Vaccination

The Obligation to Vaccinate
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, Revivim
Parents who do not want to vaccinate their children, however, can argue they are not required to follow the majority, for if they alone do not vaccinate their children, nothing will happen (and they too benefit from the vaccination of others…). However, this position is based on an immoral point of view, because if everyone behaves in this manner, the population will not be vaccinated, and serious and contagious diseases will turn into epidemics.
This position is the same as that of a person claiming that if he alone avoids military service, the security of the state will not be harmed, because one less soldier will not change the state of national security (and he too benefits from the protection provided by those who do enlist …). However, if everyone prefers his own personal safety and comfort, our situation will be dreadful.

With its strong sense of community and duty, the Jewish tradition would have us use communal measures to preserve our lives and health as much as possible. It would be a violation of Jewish law, for example, for a Jew to refuse to be inoculated against a disease, at least where the inoculation has a proven track record of effectiveness. Jews, on the contrary, have a positive duty to have themselves and their children inoculated against all diseases where that preventative measure is effective and available.
- Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Matters of Life and Death, page 253

One must obey the advice of doctors
As Rabbi Alfred Cohen emphasized (pp. 85-89), many poskim have ruled that one must obey the advice of doctors. And so ruled Rabbi Ovadia Yosef (Yehaveh Da’at, vol. 1, No. 61), on the basis of many sources, as is his custom. Since almost all the doctors in the world instruct us to get vaccinated, one must obey them and get vaccinated.
(Does halakhah require vaccination against dangerous diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and Covid-19? by Rabbi David Golinkin)

Even if nine were not vaccinated and did not die, the tenth must get vaccinated
There are those opposed to vaccines, claiming that there is no need to get vaccinated because many have not been vaccinated all their lives yet died at a ripe old age and therefore there is no definite danger. This is not correct. After all, we have learned in a Baraita (Avodah Zarah 30b) in connection with uncovered water mentioned above: “A barrel that was uncovered,even though nine drank from it and did not die, a tenth should not drink from it. A story transpired that nine drank from it nine and did not die and the tenth drank and died…”. The Rambam codified this Baraita (Hilkhot Rotzeah 11:14) and the Tur ruled: “Even if others drank from them and were not harmed, one may not drink from them” (Yoreh Deah 116, at the beginning).
Therefore, even if there are nine who have not been vaccinated and have not died, the tenth must be vaccinated because of possible danger.
Danger is more serious than a prohibition
The claim that not getting vaccinated is not a definite danger is also pushed aside by the Talmudic principle (Hullin 10a): “Danger is more serious than a prohibition”. In other words, if there is doubtful impurity in a public place, it’s considered “pure”, but if water was left uncovered at night and a snake might have drunk from it, do not drink it. The Tur codified this rule in Yoreh Deah 116, while the Rema writes (Yoreh Deah 116:5): “And so too should he beware of all things that lead to danger, because danger is more serious than a prohibition and one should be more careful about doubtful danger than a doubtful prohibition”.
There is no doubt that not getting a vaccination is at least a doubtful danger because there is a high probability that that person endangers his health, and therefore one must receive a vaccination according to the principle that “danger is more serious than a prohibition”.
(Does halakhah require vaccination against dangerous diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and Covid-19? by Rabbi David Golinkin)

Teshuvot on Vaccines
Rav Shlomo Aviner
Q: Is one obligated to vaccinate?
A: Yes. 'For your own sake be careful' (Devarim 4:15). Many things were forbidden by the sages since they caused mortal danger. Anyone who violates this and says 'I am putting myself in danger, what do other care?' or 'I will be careful' We give him lashes [for violating a rabbinic commandment] (Rambam).
Q: In modern countries, we have some freedom to do as we wish with vaccinations.
A: 1) Real freedom is to guard the Torah and mitzvot. 2) You have no freedom to endanger children because you did not vaccinate them. 3) You also endanger others that are close to you, and there is in this the din of rodef (the pursuer).

