[Avodah] orthodox non-compliance with Covid rules

[Micha Berger]

On Mar 17, 2021, at 11:25 AM, Rich, Joel wrote:
> IMHO the issue alluded to (in a post concerning orthodox non-compliance
> with Covid rules) may be more of one of not seeing the forest for the
> trees. When one is taught to look at the letter of the law exclusively one
> can forget about the spirit of the law. The goal becomes the technical
> compliance ...

I used a different metaphor in the opening of Widen Your Tent, that of
an apprentice to an overly methofical carpenter. (Since it's a book about
the haqdamah to Shaarei Yosher, I called this chapter, "The Introduction
to the Introduction".)

    The carpenter teaches his apprentice one skill at a time, mastering
    each in order before moving on to the next. So the young lad learns
    how to use a hammer, learning how to drive the nail in, straight and
    true, in just a few blows. Then he is introduced to the screwdriver,
    in all its variants. And when he learns how to screw into any wood
    without stripping the threads or the head of a Phillips screwdriver,
    they move on the trade's various saws. And so on through the whole
    toolset. In fact, the master teaches his apprentice multiple opinions
    about proper technique, and even ways to use the tools according to
    various opinions of how to maximize success at the same time. And
    then, as they just complete practicing a few ways of joining corners,
    the master, sadly, dies, leaving the student knowing everything about
    woodwork, but with only a layman's knowledge of the construction
    of a cabinet, table, or chair. Or how to build shelves that can
    support the weight of a library of books, and the like. And the
    apprentice is even further from any knowledge of how to express
    himself artistically, such as through detailed woodworking."

This problem is worse than the forest vs. the trees. It's knowing how
to walk (the "halakh" of halakhah) and not knowing where to go (having
a derekh). If you miss the forest for the trees, at least you have
trees. If you don't know how to define the goals halakhah are to help
you reach in a way that works for you, you could walk the wrong direction.

    Rav Chananel bar Papa said: What is meant by, "Hear, for I will
    speak princely things, [and my lips will open with what is right]"
    (Mishlei 8:6)? Words of Torah are compared to a ruler, to tell you
    that just as a ruler has power of life and death, so too the words
    of the Torah [have potential for] life or death.
    As Rava said: To those who go to the right side of it, it is a sam
    hachaim, a medicine for life; to those who go to its left, it is a
    sam hamaves, an elixir of death.
			- Shabbos 88a

In addition to creating a culture where people don't bother thinking
about what all the CoVID rules are for, since we're used to just thinking
about the rules (to summarize how I heard RJR's point), there is a more
direct connection.

We've become so obsessed with personal observance, with "frumkeit", that
we risk lives in ways that would be unthinkable to true ovedei Hashem.
Religion as a literal sam hamaves.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 The same boiling water
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   that softens the potato, hardens the egg.
Author: Widen Your Tent      It's not about the circumstance,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF    but rather what you are made of.