Will Arye Deri Close the Supermarkets in Tel Aviv? The Political Hot Potato of Shabbat Enforcement in Israel

Zeev Kam - my favorite political reporter, just shared this post about a critical meeting that took place this week regarding the issue of stores remaining open for business in Tel Aviv. This issue has been percolating for a number of years, as smaller businesses complain that when larger chains remain open on Shabbat (as they do, and simply pay the fines for breaking the law), the smaller, privately owned stores feel that they too must remain open in order to compete. Some really do want to close because of Shabbat, while others want a day off, as the (secular) law mandates. They've been pushing the government to enforce the law and drastically reduce the number of stores which can remain open on Shabbat in Tel Aviv.

Generally, the Minister of the Interior decides whether to issue exemptions for stores that wish to remain open on Shabbat. Yet, Silvan Shalom, the previous Interior Minister punted, and sent the decision back to the Knesset as a whole (smart move). Netanyahu did what he usually does when confronting a difficult and challenging issue, especially surrounding the contentious issue of religion and state: he formed a committee, which met this week to issue its report.

As Kam describes the meeting, the Chareidi parties pushed hard for the option which would strongly enforce Shabbat. They feel that the State should make a strong statement in favor of Shabbat, even though everyone knows that many residents of Tel Aviv are not Shabbat observant. Media outlets reported that Netanyahu will turn over responsibility for this issue to the current Minister of the Interior: Arye Deri. (Any guess on what he'll decide to do?)

Yet, it's not really that simple. While Deri of course wants to increase Shemirat Shabbat, there are political realities that must also be addressed. At the meeting (which the Prime Minister attended), Minister of Tourism Yariv Levin (Likud) turned to the Chareidim and warned them that the solution must not be perceived as one community (the Chareidim) forcing its standards on the secular public. "Otherwise, Yair Lapid will have 30 seats in the next Knesset." Does Deri care enough about Shabbat to alienate enough secular Israelis to bring Lapid back to power? I wonder.

I would add that the Chareidim themselves bristled at the notion that anyone (i.e. Lapid's party) would enforce its values on the Chareidim, and for this reason insisted on the reversal of the law mandating that all Chareidi schools teach basic secular subjects like math and English. They were right. Change occurs not when one community forces itself on another, but when it comes from within.

This issue began with the secular owners of the stores in Tel Aviv; with professional soccer players who wanted to keep Shabbat without having to work. They must take the lead on this issue and promote the notion that as a Jewish State, Shabbat must be a common value both for those people that observe Shabbat, and also for those that do not.

The Conversations We're Not Having: Racism and Rage

This week, a firestorm erupted in Israel surrounding a wedding celebration during which teenagers glorified the murder of an infant, dancing with knives, guns, mock Molotov cocktails, and most shockingly, mock-stabbing the picture of an Arab child killed along with her parents in a firebombing of the family home several months ago. (The government has not, as of yet, definitively proved who perpetrated this terrible crime.) These youths in Israel are known as נער הגבעות - "hilltop youth" - who advocate an extreme right-wing ideology devoted to ארץ ישראל השלמה - Jewish control over the entire Land of Israel.

With the release of the videos, political, government and religious leaders from every stream rushed to condemn this phenomenon. The left saw this as a golden opportunity to condemn the right - and specifically the religious community. But even right-wing rabbis and politicians have loudly proclaimed: "This isn't us! This doesn't represent our community!"

Racism:
I attended a talk at my son's yeshiva during which the Rosh Yeshiva quoted an anonymous acquaintance who he described as "a leading, well-known right-wing rabbinic leader." He said that the rabbi said to him, "These kids don't even listen to me! You can't talk to them."

All of the rabbinic declarations seem hollow to me. Are we really to believe that this group of teenagers somehow created themselves? They made up their own ideology, without a leader or a teacher?  There's no talking to them, and they don't listen to us? I think that they're listening to their rabbis and their teachers, and getting a clear message. I'm not suggesting, God forbid, that any rabbi glorifies murder. But they are hearing a steady message that's very easy to misinterpret and translate into an extremist view that justifies horrible acts.

Take the following example from a video report of the wedding of the child of Rabbi Benjy Gopstein, a well-known leading right-wing rabbi. He told the reporter that there are no Arabs at his weddings - only Jewish employees. What if an Arab waiter came to serve food?

Let's just say that if there was an Arab waiter here,
he wouldn't serve the food.

When asked what he meant by this, he said:

It would seem to me that he would be looking
for the closest hospital.