Poskim who support or even require vaccinations, in chronological order
Dr. Edward Jenner invented the smallpox vaccine in 1796. Since then, and even a little before that, most of the poskim who have dealt with this topic have supported that vaccine – and, later on, other vaccines – on the basis of some of the sources cited above, and some have even required vaccinations. I will present these poskim in chronological order, along with brief remarks regarding their views:
1. Avraham ben Shlomo Nansich or Nantzig, published a pamphlet entitled Aleh Trufah, London 1785. He was a talmid hakhambut, apparently, not a rabbi. Two of his children died of smallpox. He passionately supported “variolation” or “inoculation”, a method which existed before Jenner’s safer vaccine, in which pus is taken from a smallpox patient’s wound and placed under the skin of a healthy person (see detailed summaries in Prouser, pp. 12-13; Eisenstein , p. 77; Brown; and he is mentioned by many of the rabbis listed in the Bibliography below). He saw in this method of inoculation the fulfillment of the above mitzvah of “And you shall guard your souls very much”.
2. Rabbi Yishmael Hacohen of Modena (1723-1811; Zera Emet, Part II, Livorno, 1796, Yoreh De’ah, No. 32; cf. Zimmels, p. 108) also dealt with the question of the “inoculation of the varioli”. Rabbi Bleich (p. 454) maintains that Rabbi Yishmael supported Dr. Jenner’s vaccination, but it’s clear from studying his responsum that he was still debating the older method of “inoculation”. On the one hand, he justified at the end of his first letter the custom of those places that do so, although there is the possibility that one in a thousand of them will die, “and especially since we have never heard or seen any of them die of this disease, according to the testimony of the doctors who testify according to the wisdom of their art, and even if we hear of someone who died from this treatment, in any case it’s a tiny minority and we do not take this into consideration”. But at the end of his second letter, after the justification of the custom, he adds: “But in any case, for those who are afraid to rule [about this]… ‘sit and do nothing is better’ [i.e., it is preferable not to give a ruling], and silence is better as long as he is able to evade, to say neither prohibited nor permitted, as I answered whoever asked me about this, that I don’t want to [rule] in a case of doubtful danger of death”. In other words, Rabbi Yishmael justified the practice of those who did inoculation, but when someone asked him whether to do so, he avoided answering. However, it should be emphasized that this whole discussion dealt with the older method of “inoculation”, and not with Dr. Jenner’s much safer method of vaccination.
3. Kuntress Hanhagot Yesharot (Jerusalem, 1997, pp. 5-6, quoted by Prouser, p. 14), attributes the following ruling to Rabbi Nahman of Breslav (1772-1811):
And Rabbeinu z”l said that they must set up paken for every baby before a quarter of a year, because if not, he’s like a shedder of blood, and even if they live far from the city, he must travel there, even when the cold is great, etc.
Paken in Yiddish means pox, smallpox and the Hebrew phrase “to set up paken” is a translation from the Yiddish “shtellen paken”, to vaccinate against smallpox (Bochner and Beinfeld, Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary, Indiana, 2013, p. 485). In other words, every parent must vaccinate his or her child up to the age of three months, even in winter and even if he lives far from the city and, if not, he is like one who sheds blood.
4. Rabbi Eleazar Fleckeles (Prague, 1754-1826) dealt with our topic together with his son-in-law, Rabbi Itzak Spitz of Breznitz in 1805 (Teshuvah Mei’ahavah, Kashoi, 1912, Nos. 134-135; cf. Zimmels, pp. 109-110). His son-in-law was asked by the community of Tashkin: if the non-Jewish doctor only comes to the city for one day on Shabbat in order to give impfen (vaccine or inoculation, in German and Yiddish), is it allowed to bring the baby to him for vaccination on Shabbat? Rabbi Spitz wrote that it’s only a rabbinic prohibition since they only make a small incision in the skin without shedding blood, so it’s permissible to tell the non-Jewish doctor to give the baby a vaccine because “the Sages did not decree against a double shevut [=telling a non-Jew to do a rabbinic prohibition on Shabbat] in cases of danger”. He writes that it’s preferable to do the vaccination on a weekday, but if it’s only possible on Shabbat, then the parents must do the vaccination on Shabbat, and it’s better not to assist the doctor, but if necessary, this should not be an obstacle “lest he delay and the blood of his sons is on his head”. Rabbi Fleckeles assumes that the doctor who comes to perform vaccinations is an expert who received permission from the chief doctor in the big city of Prague, the capital. He then he agrees almost verbatim with what his son-in-law suggested. In other words, they both agreed that Jews must vaccinate their children and even allowed the vaccination to be done by a non-Jewish doctor on Shabbat.
5. According to a report by R. Yehudah Leib Jeiteles (Benei Hane’urim, Prague, 1821, p. 72, quoted by Bleich, p. 454, note 17), Rabbi Mordechai Banet (Moravia, 1753-1829) supported the campaign of his father Dr. Jonas Jeiteles to vaccinate the Jews of Prague against smallpox. However, this does not appear in the writings of Rabbi Banet.
