A Jew was walking through the streets of Vilnius on a rainy and stormy day. Suddenly he heard terrible cries of distress from the depths of a pit dug on the side of the public domain. Without a moment's thought and without hesitation, he ran to get a rope and slid into the depths of the pit. A few minutes later, he emerged from the depths, with his remaining strength carrying with him a wounded Jew with crushed limbs. With everything black from the sinking mud, in the pouring rain, he managed to drag the wounded man home. He cleared his own bed for him and called the doctor.
For several weeks he nursed the wounded man with endless devotion, until he regained his strength. Throughout Vilnius, his name became famous as a man of unparalleled kindness. And when one of the city's residents publicly praised his kindness, the man's face fell: "But I dug this hole! Because of me, he was mortally wounded, that's why I'm trying so hard to heal him and keep him alive!"
A very turbulent election campaign for the Jerusalem rabbinate has just concluded. At its conclusion, the electorate elected rabbis who were not well-liked by the great rabbis and rabbis of Israel. Normally, one would expect that whoever rented the pit, whoever created this difficult problem, would do everything in their power to rescue those who fell into it.
But not always those who dug the pit also work to rescue those who have fallen into its depths. Sometimes, instead of plugging the pit, removing the obstacle they placed with their own hands in the public domain, some deepen the pit and intensify the danger. Those who did not make a U-turn and did not back down stood out very much in this election campaign. Their voices resonated strongly.
Their decline began even before the rabbinical elections. The roots of the disaster were sown back in the local elections, when the mayor of Jerusalem was elected to office by the votes of the ultra-Orthodox. That's when they dug the hole.
From the height of his position, the mayor had a decisive influence in shaping the body that elects the rabbinate in a distorted way that would give power to secularists and Datalonists from the outset. According to an illogical division of synagogues, a clear and deliberate preference was given to Datalon representatives. The High Court of Justice, which is known to love Haredim, gave this backing, whose wounds the people of Israel are licking today.
The mayor was given the power to act together with Minister Bennett to achieve their goal, thanks to the votes of ultra-Orthodox elements whose sole goal was to receive some kind of recognition at any cost, even such a terrible price of harming the foundations of Judaism!
With the opening of the election campaign, Minister Bennett declared that he was interested in electing a Zionist rabbi. The preferences of the "Habib Hayehudi" party, which has helped turn Torah scholars into criminals and destroy religious walls in almost all areas, were "Rabbi Lite" and Zionist, although the arsenal of names also included "Zionist rabbis" of a different kind.
Bennett succeeded in his mission, and in his "victory" speech he expressed his satisfaction with the "election of two Zionist rabbis"! Although on the outside they have a rabbinical appearance, it is precisely when appearances do not betray them that the danger is much more serious:
""You shall not plant a scoundrel for yourself. Reish Lakish said: Anyone who appoints a judge who is not worthy is as if he plants a scoundrel in Israel" (Sanhedrin 7:). What does a scoundrel who is not worthy have to do with a scoundrel? Rather, what is the difference between a mere scoundrel and a scoundrel, since all idolatry is obvious to everyone, and everyone who sees it knows that it is a scoundrel. Not so with a scoundrel, which is nothing but a tree like all trees, and whose external form does not recognize its essence, which is considered idolatry. A scoundrel who is not worthy is also like this. In his exterior, you do not recognize his essence, since he too is clothed in the scoundrel's cloak, but in his interiority he is tainted. He errs and misleads the multitude. (Pearls of a high priest, in the name of Maran Grach Solveichik zt"l).
Minister Bennett and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat have crafted the chosen deal of rabbis whose positions and actions on issues such as conversion are well-known and disturbing.
This was done with the help of their partners, those who didn't have enough to dig the hole: in exchange for a dash of legitimacy and a boost in office, they worked to crown a secular mayor of Jerusalem who was a high school dropout in these elections for the rabbinate, and in exchange for more legitimacy dust and the fumes of another boost in office, they worked in the current election campaign as full partners of Barkat-Bennett, giving interviews, posing for pictures and perhaps even voting in favor of planting the visa in the garden of Jerusalem.
They did not refrain from placing rabbis who sat with Conservatives on the throne of Jerusalem, in order to get elected. In order to make a deal that the spirit of the sages was not comfortable with due to halachic considerations, one of the rabbis, for the first time in history, sat with a Conservative rabbi who was also a candidate for the Religious Council, thereby giving him legitimacy, in order to receive his support in the elections.
The meeting was filmed and publicized, and it set off alarm bells at high decibels. A red line was crossed, but everything was kosher to achieve the goal. That rabbi was their candidate, and all in exchange for recognition and hope for a position. Another of their candidates is a rabbi who openly declared a violation of the walls of kashrut.
In an interview with the media, their chosen candidate stated that under the title of "Mehadrin Kosher," agricultural produce from the over-the-counter sale will be marketed! Under the title of "Mehadrin"! Anyone who wants to "skip the severity," he said, "will be able to purchase produce from the Kosher Badazim whose names are displayed above the stalls in the Haredi neighborhoods." These are in themselves empty words, because any intelligent person understands that the participation of the Haredi in the elections for the rabbinate in Jerusalem is not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of other communities, out of a sense of mutual responsibility and accountability.
Those who exalt tradition "without change or deviation" in their throats and who, in their words, "continue the leadership of the great men of the previous generation," those who heard from the mouths of the Maran and Rabbinical scholars, ztzu"l, explicit and harsh opinions about the candidates they ran, dug two more tefas deep. Some stood in the hall of our Rebbe, Maran HaGrish Elyashiv ztzu"l, and heard from his mouth and in his voice explicit words about the candidates and against their halakhic positions.
Some of them were immersed up to their necks and involved in the wars of our Rabbi Maran ztzu"l on the issue of conversion, but now they stood in front of the microphones of the media to praise and honor rabbis whose positions uproot the opinion of our Rabbi Maran ztzu"l. Who will remove dirt from the eyes of our Rabbi Maran ztzu"l, who gave his life to the war against the positions that these people seek to establish with new rivets that our ancestors did not lay bare.
In these elections, the mask was dropped. No one was surprised by the terrible hypocrisy that was exposed, because it had already become a familiar system and a way of life. Their path to controlling the "pure view" passes through trampling on Halacha and the pure view! The loftiness of the view that resonates in their mouths and writings remains as a backdrop when a position can be obtained sparingly or legitimacy with a spoon. A red spiritual flag flies over Jerusalem and faithful Judaism. A deep pit remains in the public domain, whose diggers have not yet put down their shovels.
The lessons of the election campaign must be learned, because Jerusalem is surrounded by cities and this is not the last campaign. The public that is faithful to the word of God, the one that understands the distortion in the system, must also denounce the destructive phenomena that have been discovered by those who bear the name of the view and rabbinate in vain. The doors of the house must be opened wide to ventilate the phenomenon, both personal and systematic.
Sunlight is sometimes the best disinfectant. It will also help distinguish between wood and ash!
• The article was published this morning in Yated Ne'eman'
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