The Agudah of Park Heights, which serves as the Baltimore Community “Minyan factory”, has just announced that the shul – under the leadership of world renowned Posek, Rabbi Moshe Heinemann (STAR-K) – is closing due to the COVID-19 uptick.
The following is the announcement from the Shul:
“Due to the difficulty guaranteeing the health and well-being of our membership, starting on 2am Thursday morning, the Agudah building will be closed and the combination lock will be changed.
Davening will be available for members with masks in outdoor tents. Sifrei Torah will be available for these minyanim, as will limited access to the restrooms.
We expect the building to remain closed through Simchas Torah, at which point we will reevaluate.”
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7 Responses
in outdoor tents How about outdoor סוכה?
This is the nusach Ashkenaz minyan machine. Rabbi Eichenstein is the nusach Sefard one.
The walls of the tents are open, or non-existant. A succah needs walls.
Rumor has it that it rains in the Sukkah on rainy days, thus the plan to use tents.
One should note that in Baltimore, the draconian responses to Coivd19 come from local rabbanim and not the government. Whether they are justified or not, since it is our rabbanim who are acting they are entitled to respect (and it should be noted that not all shuls in Baltimore are as fanatic). It is not a case of the local government trying to close down shuls or ban Yiddishkeit. The local government on the state level is led by a Republican, and the local city government while run by liberal Democrats, are dominated by traditional African American politicians, who lack the rabid ultra-secularism of New York’s predominantly white Democratic leadership. In Baltimore, it is clear the Vaad HaRabbonim is acting in uncoerced good faith (even if one argues they have been ill advised), whereas in New York the government is rather clearly acting in bad faith since they exempt their supporters from measures made in the pretext of public health that are clearly no more than attempt to strike a blow against enemies (which include any thing religious, especially religions they regard as in need of being crushed, such as our’s).
I’m sure there’s a succah, calm down.
The members of the kehila followed all procedures recommended by Rabbonim and doctors. The strictly followed all mask and social distancing rules. All spring, all summer and all fall. And yet, there’s still an uptick.