6. Rabbi Yisrael Lifshitz (Danzig, 1782-1860) permitted the smallpox vaccine in his commentary Tiferet Yisrael to Mishnah Seder Moed, published for the first time in 1844. We have learned in Mishnah Yoma 8:7 that if a person was buried under a house which collapsed on Shabbat or Yom Kippur, if they found him alive, they dig him out of the ruins. In the Yachin section (paragraph 41), Rabbi Lifshitz writes: “Even if he will only live for a short time, we are concerned for a short time”. In other words, we dig him out from under a pile of stones even though he will only live for a short time. In the Boaz section (paragraph 3), he adds: “And from this it seems to me permissible to make a pox inoculation, even though one in a thousand dies from the inoculation, in any case, if he develops natural smallpox, the danger is nearer, and therefore he may place himself in a distant danger to save himself from imminent danger.” He then proceeds to prove his point from other sources. In other words, it is better to take a small risk by receiving the vaccine in order to avoid a much greater danger — smallpox. And if he ruled in this fashion in his day when he thought that one in a thousand of those vaccinated die, how much the more so today when the death rate is one in 100,000.
7. In 1896, a Jew named Henry Levy was arrested in London for refusing to vaccinate his son on the grounds that it was against his religion. The prosecutor, who was Jewish, turned to Rabbi Hermann Adler, the Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, who replied that this man “was not justified in making the statements contained in the letter; that the most competent medical authorities were agreed as to [the] vaccination being a prophylactic against smallpox, and added that its use was in perfect consonance with the letter and spirit of Judaism” (Bush, p. 186, based on the book יהי אור, published in London in 1897; cf. Eisenstein, p. 77).
8. Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann (Berlin, 1843-1921), a well-known posek and the leader neo-Orthodoxy in Germany, did not deal directly with our topic. He ruled in his responsa (Melamed Leho’il, Part II, Berlin, 1927, No. 104), following R. Ya’akov Reisher (Shevut Ya’akov, Part III, No. 75), that if a child needs an operation and at least two-thirds of the doctors in the city agree that the surgery is necessary “then surely the opinion of his father and mother does not make a difference, for it says in Yoreh Deah336 that a doctor is obligated to heal [as we saw in the above passage from Maimonides] and if he prevents himself from healing, then he is shedding blood. And we have not found in the entire Torah that a father and mother have permission to endanger the lives of their children and prevent the doctor from healing them. This is the law of the Torah”. In our case, almost all doctors in the world agree that children must be vaccinated and that this saves millions of lives every year. Therefore, one can assume that in the opinion of Rabbi David Zvi Hoffmann, children must be vaccinated according to the law of the Torah even if the parents object (Prouser, p. 24).
9. Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac Halevi Herzog (1888-1959), the first Ashkenazic Chief Rabbi of the State of Israel, discussed our topic tangentially in a responsum regarding the construction of a security fence on Shabbat during the War of Independence (Heikhal Yitzchak, Orah Hayyim, No. 31 = Pesakim Uketavim, Orah Hayyim, No. 45). He wrote there: “And I say that it depends on the expert doctors; if they say that [the plague] may spread and the population must be vaccinated by injections, even if this entails Biblically prohibited labor, if it was not done on Friday, it is permissible on Shabbat”.
10. The ultra-Orthodox posek, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv (1910-2012; Lithuania and Jerusalem), discussed our topic twice. The first halakhic ruling is quoted in an English book on Jewish medical ethics by Akiva Tatz from 2010, so it is very difficult to be precise in the halakhic terminology. Rabbi Elyashiv told the author orally that “parents should accede to immunization despite their concerns… his reason was that since immunization of children is normal practice throughout the world, one should follow that normative course. In fact, Rabbi Elyashiv went so far as to assert that failure to immunize would amount to negligence. Refusing childhood immunizations on the basis of unsubstantiated fears of vaccine side-effects is irresponsible and out of order halakhically. The danger of precipitating epidemics of measles, poliomyelitis and other diseases with potentially devastating complications is far more real than the dangers attributed to vaccines on the basis of anecdotal claims. Until objective evidence to the contrary accrues, the halakhically correct approach is to do what is normal. In addition, a legitimate government’s legislation concerning standards of medical conduct adds weight to their halakhic acceptability. (Quoted from Glatt, p. 70 = Bush, p. 199, note 41; cf. brief references by Bleich, p. 465; Grossman 2020, note 13). In another ruling, in Hebrew, Rabbi Elyashiv ruled: “If most of the children in the class are vaccinated against a virus, and there are individual children whose parents have not vaccinated them, and there are parents in the class who are afraid of this, they can demand that the individuals act according to the majority and not turn into mazikim [=those who inflict damage]” (Bush, p. 200, note 47).
11. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, a well-known expert in Jewish medical ethics (Jerusalem, 1915-2006), did not deal with our topic directly. He was asked in 2001 by the Director of the Ophthalmology Department at Bikur Holim Hospital in Jerusalem: Since 86% of all yeshivah students suffer from myopia and, as a result, a certain percentage go blind in one or both eyes, should we: require their parents to refer their children for supervision and treatment; require the institutions to refer all students for treatment; and require the public institutions to help prevent the development of this disease? Rabbi Waldenberg answered in the affirmative in a very decisive fashion to all three questions. He relied on the Rambam’s commentary to Mishnah Nedarimand on Rabbi Ya’akov Emden quoted above. He emphasized the commandments of “and you shall restore it to him” (Deuteronomy 22:2); “You shall not stand idly by the blood of your fellow” (Leviticus 19:16); “Love your neighbor as yourself” (ibid., 18); and “You must not ignore” (Deuteronomy 22:3). (Tzitz Eliezer, Part 15, No. 40; quoted briefly by DiPoce and Buchbinder, pp. 97-98; Prouser, pp. 20, 23)
12. Rabbi Yitzchak Zilberstein, an expert in Jewish medical ethics (Bnei Brak, born 1934), dealt with our topic in a Hebrew letter published in English in 2015 (Zilberstein). He ruled that a Jew must vaccinate himself based on Tiferet Yisrael quoted above, Minhat Shlomo, and the Hazon Ish; the rabbi/posek of a school “has full rights to deny entry to those [unvaccinated] children into the school until they receive the vaccinations”; “senior citizens who the doctors have determined will be endangered if they do not take an annual flu shot, have a mitzvah to be vaccinated, and this will be a fulfilment of the requirement to guard one’s health [i.e., Deut. 4:9 and 15 quoted above]”.
13. “Agudath Israel of America” submitted an amicus curiae brief to the Supreme Court of the United Sates in 1996, arguing that: “Society has the right to compel citizens to submit to vaccination… [and] to insist that a child receive life-sustaining treatment even over the religiously motivated opposition of his parents” (Prouser, p. 15).
14. Rabbi Hershel Schachter (U.S., born 1941; Rosh Yeshivah at Yeshiva University) ruled “that where vaccines are mandated by the state, such as in the case of immunizations before entering school, one would be obligated to be immunized based on the concept of “Dina d’Malchuta Dina” [the law of the land is the law] (DiPoce and Buchbinder, p. 99; subsequently quoted by Glatt, p. 71).
15. The Conservative posek, Rabbi Elliott Dorf (U.S., born 1943) wrote in his book on Judaism’s approach to medical ethics in 1998 (Dorf, p. 253) that “it would be a violation of Jewish law… for a Jew to refuse to be inoculated against a disease, at least where the inoculation has a proven track record of effectiveness. Jews, on the contrary, have a positive duty [a mitzvah? DG] to have themselves and their children inoculated against all diseases where that preventive measure is effective and available”.
16. The Reform posek Rabbi Mark Washofsky (U.S., born 1952) ruled in an official ruling of the Responsa Committee of the CCAR in 1999 that immunization is “proven” medicine [in the words of Rabbi Ya’akov Emden quoted above], and is therefore “part and parcel of the traditional obligation to practice and to avail ourselves of medical treatment”; Jewish tradition would not object to compulsory immunization; and “a congregation is entitled… to adopt a rule that requires immunization of students before their admission to religious school” (Washofsky, p. 115).
17. The Conservative posek Rabbi Joseph Prouser (U.S., born ca. 1960) ruled in 2005, with the consent of almost all members of the Rabbinical Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, that parents must vaccinate their children against infectious diseases unless a specific child has a medical problem preventing it; that failure to immunize children against vaccine-preventable disease is a serious compound violation of Jewish law; that Jewish day schools must require vaccination of all children against infectious diseases unless it endangers the life of a specific child; and that unvaccinated children should be denied admission to Jewish day schools (Prouser, p. 29).
