1. Thank you Rabbi Avi Schnall for speaking up about this most urgent matter so we can do the proper hishtadlus in protecting our religious freedoms in this country

   • Correct bill number to preserve Religious Exemption is S2173. Rabbi Schnall is asking people to call state senators and OPPOSE the bill

2. sound like the case that hobby lobby took to the supreme court and won over free exercise and rfra.

3. I actually like these proposed state laws!! Hope they get passed.

4. Please note – the second bill that Rabbi schnall discusses is S2173 (not S2177). Thank you!

5. sounds like the supreme court case hobby lobby won over free exercise and rfra. whats new here.

6. I am so glad someone is finally talking about this.
   Your religious freedom is at stake.

7. Correction- it’s not S2177. The bill is S2173

8. BILL S2173
   He is right. I’m all for vaccines but still the government tampering with religious rights is not what we want

9. Thank you rabbi avi schnall for addressing these important religious concerns! I think the correct bill number for the religious vaccine exemptions is S2173.

10. Can you type the email addresses above

11. Thank you Rabbi Schnall. It is of utmost importance that citizens rise up and ensure that our religious freedoms are protected. Bills like these will erode our religious freedoms. Please call your senators and express your opposition. Every call counts!

12. King Solomon said: Who is the wise man? He who sees what’s going to be born.”

13. So if my religion says it’s forbidden to wear a seatbelt I should be exempt from wearing a seatbelt? Vaccines have nothing to do with religion and being unvaccinated puts people in harm’s way.

14. With all due respect, what about employers who don’t believe in providing healthcare coverage at all? How can you make a distinction? Vaccines save lives and employees need access to them for their children. As for contraceptive coverage, are they not sometimes permitted? Why can’t employees ask their own rabbonim? Why do we seek to impose out own chumros and views on others? What happened to freedom for the (perhaps not even Jewish) employees?

15. Hmm, I’m not certain I agree. The Govt does need to protect the public as well. If say, someone says he has a religious belief to walk around with a 12” knife or an armed gun is that ok? The Govt cannot allow non vaccinated people to roam because they say it’s their religious belief. That puts my kids in danger.

    Besides, 97.5% of religious leaders say that you must vaccinate so because this guy decided it’s his religious belief shouldn’t put us in danger.

    What you do in your home is one thing, and to not want to pay for contraceptives I understand. But to put others in danger is something else. I personally would be pro that bill.

    • @Chaim Laib,
      Those same religious leaders may have different parameters (halacha) as to what is considered a medical emergency and/or when a person would be medically exempt. You would need religious freedom (religious exemption) to make those distinctions.

    • hey chaim. Healthy unvaccinated people”roaming” do not put anyone in danger. Get your facts straight.

16. With all due respect to Rabbi Schnall, this plea presents a bill as infringing on religious rights when that’s not the case.

    Taking the information as presented in the video at face value, the bill requires employers to pay for a more comprehensive health plan.

    Paying for health insurance that includes the benefit of an employee having access to birth control is not the same thing as being compelled to use birth control.

    Nobody is saying that you must do X. The law is that if you choose to hire someone, you must pay for them to have the opportunity to choose to do X.

    The closest thing I can think of as being a halachic issue here is *maybe* being compelled to enable someone else to violate the Torah. But, I’m not sure that’s relevant here. And, if the employee or employer isn’t bound to Halacha, this conversation is a non-starter.

    The first bill he is asking for folks to protest is one that imposes a financial cost on employers.

    The second bill, I have no idea, because he doesn’t say what the bill is proposing. Except suddenly he takes the opposite approach to the one he took for the first one. When it comes to contraceptives, what you believe matters. But with vaccines, suddenly “we’re not talking about whether you believe vaccines are in according with the orthodox jewish view.”

    I’m sorry but this is disingenuous at best.

17. Religious Freedom is not absolute. It means you can pray however you want, to whomever you want, or not pray at all. It doesn’t mean you can practice child sacrifice or kill idol worshipers.
    The first bill is tricky but I can understand it.
    The second bill affects other people and the gov’t has the right to step in.
    My question is you need to pick you battles carefully. Why pick this one? Almost all Rabbonim say to vaccinate and every other frum community said it’s required. The exemption is only for those that truly believe g-d said not to, not because you don’t want to. How can a frum yid claim they can’t vaccinate when there’s not a single Ruv that said not to? There’s maybe a handful of Rabbonim that said you don’t have to but which Ruv said your not allowed to according to halacha?
    Why pick this battle when it’s not nogeah to the Frum?
    Do you really want to stand up and make the case for segregation of blacks or not wearing seatbelts?
    Why fight for endangering the lives of the public when it serves no purpose and there’s no legitimate reason according to Halacha to receive a religious exemption?
    There seems to be much better battles you could choose to fight.

