. The hypocrisy of journalists as well as politicians is both tangible and detestable.

Mass Arab funeral last week at Umm El-Fahm

However it is a well-known truism that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” The fact that other people egregiously flout the regulations does not mean that religious people, who are bound by the biblical mandate to be “very careful to guard your lives” should be so reckless and negligent in maintaining simple health precautions. Would it have hurt if the organizers of the funeral had called on people to stretch out the procession over a broad area? Would it have hurt if people did not hear the eulogies but did accompany the deceased at a safe distance? And if Israel’s health regulations require people to wear masks, would it have hurt if everyone had worn a mask, as Jerusalem suffers from 17% positive tests in certain neighborhoods and tens of chareidi pregnant women are in intensive care? Did we really need to be singled out in international media for the crowded conditions in which the funeral took place?

Journalist Yair Cherki put it this way: “Can we stop this stupid competition between sectors who is flaunting the regulations more? We’re talking about people’s lives here. True, there may be media hypocrisy here but the situation in hospitals doesn’t allow us to claim that others are more guilty.”

The fact that politicians made political capital from the funeral is expected during an election campaign but even doctors were aghast at the mass funeral. Professor Dror Mevorach, the director of the coronavirus unit at Hadassah hospital, who sees daily the catastrophic consequences of the pandemic, said that the funeral is “spitting in the eyes of all those who are maintaining lockdown. It is not possible to request from anyone to participate in the closure efforts when we are allowing a bloodbath like this funeral. Each person should protect himself, since there’s no law and no enforcement.”

In conclusion, it is hard to imagine that Rabbi Yitzchok Scheiner would have been pleased with the crowds that thronged to his funeral last night. Just a few weeks before he had written that “on each of us the obligation is incumbent to do Hashem’s will at this time and to fulfill whatever is needed to take care according to the views of the experts not to be harmed and not to cause harm to others G-d forbid. We need to be careful not to participate in crowded gatherings like weddings etc. since through them it is possible to be harmed and to cause harm G-d forbid……”