This week I had the opportunity to attend a Haredi, super Orthodox wedding, in the magnificent Olam Veshel (for those who don't know, they're not really magnificent). The sons of yeshivot heads and the nobility of the Bnei Barak yeshivot world usually get married in Olam Veshel.
I sat in the hall, looking out of the corner of my eye for someone familiar to have a conversation with that would get me out of the embarrassment of being alone (yes, it's hard for us to be with ourselves), and when I couldn't find anyone I knew to have a heart-to-heart talk with, I listened to the excellent orchestra that played the unidentified opening courses with slow, quiet melodies.
From one end to the other, I hear deep saxophone sounds and the accompaniment of an organ and electric guitar. Something about the sounds reminded me of a very beloved song, but what can I do, it's not a classic Haredi song (for the curious: 'Remnants of Life' by Rabbi E. Reichel). I looked at the important avrechim sitting there, connecting to the music, and I felt that the Haredi mainstream had come many miles towards modernity.
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At my aging age, there aren't many things that excite me, but in my head, sitting alone at a wedding, the attached image came to mind that always makes me overflow with emotions.
An elderly, thin man is photographed in his "office" - an office that contains a "luxury" bed, a wall with "modern" putty, and fancy, thick-bellied books. A man whose entire world over the past 100 years has moved between Talmudic issues and weighty public issues.
A person who is not interested in material food at all (he eats three times a day, and does not drink between meals. His menu consists of porridge, mashed potatoes).
A person who knows how to combine assertiveness, rather than aggression, for example: on the issue of not compromising on a discussion or attempt at a discussion in the Plesner Committee, with pragmatism, such as integrating Haredi women into high-tech.
Yes, even the Haredi mainstream has become much more moderate today. If once in the yeshiva world the overseer would catch a guy who converted to Christianity and a guy who listened to the radio - and compare the sins on the same scale of punishment, today a standard yeshiva student who doesn't know the score between Chelsea and Deportivo La Coruña is considered the king of kings; restaurants are considered a dinner for two and strengthen the bond, and a host of other examples.
A few days ago, the issue of Haredi women in the Knesset came up - yes or no?
I was shocked by the response of the representative of the Lithuanian public (in my opinion), regarding the desire of women to run on an ultra-Orthodox list, and their exclusion from their address. A blatant, forceful response that provokes disgust in anyone with a brain.
If they had consulted with the person I introduced you to in the picture, that person whose modesty and greatness in the Torah need no evidence, and this was his response, I would have accepted with my eyes closed (even if he said on the right that it was the left, etc.).
But here sits a man who, a week before his unfortunate response, sat in a television studio opposite Amnon Levi and uttered a foul word, and he represents me? You? And he offends women about whom the Grail Steinman has already spoken, and I quote: "Our rabbis, he who loves his wife as his own body and respects her more than his own body, etc., and this is the language of the column in the introduction to the Stone of Help. Therefore, it is fitting for a man to love his wife as his own body and respect her more than his own body and to have mercy on her and protect her as he would protect one of his organs. Likewise, she must serve him and love him as her own soul, because she takes from him.".
And to be honest, ultra-Orthodox women in the Knesset will only do good for language and discourse, we will target the outspoken in our public, and they will also take care of populations that have been neglected in the ultra-Orthodox public discourse and in general.
And the simplest thing is to raise this issue before the leader of the generation, who is firm and pragmatic, practical and without extraneous considerations, as is his custom in his 100 years, and who came to Zion to bring Goel and Golda to the Israeli Knesset.
