Mutual Responsibility

Some days ago, on the second day of Rosh Hashana, happened to be with my family at a religious gathering. There were plenty of people on two sides of the mechiza but except us, there were hardly more than 10 people wearing masks. 

I felt the urgency to leave and forget about the mitzvah of hearing the shofar because my precious life was at stake. 

I am working hard to keep my heart far away from evil thoughts but once I was listening some drasha about how important is positive thinking to keep you safe and healthy, I just wanted to stay away of all this. Just a couple of months ago happened to be myself in a hospital surrounded by people - me included - that I bet they were not willing to die, but just sickness happened, no matter what was in their thoughts. 

What really annoyed me was the lack of responsibility and inappropriate leadership. Many, old and young, do consider their rabbis as persons with authority, whose example is worth following. When they don´t wear of mask assuming some special divine protection they risk their lives. There are old people and young people, sick people and people with a problematic health history. All those deserve to live and they deserve to be told how risky is to avoid wearing masks and social distance. No matter what other mitzvah you want to perform, saving lives is the most important one. Where is the wisdom of the leadership when they continue to encourage dissent and disregard basic medical knowledge? How they can go to sleep at night after they heard that someone who attended the mask-free religious gatherings died and spread the virus to their family members too?

Where is the mutual responsibility?

PS: A couple of days ago, I´ve watched some videos featuring the aggressive Police intervention against the religious anti-mask dissenters in Jerusalem. What´s wrong with humans lately?