18. Rabbi Shlomo Brody, an Orthodox rabbi, wrote in 2014 that “we must support the call of Israel’s chief rabbis, who have declared that Jewish law mandates that all children be vaccinated in accordance with Health Ministry regulations (Brody).
19. The Orthodox Union (OU) and the Rabbinical Council of America ruled on December 15, 2020 that “the Torah obligation to preserve our lives and the lives of others requires us to vaccinate for COVID-19 as soon as a vaccine becomes available” (OU/RCA).
20. Finally, two prominent modern Orthodox rabbis were so amazed by the fact that modern medicine has discovered a vaccine for Covid-19 in less than a year that they decided to recite a blessing in December 2020 before being injected. Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber recited a Yehi Ratzon from the Talmud (Berakhot 60a at bottom) before the injection and Sheheyanu after the injection, while Rabbi Avi Weiss recited the Asher Yatzar blessing (Berakhot 60b, usually recited after going to the bathroom) before the injection.
(Does halakhah require vaccination against dangerous diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and Covid-19? by Rabbi David Golinkin)

COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance
Presented by the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America
December 15, 2020 – 29 Kislev 5781
The following is shared based on the guidance of our poskim, Harav Hershel Schachter שליט"א and and Harav Mordechai Willig שליט"א, with the support of Harav Dovid Cohen שליט"א.
We are grateful for the progress that has been made in vaccine development for COVID- הודו לד' כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו .19
Halacha obligates us to care for our own health and to protect others from harm and illness. In addition, Halacha directs us to defer to the consensus of medical experts in determining and prescribing appropriate medical responses to both treating and preventing illness.
There has long been an almost uniform consensus among leading medical experts that vaccines are an effective and responsible manner of protecting life and advancing health. For over two hundred years vaccinations have been responsible for the dramatic reduction of many terrible diseases and have significantly improved public health in our country and around the world. For this reason, the consensus of our major poskim (halachic decisors) is to encourage us to use vaccinations to protect ourselves and others from disease.
While this guidance of our poskim has addressed vaccine usage generally, the introduction of the novel COVID-19 vaccines required specific reconsideration. The poskim recognize that the COVID-19 vaccines have been developed with unprecedented speed and are expected to be made available under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA). In addition, the two currently leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates are mRNA vaccines which employ a new vaccine technology.
Notwithstanding these factors, the conclusion of our poskim is that, pursuant to the advice of your personal health care provider, the Torah obligation to preserve our lives and the lives of others requires us to vaccinate for COVID-19 as soon as a vaccine becomes available.
Our medical and scientific advisors have clarified that efforts to speed vaccine development to address the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have not sacrificed scientific standards, the integrity of the vaccine review process, or safety. Rather than cutting corners, the acceleration has been achieved by marshalling unprecedented financial resources, creating multiple partnerships, and removing virtually all non-scientific bureaucratic hurdles. These efforts have not, however, involved a reduction in the appropriate safety standards or a decrease in the standard, multiple levels of scientific review.
These efforts appear to have been successful beyond all expectations and have produced more than one vaccine with an unusually high rate of effectiveness with no indications of any significant risk. While no medical intervention can be considered risk-free, expert opinion is clear that the enormous benefits presented by these vaccines far outweigh their risks.
In consideration of the guidance of our poskim, we strongly encourage all those eligible to access the COVID-19 vaccination to do so. We hope and pray that such steps will help bring to an end the tragic toll that the pandemic has taken on our community and beyond.
Per the guidance of our medical and scientific advisors, for those who have had the virus and an already demonstrated sustained antibody response the vaccine remains safe and potentially helpful but appears to be less necessary.
We note that the availability and use of the COVID-19 vaccine will not immediately allow us to reduce adherence to current mitigation strategies, including social distancing, masking, and diligent hand hygiene. These practices must continue to be followed until official public health recommendations advise otherwise. As long as these practices remain in place it remains unnecessary to consider institutional policies or additional restrictions regarding the non- vaccinated.
This guidance is intended as general guidelines and should not be construed by any individual as, or be substituted for, medical or other professional advice. Personal decisions regarding the vaccine should be discussed with your healthcare provider. Moreover, this guidance is formulated based solely on currently available information. Events and information continue to evolve and may impact the applicability of this guidance.
We hope and pray that we will soon be blessed by Hashem to be able to come together comfortably and safely.