Really? An Arab worker comes to serve food at the wedding, and the crowd of young people would beat him until he needed hospitalization?

This is an extreme example, but just one of the many ways that many rabbis preach racist values within the religious community. Hatred for the Arab population isn't something that's explicitly advocated. Rather, it's an insidious assumption and underlying value communicated in numerous ways. How many rabbis condemned Rabbi Gopstein for saying these and so other hateful comments? Can we then be surprised if the children who follow him translate his words into actions? Of course he would never advocate throwing a firebomb into a house. But would it be so difficult to imagine a teenager, hearing him advocate beating up an Arab waiter, then deciding to take action on his own?

"They're not listening to me?" Sorry rabbi, I think that they're hearing you loud and clear.

Rage:
At the same time, these teens are expressing an emotion that's natural, normal and expected. Yesterday (Dec. 23, 2015), we read about three more attempted murders against innocent Jews. Two days ago, two men were murdered (one by multiple stabbings, and one in the crossfire) when two Arabs attacked them without provocation.
Another death. Another shiva. More posts of outrage on Facebook. 
Ho hum. 
It just makes you angry. Furious.
Where's the anger? Where is the rage? What are we doing about this? 
We have become so inured, so accustomed to the daily murder of Jews in Israel that we're not longer outraged. In fact, we no longer react with any emotion at all, because you simply cannot allow yourself to become upset and angry on a daily basis. It's just not healthy.
So we do nothing.
Teenagers, full of vitality, idealism and passion, don't understand. They're outraged! They're angry! And they're right! This situation is outrageous. The adults honestly don't know what to do about it. They see videos featuring thousands of Arabs dancing with knives, promoting the murder of men, women and children. They see a society that glorifies those murders, and encourages children to perpetrate more murder of innocents. And they wonder: why doesn't any do anything? Why doesn't anyone stop this madness? These are very good questions, to which we - the adults - don't have good answers.

Let leave the "hilltop youth" aside for a moment - even though they're all of our children. What about the rest of the kids: those growing up today in Yad Binyamin, or Jerusalem, or Petach Tikvah. They live with the ramifications of terrorism every day. It affects they way they take the bus to school; how they hang out at the mall; it's what their parents talk about around them all the time. It's easy to criticize "racist" Israelis (and settlers) from the comfort of the United States, or the relative security of Yad Binyamin (although truthfully, there's no way of really securing anywhere in Israel totally). How do you teach young people, who grow up experiencing hatred every day not to hate back? How do you combat hate when your experience tells you that you are hated - and hunted - and there are practically no voices from within the Arab world speaking out against that hatred?

Discussing the issue of why rabbis don't speak out against racism against Arabs (and all too often actively promote it), my wife asked me: "How do you know that most rabbis agree with you? Don't you think that deep down, they look at you as a liberal American, raised with your liberal values? Perhaps rabbis don't speak out against Benjy Gopstein because on some level, they agree with him?

I have no idea how to even begin to answer these questions.

An Israeli Reporter Makes Aliyah with Nefesh B'nefesh, and Why I Can't See an American-Style Rabbinate in Israel for the Foreseeable Future

Yedidya Meir

Nefesh B'nefesh invited popular chardal media personality Yedidya Meir to join the latest Aliyah flight. Meir, who is a gifted writer whose column appears weekly in B'sheva, the free newspaper strewn across Israel, wrote a wonderful piece about his short Shabbat in Manhattan, his views of America, and a bit about aliyah. He posted the piece on his Facebook page, and if you can follow the Hebrew, it's worth reading. If you can't, I'll share a few choice sections:

ובכן, האמריקאים, ואני לא יודע איך לומר זאת אחרת, האמריקאים הם מאוד אמריקאים. אתם מכירים את זה שאתם הולכים במרכז ירושלים, ברחוב בן יהודה, נגיד, ופתאום נשמעת צווחה חדה שמפלחת את האוויר? יש רק שתי אפשרויות במצב הזה: או שמדובר חלילה בניסיון פיגוע וחייבים להזעיק את הימ"מ, או שמדובר בשתי נערות אמריקאיות נרגשות שלא נפגשו מאז אתמול וכעת ראו זו את זו ברחוב.

