Despite coronavirus, chief rabbi permits prayer services of 15 people
The chief rabbi wrote in his ruling that the public should strictly adhere to the instructions of the health authorities
By JEREMY SHARONSEPHARDI CHIEF Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef has ruled that men should continue to pray in prayer quorums of up to 15 people in synagogues, in accordance with the instructions of doctors and the relevant government authorities regarding the coronavirus.The chief rabbi said that it was incumbent on the entire public to “obey to the instructions of the health authorities… and God forbid not to belittle them.”According to Health Ministry instructions published on Friday, “prayer services and religious ceremonies should be conducted in groups, each one of up to 10 people, while observing a distance of two meters between every person, and not more than two groups at the same time.”A spokesman for the Chief Rabbinate said the instructions mean therefore that up to 20 people can pray in the same place and that Yosef’s ruling is therefore commensurate with the Health Ministry’s instructions.“The sound of school children and communal prayer is a great matter and a rectification for times of plague,” wrote Yosef.“Therefore a person should not refrain from praying with the community, and do everything in accordance with the instructions of doctors,” he ruled, and went on to cite Rabbi Akiva Eger, a Torah scholar of the 18th and 19th century who wrote that “gathering in a confined place is incorrect, but people can pray in groups in small numbers of 15 people.”
