As the state opens up vaccine eligibility to everyone in Group 3, some religious leaders throughout the Triad said they are either ready to get vaccinated or have gotten vaccinated in the hopes of stopping COVID-19 in its tracks. WXII 12 News spoke with two leaders in the Jewish Community about why one of them got the vaccine and why another is in the process of getting it.Both Rabbis said the highest value in Jewish tradition is saving a life which is why those they said decided to get vaccinated to help protect life. At Temple Emanuel in Winston-Salem, Rabbi Mark Cohn said while this last year has been remarkably different, he says COVID-19 has not been able to take away his congregation’s core values or its spirit. “We are holding each other together whether it’s through programs, services reach out calls things we’ve done in the parking lot small group events obviously a lot of teaching and connecting and meeting online through Zoom,” he said.Cohn said in Jewish law, saving of the soul or protecting life overrides everything else as well as paying attention to experts, science and medicine and it’s for those reasons, he said, he has decided to get vaccinated in the coming days. “In Jewish life the word for responsibility is Achrayut, Achrayut the root of the word is Acher, the other we have to be aware and concerned of the other and working to protect them,” he said.Cohn said getting vaccinated is the same reason he also wears his mask, to protect himself and to protect others. Rabbi Fred Guttman of Temple Emanuel in Greensboro said he already got vaccinated for the same reason. He was eligible in Group 2 because of his age. Guttman said he’s also been working on helping those in his community get a shot as well as helping people in underserved communities by working with other clergy members. “In this case through churches and mosques and trying to understand and trying to understand how can we get those people to do it do we have to bring the shots to them and in the case of undocumented immigrants if they get the shot they are not going to be reported to ICE,” he said.In the meantime, Rabbi Cohn said he’s hopeful that in the near future when he and other leaders in his congregation feel comfortable enough to fully open up indoors, that he will be able to see more people in person once again. "There is nothing like being in the same space with one another and being able to recapture that and go back into the kind of the world that we have known will be very welcome and I miss it a lot,” said Rabbi Cohn. Clergy Members just became eligible for the vaccine. For information on if you are eligible and how you can get your shot, click here.