אז וולקאם טו אמריקה. הכול בגדול, בענק, בחזק. הכול מתוק מדי, צועק מדי, פלסטיקי מדי. נכון שבעולם הדתי אמריקה היא תמיד דימוי למשהו מאוד חומרני? נכון תמיד הדוגמאות של המשגיח בישיבה או של הרב בדרשה יהיו אנטי אמריקאיות, כאילו אמריקה היא יוון של ימינו? אז זהו, שבגדול הם די צודקים. כוס השתייה שבחרתי בקופה כי חשבתי שהיא הגדולה ביותר במלאי, התבררה כהכי קטנה. אחריה היו עוד אחת בינונית (כלומר, ענקית) ועוד אחת גדולה (כלומר, לפילים ומעלה). ואחרי שגמרו למלא לי אותה בקולה הוסיפו כמובן קרח. המון קרח. כמה שיותר. בקוביות גדולות.

And so, Americans - and I don't know any other way to say this - Americans are very American. You know when you walking in the center of Jerusalem on Ben Yehudah Street, say, and suddenly you hear a scream that splits the air? There are only two possibilities in this situation: Either it's an attempted attack God forbid and we need to call emergency services, or we're talking about two American teenage girls who haven't seen each other since yesterday, and just bumped into each other on the street.
So "Welcome to America". Everything is big, giant, strong. Everything is too sweet, too loud, to plasticky. You know how in the religious world "America" is always the image of something very materialistic? You know how the examples of the mashgiach in yeshiva or the rabbi in his drashah would always be anti-American, as if America is a modern-day Greece? Well, yeah - generally they're totally correct. It turns out that the drinking cup I picked at the checkout counter because I thought that it was the largest available was in fact the smallest. There was also a "medium" (i.e. giant) and yet another larger one (i.e., for elephants and larger). And after they finished filling the cup with cola, they of course added ice. A ton of ice. As much as possible. Large ice cubes.

I never noticed that Israelis don't like drinks with ice. I always order a cup of ice with my drink in a restaurant. I'm so American.
What I love about this piece is its honesty.
Meir isn't being nasty or mean, and many of his comments about America ring true. Yet, he doesn't only point out negative aspects of American life. He also writes about a number of positive aspects of Jewish (Orthodox) life in the United States, including very strong community life and the strong sense of devotion and dedication that people have to their shuls.
One paragraph struck me, and highlighted why, at least for now, there won't be any widespread form of a rabbinate, at least in the American sense. He writes,

הדרשה הייתה גם היא זרה ואחרת, ומעוררת מחשבה. הרב שניגש לדרשת שבת שגרתית נתן את נאום חייו. מעניין אם גם בשבת הבאה הוא ייתן את נאום חייו. כנראה שכן. זה היה שואו מהוקצע, כתוב ומוכן מראש, עם התחלה מסקרנת, שיאים רגשיים, רעיונות מקוריים וסיום שכרך את הכול ביחד. שיעור ברטוריקה. זה היה יפה. יפה מדי. בקיצור, אמריקאי.

The drashah was also strange, different - worthy of consideration. The rabbi that rose to speak on a regular Shabbat gave the talk of his life. I wonder if next week he'll also give the talk of his life. Apparently so. It was a professional show: written and prepared in advance, with an engaging introduction, emotional heights, original ideas and a conclusion that wrapped everything together. A lesson in public speaking. It was nice. Too nice. In a word, American.

For whatever reason, Israelis like things the way they're used to them. Many (but not all) Americans like their drashot they way they know them - in the style of the American rabbi: articulate, well-prepared, with a clear beginning and end, and an actual point. But, for whatever reason, to Israelis, that's too good - too sweet, too easy, too American.

I met recently with a young American rabbi considering making Aliyah. While I encouraged him to do it, I quickly disavowed him of any notion that there will be an American style rabbinate in Israel anytime soon. Israelis don't "get" American rabbis (they're just too American - as we see here), and most Anglo shuls pick an Israeli to be their rabbi. At least that's happened in nearly every shul that I know of, from Modiin to Yad Binyamin to Beit Shemesh to Raanana. American rabbis have found shuls, but usually they're for retirees, or they literally started the shul themselves (which is not impossible, but just very challenging). Still, I told him, there's an incredible amount that you can do here - the sky really is the limit - as long as you don't need your rabbinic life to support your family. Even as Israeli shuls are hiring communal rabbis, and Israelis are trying to develop the idea of the community rabbi through training programs, it won't be what Americans are used to. The Israeli rabbinate might borrow some parts of it, but it won't be the same. It will be Israeli, catered to the needs of a different community with vastly different expectations and needs.

