The current Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic raises all sorts of legal and ethical issues on top of the political, economic and health-related topics that dominate media discussion. These extra issues are of particular concern to practising Jews and one has been the subject of considerable public discussion and private anxiety: when do I do as the government says, and when do I do what my community does? In other words, when the Government imposes restrictions on communal religious worship for the sake of public health, should a person comply with those restrictions -- or should he continue to pray with an organised minyan if his co-religionists continue to do so, even though it is against the law?
Pirkei Avot offers some contrasting approaches to this dilemma. In Perek II Hillel articulates the general principle of al tifrosh min hatzibur: "do not separate yourself from the congregation" (Avot 2:5_. This itself begs the question as to who or what is a congregation. Is the tzibur merely the collective body of people with whom one interacts on a regular basis in one's Jewish community -- or can it be said to embrace also a wider collective, and indeed even an entire nation where the vast majority of people have accepted health restrictions on themselves, however irksome or irrational they may be?
Later in the same Perek, Hillel reminds us that, bemakom she'eno ish, hishtadel lihiyot ish: "in a place where there is no man, strive to be a man" (Avot 2:6). This can be taken as an encouragement to an individual to stand up against his community if he believes that it is about to head down the wrong path. This advice may be applicable only where the tzibur has yet to take its first steps, but not thereafter. In this light we can understand why Kalev and Yehoshua, having taken their stand against the meraglim in parashat Shelach Lecha, did not desert Klal Yisrael but remained among them.
