Religious Leadership and Covid-19 

by Rabbi Allen S. Maller

Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees gathered by the Ganges River for special prayers during the Kumbh Mela sacred pilgrimage most of them flouting social distancing practices as the coronavirus spreads in India with record speed. The Kumbh Mela is one of the most sacred pilgrimages in Hinduism. The faithful come to enter into the waters of the Ganges river, which they believe will absolve them of their sins and deliver them from the cycle of birth and death.

The Kumbh Mela comes during India’s worst surge in new infections since the pandemic began. On Friday April 23 India recorded 332,730 coronavirus cases, the highest one-day tally anywhere in the world for the second day in a row. Daily deaths from Covid-19 rose by a record 2,263 in the previous 24 hours.

Critics of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party say the festival has been allowed at a time when infections are skyrocketing because the government isn’t willing to anger Hindus, who are the party’s biggest supporters.

With the surge showing no sign of slowing, India’s confirmed infections since the pandemic began now surpassed Brazil’s total to make it the second-worst hit country in the world.

While Buddhists and Hindus can blame the Covid-19 plague on bad Karma, members of the Abrahamic religions face a greater theological challenge. In the USA the coronavirus has prompted almost two-thirds of American believers to feel that God is telling humanity to change how it lives according to a poll conducted by the University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press which indicates many people are searching for deeper meaning in the devastating COVID-19 outbreak.

The poll found that 62% of Americans who believe in God feel strongly or somewhat strongly, that the virus is a sign from God telling humanity to change. Evangelical Protestants are more likely than others to believe that strongly, at 43%, compared with 28% of Catholics and mainline Protestants.

The UK Office for National Statistics data shows mortality rates have been twice as high in deprived areas as they have been in wealthy areas and much of this is due to decades of growing income inequality. That is one of the things most people think must change.

As a Rabbi I think the poll should have asked two more questions about God’s protection. The good news is that 26% of Americans polled say their sense of faith or spirituality has grown stronger as a result of the outbreak. Only 1% say their sense of faith or spirituality has weakened.

All of us are being tested personally as individuals; and as organic members of a nation, a society and even the whole of humanity.

We are tested as individuals as the Qur’an states: “Indeed We shall put you to test; some with fear and hunger, and some with loss of wealth, lives, and offspring. And (Muhammad) convey good tidings to those who are patient, who say, when inflicted by hardship, "Indeed we are of God and to Him shall we return;" upon them is the blessings of Allah and His mercy.” (2:155)

And we are tested as nation, community or a society as God states: “So that I may test them, whether they will follow My law or not” (Torah Exodus 16:4) and "Remember the entire path along which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the desert, He sent hardships to test you." (Torah Deuteronomy 8:2).

“Or do you think that you will enter Paradise before Allah tests those of you who fought and (also) tests those who are patient [believers who sufferer]? (Qur’an 3:142).

On the other hand some super religious leaders in Israel have been pushing their followers to oppose anti-COVID19 measures. Many members of the ultra-Orthodox community were slow to begin heeding social distancing regulations and initially resisted the shutdown of their schools and synagogues.

Roni Numa, the government official who oversees the pandemic response in the ultra-Orthodox community, said in a press briefing on January 18, 2021 that 30% of infections in Israel were coming from the ultra-Orthodox community, while the ultra-Orthodox community constitutes only 10% of the general population. Some 20% of virus tests are coming back positive in ultra-Orthodox areas compared to around 5% in the general population.

Meanwhile in Iran, media outlets controlled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei try to justify the government’s refusal to purchase Covid-19 vaccines.

For instance, Ali Asghar Annabestani, member of the Parliament (Majlis) Social Affairs Commission, said, “American and British vaccines will make its users sterile and they are carcinogenic.”

And there’s a difference of opinion amongst Islamic scholars about taking pork gelatin and making it undergo a major chemical transformation. Is that still considered to be religiously impure.

The majority consensus from past debates over pork gelatin use in vaccines is that it is permissible under Islamic law, as “greater harm” would occur if the vaccines weren’t used, said Dr. Harunor Rashid, an associate professor at the University of Sydney.

There’s a similar assessment by a broad consensus of religious leaders in the Orthodox Jewish community as well. Rabbi David Stav, chairman of Tzohar, a rabbinical organization in Israel said Ii “it’s injected into the body, not (eaten) through the mouth,” then there is “no prohibition and no problem, especially when we are concerned about illnesses,” he said.

Yet there have been dissenting opinions on the issue — some with serious health consequences in Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population. In 2018, the Indonesian Ulema Council, the Muslim clerical body that issues certifications that a product is halal, decreed that the measles and rubella vaccines were “haram,” or unlawful, because of the gelatin. Religious and community leaders began to urge parents to not allow their children to be vaccinated.

“Measles cases subsequently spiked, giving Indonesia the third-highest rate of measles in the world,” said Rachel Howard, director of a health care market research group Research Partnership. A decree was later issued by the Muslim clerical body saying it was permissible to receive the vaccine, but cultural taboos still led to continued low vaccination rates, Howard said.

Now a new vaccine for Malaria is on the horizon. Let us pray that religious leaders in all religions will advocate for both Coronavirus and Malaria vaccinations.

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Allen S. Maller is an ordained Reform Rabbi who retired in 2006 after 39 years as the Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, California. His web site is: www.rabbimaller.com. He blogs on the Times of Israel. Rabbi Maller has published 450+ articles in some two dozen different Christian, Jewish, and Muslim magazines and web sites. He is the author of two recent books: "Judaism and Islam as Synergistic Monotheisms' and "Which Religion Is Right For You? A 21st Century Kuzari".