Acapella Concerts During Sefirat Haomer: A Curious Psak Halachah

Perusing the pre-Shabbat edition of Mekor Rishon last Friday, I noticed an interesting piece at the bottom of the front page of the paper, announcing an upcoming concert of the Maccabeats, which took place this week.

The headline: "The Jewish Group that Obama Likes Arrives in Israel With a Special Vocal Show for the Days of Sefirat Ha'omer"

OK - the Maccabeats are coming. I'm not entirely sure why Israelis would care (or even think) that U.S. President Obama likes the Maccabeats (from the YouTube video it's pretty clear that he wasn't in the room when they performed, but whatever...)
Yet, a quite curious quote appeared towards the end of the piece.

To the question of how a religious musical group can perform during Sefirat Ha'omer [Maccabeats Manager Chaim (Julian)] Horowitz answered, 'We received permission from Rav Hershel Schachter (Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshiva University) who said that shows with positive content are better than shows that are not appropriate for this time of year. He said that from our shows there's a spiritual elevation.'

Really? Not only did Rav Schachter (recently announced winner of the Katz Prize for applying halachah to modern life) permit the Maccabeats to perform in Israel during the Sefirah - he also endorsed the group! Moreover, Mekor Rishon's sister paper - Ma'ariv - has publicized the Heter under the title: איך מופיעים בספירת העומר, אם אסור להשמיע מוזיקה? - "How Can They Perform During Sefirah if it's Forbidden to Listen to Music?" There Rav Schachter's heter receives prominent placement - basically the same article, but with an entirely different emphasis on the halachic leniency.

I found the psak troubling for a number of reasons.
From a logical perspective, who says that people have to go to any performance during sefirah? Why is the choice between going to the Maccabeats and going to hear Madonna? What if it was between going to hear the Maccabeats and not going? Secondly, why would Rav Schachter issue a psak allowing the Maccabeats to perform in Israel? Shouldn't he tell them to ask someone in Israel? Rabbis in Israel would indeed be correct - and I know that some did in fact raise an eyebrow at this article - to wonder why Rav Schachter would issue such a psak.

It turns out that the psak really is questionable for a very simple reason: Rav Schachter never gave it.
When I reached out to Rav Schachter's son with my questions, he answered me as follows (shared with permission):

I spoke with my father about your email...He said he does not recall any sort of shailah or conversation with the Maccabeats at all. He agreed with your concerns, and felt that if in fact the crowd they are trying to attract, are the types that would otherwise doing things that were less in the spirit of sefira, then they should certainly be encouraged to go here. But this is not something he would suggest, for people who otherwise would not be involved in sefira appropriate activity. 

Moreover, my father said he has always been careful not to issue psakim for Eretz Yisrael, the same way that he doesn't like when Eretz Yisrael rabbanim issue psakim that are relevant to America. He said that makes this conversation with the Maccabeats even more hard to believe, as he in the past has almost never issued rulings that impact the society in Eretz Yisrael.

So, it turns out that Rav Schachter did not in fact permit the Maccabeats to perform in Israel.
Incidentally, the show sold out - entirely through advertising on Facebook. I wonder how many of the Maccabeats' fans hesitated due to halachic concerns but ultimately attended having heard that Rav Schachter allowed it.
This also raises a more disconcerting question: If Rav Schachter never issued the psak, why did the Maccabeats' manager say that he had?

A Shemittah Dilemma

Yesterday, I took part in the Rabbinical Council of America's mini-conference in Israel on behalf of Tzohar, and we spent much of the day touring the Shomron.

At the Tura Winery

Among the stops on the tour, we visited the Tura Winery in Recheilim, where we enjoyed a wine tasting and explanation. In recent years, I've grown to enjoy a fine wine now and then, and I found their Merlot excellent. (they will gladly ship to the United States for two dollars a bottle!) This is in no small part due to the fact that their vinyards sit at the top of Har Brachah (which we also visited later, and which also boasts an excellent winery) whose elevation and cool temperatures are apparently perfect for growing grapes essential to excellent wine. Let's just say that I didn't utilize the spittoon during the tasting, and left the winery in an excellent mood.
During the tasting, our guide explained the challenge she and her husband were facing as the Shemittah year approached.
Farmers have essentially four choices: Farm the land (violating halachah), leaving the land fallow entirely, utilizing heter mechirah (which thus permits the farmer to essentially farm and sell the product in the normal fashion), or use a system called Otzar Beit Din. It's beyond the purview of this post to explain the nuances of Otzar Beit Din, but essentially, under the system, the farmer joins a larger collective in which he essentially becomes the agent of the community to farm the land not for his personal use, but for communal use. Thus, he can farm the land and harvest it for everyone, but he can only sell it at the cost of producing it.  More importantly, the produce retains "kedushat She'viit" - the holiness of Shemittah, which carries a series of requirements, including that it cannot be discarded in the normal manner, wasted at all, and, most significantly, it cannot be exported outside of the Land of Israel.

