The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has urged people to stay at home during the coronavirus crisis, saying they have a “religious and moral imperative to do so.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, Rabbi Mirvis said: “the Talmud teaches: ‘If you save one life, it is as if you’ve saved the whole world’. Every single one of us can now achieve this lofty objective in a very simple way. All we need to do is stay at home.”
Reflecting on the Queen’s offer of thanks to NHS staff on Sunday night, as well as the nationwide clapping in thanks for them, he added that gratitude was a “key element” of Pesach.
He said: “The Hebrew word for ‘thank you,’ is ‘modeh’, which means ‘admit’. This is because, in order to express gratitude sincerely, one needs to acknowledge that one could not have succeeded alone.