    • FYI-
      there are instances when rabbonim have told parents not to vaccinate their children. this is absolute fact. Furthermore R’ Shmuel Kamenetsky wrote a psak on this matter which conflicts with the “facts” you present.

    • First of all this is about preserving religious rights, his point is : the issue and what you think about it doesn’t matter, once you allow the government to take away a religious right they can take away any religious “right.” This should be a terrifying precedent to set for any religious person. Secondly, the HPV shot will be part of future mandated vaccines. This shot is one of the most dangerous on the market. It has caused infertility and ovarian failure in many young women, it has caused seizures and even death. This is not an airborne contagious disease but without a religious exemption everyone would be forced to get it. This shot for any rabbanim that have looked at all of the data and the safety and efficacy of this shot should be 100% ASSUR in the orthodox community. The risk vs benefit for this shot in an orthodox community where our children are not typically sexually active is high risk for little or no benefit. But without a religious exemption it will ultimately be mandated for all of our kids. Vaccines are categorized as biologics and do not need to go through the same rigorous safety studies that other drugs need to go through. The HPV vaccine on trial would be a really good book to read before you decide you are pro forced inoculations for Am Yisroel.

18. You must listen:

    When you speak to educated physicians, they will advise you that taking any type of medication incurs risk, especially a vaccine.

    Therefore, when there is risk there must also be choice.

    Do not be ignorant and retort, well what if I have a religious right to carry a rifle all the time? Please, that is pure nonsense. There are those that are injured from vaccines. It’s a real problem. Therefore, one should be able to consult with their Rav about their hesitation and what steps to take next.

    I guess your religous right will not matter soon when it comes to pulling the plug on a loved one. When the hospital says your relative is taking too much space and putting pressure on the healthcare system, therefore you don’t have a religious right to keep them alive.

    Good luck to all.

    You should ask be opposing these bills.

    Shame on you if you do not.

19. Don’t miss the point. Once this bill passes its a slippery slope. Who is to stop them from mandating one to “pull the plug” or make problems regarding Bris Mila etc.
    Unfortunately these things are not unheard of discussions.

20. What is an armed gun?

21. The minute anti-vaxxers jump on the bandwagon of genuine challenges that impact health, they undermine the potential success of the efforts being made. Vaccines are the ultimate form of healing according, as the Rambam holds that prevention is better than cure. Dont allow people who have been brainwashed by false messiahs and pseudo science to weigh in on national health insurance concerns.

22. someone who holds that vaccines are dangerous, or that chemo kills and only wants to use herbal medicine, to that person to command “vnishmartem es nafshoseichem meod”, means according to his religion, he can’t vaccinate. That making vaccines mandatory goes against his religious freedom. I personally am ambiguous about vaccinations and I believe in letting people do what they want.

23. V’nishmartem es nafsosheichem meod” means that a person must take care of his health exceedingly. Someone who feels that vaccines cause harm should be able to not have his kids vaccinated according to his religion. (Maybe candy should be banned because it causes a lot of harm). People should be free to choose whether or not to vaccinate,as a religious freedom, because according to their religion it goes under the commandment of guarding one’s health.

    • Yes, but at some point we need to draw a line. The overwhelming majority of society and the medical world say that in general vaccines prevent illness and disease.

      Like I said before, in your own home do as you wish, but as we have seen with the terribly scary measles outbreak last year that when it affects the general public you shouldn’t have that right. 98% of orthodox rabbi’s say that not only can you, but that you must vaccinate, so to call this a religious right is absurd.

      (Was typing fast earlier, meant a loaded gun, not an armed gun. . .)

24. Can someone please explain to me how requiring vaccines somehow violates a persons “religious” rights?!?!

    • “Jews don’t have a right for self defense, they have an OBLIGATION for self defense”
      The same is with health and many other things, we do things because the Torah requires we should do them, and any decision regarding health or any other aspect in our life should be allowed to be made accordingly.

25. Would someone please post a form letter or link to a form letter as well as the email addresses to send these letters to?

    This is of utmost importance.

26. Mandating medical procedures violates a person’s basic rights. Unfortunately, we only take a stand when the term religious freedom comes up. Notice how it’s the liberal big government states (ca, ny, and now nj) that have the most imposing vaccine laws

27. ABSOLUTELY OPPOSE THESE BILLS! If tomorrow government will ban your right to vaccinate, then after tomorrow they will ban your right to travel, eat, marry etc. NOTHING will stop them! Nothing! So all you pro vaxxers are missing the point!!! The right to choose is being taken away! Vaccinate until your immune system no longer recognizer lettuce, I dont care! But it should be YOUR choice!!!

