So who is an ultra-Orthodox person?
This sociological-anthropological question has been raised by countless professionals, and I would like to offer a slight correction to it.
Who determines who is Haredi? Is it the rabbis? Businessmen?
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And the answer turns out to be not at all simple. Let's take the latest political-rabbinical affair, the elections for the position of Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem.
The rabbis and rebbes of United Torah Judaism decided to choose Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, not Rabbi Amar.
The Shas Council of Torah Sages ordered the election of Rabbi Amar over Rabbi Eliyahu, and this is how Sage Shalom Cohen explained it in his own words: Rabbi Amar turned Jews into Gentiles, etc.
The rabbis of the Jerusalem faction did not announce that they had instructed their representatives not to vote for Rabbi Stern.
Confused? Us too
When Haredim enlist, come on Haredim!
Haredi people who work, you will be pitied!
Haredi in academia, well, a minority.
But with the election of the rabbis of Jerusalem, I was completely confused. Rabbis who dress as Haredi and will never vote for a Haredi party and have never sent their children to Haredi institutions are defined as Haredi by Haredi representatives. Rabbis who do educate their children in Haredi institutions and always vote for Haredi parties are defined as non-Haredi.
I got a little lost in the Haredi system.
Until a week ago, I was sure I was Haredi. Why not? I dress like a Haredi, send my children to study in Haredi institutions in the purity of the Holy Land, don't enlist, eat non-Israeli or foreign crops with a shemita [God forbid, not a sales permit] and that's it.
Last Sukkot, I also got myself together. Like everyone else, I remembered the famous midrash that attributes the four types of Jews – to the four species. So that's right, we connect all four species together, and this is the unity of all of Israel, and yet I patted myself on the back, I am "Etrog" among the species, because we don't group the "fruit of the citrus tree" with everyone else.
But with the outbreak of recent events, I couldn't stop asking myself: Am I really Haredi?
The Conservative Rabbi
As soon as we lost, the people who understood told me, forget it, the rabbis didn't determine who was Haredi, the rabbis only instructed their representatives to choose a rabbi "who would cause the least damage" and also "what do we have to do with the state's institutions at all?".
But I remained unclear, and I was unable to understand from the rabbis' words a clear definition of who is Haredi and who is not.
In difficult moments like these, I said to myself: Isn't that what a spokesperson is for? They, the spokespersons, must know how to direct great knowledge. I put my ears like an earpiece to hear the words of Benny Rabinowitz, spokesperson for the House of Rabbi Steinman and journalist for "Yated Ne'eman" on his weekly program on "Kol Chai" radio, and he said this with confidence:
""I know what the great rabbis of Israel think. Forget all the halachic rulings and conversions, on the day that Rabbi Amar went to Dill with Stav so that they would both be elected chief rabbis - from the perspective of the Haredi public, it's over. Even though in the end it won't come to fruition.".
And he was not satisfied until he determined:
""A chief rabbi for Jerusalem who claims to be Haredi is not two rabbis with black kippahs, but two rabbis with a conservative approach." Nothing less and nothing more. Rabbi Amar claims to be Haredi and his approach is conservative.
Well, bye!
The representative on earth
Still, I was left with a dilemma. Did Chacham Shalom Cohen and the Torah Council's sages choose a rabbi with a conservative approach? Then the second speaker, the spokesman for Rabbi Elyashiv zt"l on earth, arrived and explained to us what he received directly from Alma Daxhot, while explaining to us that Shas is not at all Haredi:
""Shas has proven once again that it is not an ultra-Orthodox party at all. As usual, the considerations that guided it were narrow self-interested considerations. The horizon of the rabbinical vision of its political leaders ranged between the concern that Rabbi Amar would establish his own party, and the conflict between Deri and Vishay. The ultra-Orthodox leaders of Shas, the only ultra-Orthodox there, the Council of Torah Scholars, were forced to take into account the non-Urdogan nature of their party.".
And I began to understand that probably an ultra-Orthodox person is someone who knows how to determine that the other person is not ultra-Orthodox.
