Event: Establishment of the Etz - Bnei Torah Movement
Date: Ahead of the municipal elections, Cheshvan 18
My 'Ashkenazi' event is the erection of a 'tree' from the Degel Torah House.
Want more news, videos and stories? Join the Haredim 10 WhatsApp channel >>
In domestic Lithuanian politics, it seems that since the establishment of the Torah Flag, there has not been a dramatic event like the one recorded this year, shortly after the Tishrei holidays, on the eve of the local elections.
The event that gave birth to the 'Tree' movement.
When Maran Gra"m Schach zt"l founded the movement, which managed to win two seats against all predictions, he did not dream that a day would come, almost half a century later, and a sub-movement of Degel would be established. When Rabbi Avraham Ravitz z"l, chairman of the movement, delivered his remarks at the founding conference with a voice full of pathos, when he said, "We will not have factions, we will not have interest groups of this or that kind" - neither he, nor Rabbi Schach, who sat attentively beside him, dreamed that a day would come when these sentences would shatter into the ground of reality.
This happened about a year ago.
But this is, in fact, the best thing that has happened to it, to the Torah banner, in recent years. Indeed, the most serious thing is the blurring of perspective, which confuses the young of the flock.
Since the establishment of 'Etz', every young man, every teenager, every child knows who is for 'Degel' - and who is for 'Etz'. Who is in favor of demonstrations against reporting for the 'First Order', and who is in favor of demonstrations against criminal sanctions. Who is in favor of blind obedience to the great men of the generation, headed by the Rosh Yeshiva, the Grail Shteinman and the Grach Kanievsky, and who is in the habit of saying: 'Well, I have my own rabbis.'.
"Separate yourself from me," Abraham said to Lot. "If the left hand is mine, I will give it to you; if the right hand is mine, I will give it to you.".
So it is true that this separation led to internal friction, within synagogues and prayer rooms, within educational institutions – because if our paths diverged, why would we study together in the same institution? If our spiritual worldviews differed, why would we share the same kollel, the same yeshiva?
It's not easy, it tears families apart, but it seems that those who chose to separate should have considered the consequences in advance.
With talk of Knesset elections in the background, next year or in about two years, the question loomed: Will the Torah banner run as one? If the 'Etz' party had been able to pass the threshold, it is likely that the urban separation would have repeated itself in my country. But, it did not.
And the big question is what will they do? Will they choose to call on their people not to vote (the joint demonstrations with Satmar have already become part of the faction's way of life), and throw votes away in a way that neither will you nor me? Will they choose to create a political mutation that will be in league with other bodies, dissatisfied with their frameworks?
Time will tell.
Either way, this year's event was difficult to digest politically, but from an educational perspective, it only made the task easier for parents, educators, lesson teachers, supervisors, great men of Israel, and leaders of the generation.