Rabbis Enjoying the Wine Tasting

Currently, the Tura winery sells about thirty percent of the twenty-five thousand bottles it produces each year outside of Israel. More significantly, the owners feel that they have pretty much tapped out the Israeli market. In order to grow, they need to increase their exports, which they've been doing each and every year.
Except in the wine world, you can't just skip a year. Your buyers will find other suppliers, and other product to sell to their customers. And a business can't just overlook thirty percent of its income. They count on that business to make ends meet.
So, faced with this challenge, their posek, Rav Elyakim Levanon, instructed them to utilize heter mechirah. This would allow them to continue to produce and market the product normally.
Except they don't want to.
These are religious people. They've dedicated their lives to building the Holy Land. They literally, with sweat and tears, built their yishuv and winery, from the ground up. Utilizing heter mechirah means selling the Holy Land to a gentile - an act that counters their worldview and everything they stand for.
This isn't a dilemma with simple solutions.
Our tour guide, sharing her struggle, said that to her mind, the challenge was even harder because "Shemittah is supposed to make life easier for the farmer" - giving the land, and the farmer, a needed year of rest. "Except today, it only makes things harder."

Two Radio Discussions: Shabbat in Tel Aviv and the Chief Rabbi Race

I've got about a forty minute drive from Yad Binyamin to Orot each day, during which I normally listen to podcasts on my iPod. At times, at the turn of the hour, I'll turn on the radio to get the news. Today, after the news, I stuck with the radio, and remembered why I love living here.
The top news item in Israel today is the recent decision of the Israeli Supreme Court instructing the city of Tel Aviv to enforce the ban on businesses staying open on Shabbat (the city levies fines). It seems that major chains were keeping their supermarkets open, while the smaller stores (makolot) were getting pinched by closing. And, when they did open, the fines levied against them were far more painful to a small store than they were to a major chain.
The Supreme Court sided with the small stores, instructing the municipality to enforce the current law, which bans commerce on Shabbat. This law, which is on the books, has been largely ignored or enforced only half-heartedly, as many if not most citizens of Tel Aviv don't keep Shabbat and want to be able to buy groceries on their day off.
The Supreme Court didn't come out in favor of Shabbat, mind you. They came out in favor of upholding the law. They explicitly said that if the people of Tel Aviv wanted to be able to shop on Shabbat, then they could and should simply change the law. What the city cannot do, though, is intentionally ignore a law on the books.

Left-wing radio host Keren Noibach

What I loved about the radio discussion that ensued what that the discussion did not fall along expected party lines. The secular radio host, and some of the politicians, were not united in favor of opening stores unilaterally on Shabbat. They also wanted there to be a spirit of Shabbat, even in Tel Aviv. Keren Noibach, a well-known left-wing morning radio host noted that especially in our consumer-driven culture, the last thing that Tel Aviv needs is for another day of shopping. Many also noted that they wanted the Jewish nature of Israel was important to them.
I then changed the station from Reshet Bet (Kol Yisrael) to a more dati-oriented radio station called Galei Yisrael, which is supposed to appeal to the Religious Zionist community. The discussion turned to the race for the Chief Rabbinate (where the news changes literally by the minute). I wondered about the connection between the two issues on the radio that morning. What's the connection between Shabbat in Tel Aviv and the identity of the Chief Rabbi? Shouldn't the Chief Rabbi of Israel play a role in the discussion? I believe he should - not by working to clamp down on Tel Aviv, but by taking the role of Chief Rabbinic Advocate for Shabbat. I yearn for a Chief Rabbi who could respond to these issues with words of encouragement, love and a positive attitude towards the Jewish nature of Israel; who could connect to the public - not just the religious public, but the Israeli public at large who, hearing his message would react not with indignation and scorn, but admiration and appreciation.
Then, perhaps the next time Keren Noibach wanted to talk about Shmirat Shabbat, instead of just inviting a professor and a lawyer, she invited a rabbi to join in the discussion as well.
I loved listening to these discussion

Rav Elyashiv, zt"l. Posek Hador? Does Such a Thing Even Exist?

