August 5, 2020 11:47AM # Your License, Or Your Conscience? A Tale of the Pandemic By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE The story of one man’s stand on principle and the patients who were saved, from Jewish family weekly [Mishpacha](https://mishpacha.com/where-life-comes-from/) via [Ira Stoll](https://www.futureofcapitalism.com/2020/08/the-rabbi-versus-the-governor): > Early on, a *talmid* called with a complicated question. As an operator of several nursing homes, he was being forced to accept residents who’d tested positive for the virus as they were released from hospitals that no longer wanted them. Despite the clear danger to their current residents and staff, the nursing homes were being given no choice. > > Rav Shmuel told him unequivocally that to accept these patients was a form of *retzichah*, murder, since it put the other residents at serious risk. But then, on a conference call, the governor informed all nursing home operators that failure to accept the patients would mean losing their licenses. > > The *talmid* called Rav Shmuel again. Lose your license, the Rosh Yeshivah ruled, but you can’t put your elderly residents in danger. > > The nursing home operator listened to his rebbi. > > Weeks later, he stood tall as the only major nursing home operator in the state of New Jersey who didn’t lose a single resident to Covid-19. The full article, a profile of Rav Shmuel Kamenetsky, is [here](https://mishpacha.com/where-life-comes-from/). ##### Related Tags [COVID-19](https://www.cato.org/covid-19), [Health Care](https://www.cato.org/health-care), [Regulation](https://www.cato.org/regulatory-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).