In the midst of a 19th-century global pandemic, one rabbi advocated for a High Holiday season of social distancing, abbreviated services, reduced singing, and absolute transparency regarding one’s health prior to entering a synagogue. Rabbi Akiva Eger, before disseminating the communal edicts, worked in concert with medical experts and local governmental authorities.
Ultimately, having successfully spared the lives of thousands, the rabbi was heralded. When a representative of Frederick William III, King of Prussia, knocked on his door on September 5, 1831, it was the Sabbath. The representative opened an officially sealed document and read aloud the royally signed letter. For his efforts in combating the rages of cholera, Eger, a master Talmudist and community titan who represented more than 60,000 Jews in the city of Poznań, had been venerated.
The cholera pandemic would last another six years and kill approximately 250,000 people across Asia, Europe, and the Americas, but Eger’s work likely prevented thousands of deaths, embodying the biblical principle of “v’chai bahem,” that Jewish law demands vitality.