28. No-ones mandating vaccines.
    Their saying if you don’t vaccinate, you need to stay away from others to not harm them.
    People keep bringing up guns. It is the same, in your house carry all the guns you want. But when you go out in public, leave them at home so you don’t endanger others.

    • the pro vaccine again tells us misinformation.! If a healthy person doesn’t vaccinate, he does not harm anyone, and does not have to stay away from anyone!

29. No rav (even the anti-vaxxers) will say that our religion doesn’t allow vaccinations because that is simply untrue. So they couch it under religioius exemption. What they want to say is that our religion says that its medically unsafe to vaccinate, but such a statement will not be accepted as it contradicts medical research. So they promote a religious exemption, which means that our religion doesn’t allow vaccinations, and that is really megale panim batorah shelo kehalacha, the worst aveira possible. Thus fighting for religious freedom to unvaccinate is a horrendous aveira.

    • Actually, my kids doctors have told me that based on my kids reactions to their vaccines and the medical autoimmune issues they now have that they cannot get future vaccines. Unfortunately, the doctors said that their health concerns are not part of the very limited contraindications the CDC has for a medical exemptions so the doctors can’t write a medical exemption without putting their license at risk. But they have also told me it is too dangerous to give my kids more shots. So religiously I am not allowed to do something that my kids doctors believe is very unsafe for my children so that should be grounds for a religious exemption. What should we no longer have medical exemptions?

      • in your case a medical exemption is religiously mandated. But that is rare.
        We’re talking about people who want to get out of vaccines and use the cover of ‘religious’ exemption which is a chillul H’ nora.

        • I don’t think you understand. I can’t get a medical exemption, the guidlines for medical exemptions are so limited you basically need to have a dead kid to get one and even then my other kids would not be eligible for exemptions until after they have been harmed as well. My childrens’ reactions are also not rare at all, just usually undiagnosed misdiagnosed or dismissed by incompetent and clueless doctors. The chillul H’ Nora here is the way the Jewish community has treated parents of vaccine injured children and parents that are protecting their children from further injury. The chillul Hnora here is the fact that Jewish families have been kicked out of schools, and shuls across America in the name of vaccine worship. Some of us would rather not continue in this modern day MOLECH and we would prefer to rely on what the Almighty has planned for us and our children, instead of having total faith in Pharmaceutical companies. These same companies have no liability or accountability for vaccines, yet have us believe that vaccines are one size fits all, and all vaccines are safe for everyone. This is just not true, and anyone who has a child with an autoimmune illness should know that. We have unprecedented numbers of : food allergies, asthma, crohns, OCD, Anxiety, MCAS, ODD, ADD, ADHD, autism, PANDAS/PANS, celiac, diabetes, cancer, POTS, fibromyalgia, the list goes on and on.

30. how Come people are scared of the healthy kids that aren’t vaccinated.
    But Gramma and grandpa who had zero vaccines growing up they jump into there laps? Answer pharmacy companies create a product and they sell it with fear. There are ten of thousands of different diseases that kill and hurt people. There is more cases of leprosy then measles. Leprosy that’s last years or life long Measles 2 weeks to run course and some vitamin A. So how come no one talks about leprosy Because there is no vaccine ‘propaganda’.
    ‘SIDS’ is an affect of vaccine that says it on the package. I wonder why people blame ‘SIDS’ on mattress.

    In the vaccine
    Aborted human death tissue
    Blood and cells from animals
    Aluminum
    Mercury
    Formaldehyde
    Acetone
    Phenoxyethanol
    Msg
    And E.COLI
    People think E.coli is from lettuce it says it on vaccine insert and don’t compare to candy and things that are put through the best filter in the world called the liver and vaccines and put behind the human filter which god gave use to use.
    I’m pro choice. If you scared good for you you can take another dose Theres extra cause I’m not putting that in my body gotta be nuts

31. The point isn’t birth control or vaccines, it’s religious freedom.
    Religious freedom includes the frum education of your choice,
    Brit milah including metzitza b’peh, shechita, Halachic weddings and divorces, right to wear a kipah at work and on the street, and more.

    Once we allow them to take away one, they can easily go after the others. If the Constitution is allowed to be disregarded now, it will be ignored later as well. Then it’s no longer the US as we know it.

    • We don’t have religious freedom to opt out of vaccinations. The Torah tells us to follow medical experts who say to vaccinate unless there’s medical exceptions.

32. Here all the senator’s contact info. Please let them know you oppose S2173.

    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]
    [email protected]

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