https://baptistnews.com/article/macarthur-defies-late-night-court-order-against-indoor-worship/#.Xzy7F-gzbgk
Commentary to Parshat Ki-Teitzei 5:98 in S'fat Emet p319
The purpose of all the commandments, both positive and negative, that were given to Israel, is so that every person of Israel be free. That is why the liberation from Egypt comes first [before the giving of the Torah]. Torah then teaches the soul how to maintain its freedom....This is the purpose of the entire Torah. That is why they read, "engraved [charut]on the tablets" (Ex 32:16) as though it said, "freedom [cheirut] on the tablets". The only free person is the one who is engaged in Torah, for Torah teaches a person the way of freedom.
A person who prays but for themselves is like one who [in a time of danger] retires alone into his house, refusing to assist their fellow-citizens in the well-being of their walls. The expenditure of such a person is as great as their risk. The person, however, who joins the majority spends little, yet remains in safety, because one replaces the defects of the other. The city is in the best possible condition, all its inhabitants enjoying its prosperity with but little expenditure, which all share alike. In a similar manner, this is what Plato calls that which is expended on behalf of the law, 'the portion of the part in the whole.'
הגה וכן יזהר מכל דברים המביאים לידי סכנה כי סכנתא חמירא מאיסורא ויש לחוש יותר לספק סכנה מלספק איסור (ב"י בשם הש"ס) ולכן אסרו לילך בכל מקום סכנה כמו תחת קיר נטוי או יחידי בלילה ...וכל אלו הדברים הם משום סכנה ושומר נפשו ירחק מהם ואסור לסמוך אנס או לסכן נפשו בכל כיוצא בזה ועיין בחושן משפט סימן תכ"ז:
One should be careful of all things that cause danger, because danger is stricter than transgressions, and one should be more careful with an uncertain danger than with an uncertain issur. They also prohibited to go in a dangerous place, such as under a leaning wall, or alone at night...And all of these things are because of the danger, and a person who guards their soul will distance themself from them and it is prohibited to rely on a miracle in all of these matters.
(ב) מי שיש לו חולי של סכנה מצוה לחלל עליו את השבת והזריז הרי זה משובח והשואל הרי זה שופך דמים:
(2) For someone who has a dangerous illness, it is a commandment to break Shabbat for him. One who hurries to do this is praised. One who asks about this is a murderer.
GEMARA: And it was Shmuel who said: The law of the kingdom is the law, i.e., there is a halakhic principle that Jews must obey the laws of the state in which they live
by Andrés Spokoiny, https://www.jfunders.org/passover-5778, March 28, 2018, viewed 15 July 2020.
Judaism understood that the key to freedom is a balance between four players: me, my fellow human being, society, and God: a delicate equilibrium between my freedom and yours; between freedom from (the lifting of constraints) and freedom to (the capacity to work towards a goal beyond myself); between freedom as an end in itself and freedom as the foundation of a collective project.
Judaism is not against individualism as such. Moreover, we can say that Judaism invented the individual. We believed, 3,500 years before Thomas Jefferson, that every human being is created in the image of God and has, therefore, inalienable rights and freedoms. But Judaism has also believed, since the Exodus, that freedom is a collective endeavor. I can’t be free if my neighbor is not. Judaism understood that true freedom is not the absence of bondage, but the presence of justice and purpose. Martin Luther King, Jr. paraphrased the prophets when he wrote that “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly”.
Judaism realized that freedom without responsibility means slavery to one’s basest impulses. When Moses confronts Pharaoh in God’s name, he doesn’t say just “let my people go”. He adds “so that they may serve Me”. In other words, freedom has a goal, a higher purpose than just being able to do what we please. That higher purpose is what we can do for others, the responsibility we take for society as a whole. Responsibility in Hebrew is ‘achrayut’, from the word ‘acher’, “other”. Only when I comprehend and embrace my responsibility towards the other I can be truly free. Only when I balance my individualism with that of the acher, only when I transcend my own needs and desires in favor another human being does my freedom have meaning. Freedom becomes license if I don’t see myself as part of a community. Jewish liberty is not freedom from responsibility towards the other, it’s the freedom to exercise that responsibility fully.
Judaism understands that the individual and the collective are a perpetually swinging pendulum that we need to keep balanced. Too much collectivism and the individual can’t move; too much individualism and life becomes a soulless struggle for power and domination. Keeping the balance is deceivingly simple; it demands permanent adjustment and a continuous effort to keep one extreme from overtaking the whole. That’s why Emmanuel Levinas described Judaism as “a difficult freedom”...