Let me begin this post by saying the obvious: Rav Elyashiv zt"l was a man of extreme piety, wisdom, and knowledge. He was a world-renown posek. Chazal teach us that the death of a tzaddik serves as a kaparah - an atonement - for the entire Jewish people.
What I am about to write is not a criticism of Rav Elyashiv - far from it. He never sought the spotlight and simply answered questions when asked.
But I would like to ask a few simple questions about who we choose as our leaders, and whether it was either accurate, or even appropriate to call him the "posek hador" - if there even is or should be such a thing.
Among the statements made about Rav Elyashiv zt"l, Rabbi Steven Burg, Managing Director of the Orthodox Union said that, “The impact of Rav Elyashiv’s halachic opinions on our daily lives will continue to be felt for generations to come.” Bibi Netahyahu said pretty much the same thing: "In his rulings, Rabbi Elyashiv left a deep mark on the ultra-Orthodox world and on the entire people of Israel."
This might be true. But at least for a portion of his rulings that affected communal, political and national life, I wonder: is it necessarily a good thing?

Rav Elyashiv, born in Europe and a dayan within the Israeli rabbinic system for many years, staunchly advocated a conservative ideology that would protect and defend the insular Chareidi community from outside influence. According to the New York Times,

He opposed service in the Israeli military for yeshiva students, which he called a “plot to uproot Torah from Israel.” He disapproved of professional studies for women...he opposed Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, but he instructed the political representative of the Degel HaTorah Party, with which he was affiliated, to support Ariel Sharon, then the prime minister, in pulling out the remaining settlers, many of whom were Orthodox.

That last point is an issue that I find personally painful. Threatened by Sharon with the loss of funding for yeshivot, the Chareidi community sided with Sharon and allowed the disengagement to proceed, choosing funding over land and the lives of the Israelis living in Gush Katif for decades.
In essence, he worked tirelessly to increase the influence of Chareidim on broader Israeli society, and at the same time, to insulate the Chareidim from that society, all from the within the insular safety and serenity of Mea Shearim. Yes, that will be felt probably for generations to come. But not everyone would agree that that is a good thing for the Jewish people.

Moreover, I wonder when there even is such a thing as a "posek hador"? We don't (yet) have kings or a Sanhedrin. A rabbi cannot issue a halachic ruling that is binding on me personally, unless issued in the context of a rabbinical court. If I or you or anyone has a question, I turn to my posek - the individual whom I trust will use his guidance, insight, wisdom and also - and this is really, really important - his awareness of me, my life, my situation, and my worldview - to offer me guidance and direction.
Rav Elyashiv was that to many people. But he certainly was not that person to me, or to many of the rabbis that I turn to for such counsel. How then could he possibly be the "posek hador"? How could any one person be? Whoever decided that there should or even can be such a thing?

Finally, with his death we must begin to ask about the influence of "askanim" - those people who surround and protect the "gedolim", who are so hounded by the throngs of people looking for a brachah, a psak, or just the opportunity to meet the gadol, as if he's some sort of celebrity, that they insulate the individual almost completely from the public. I don't live in Chareidi circles. But it got to the point that whenever a proclamation was issued in Rav Elyashiv's name, I wondered whether he had actually said it or not. I wondered whether his askanim had given him the entire story and related all aspects of an issue, or whether they were "guiding" (read here: using) him for their own purposes. At least when Rav Ovadya Yosef says something, I myself can listen to him say it on the radio. People might not like what he says, but you knew that he said it. Can the same be said for much of what was proclaimed in Rav Elyashiv's name?

None of this is or was Rav Elyashiv's fault. He was, by all accounts, pious, righteous and simple. People asked him questions, and he gave them answers. He never sought the spotlight, and actually hid from it pretty well. Rav Aviner's beautiful eulogy highlights this point eloquently.
What does it say about us that we need a "posek hador" and flock to them like celebrities? Perhaps the Chareidi community that Rav Elyashiv wished to shield from secular society was more influenced by it than he believed.

Selling Land to Arabs: A Pre-Post

About two weeks ago, a group of rabbis from across Israel, prompted by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, publicized a ban on anyone selling or renting land to Arabs.
The reaction was swift and severe. Commentators from the Prime Minister of Israel on down to a group of rabbis in the United States rushed to condemn the statement.
Loyal readers of this blog must surely have been wondering: "Where's your post?" After all, isn't this a topic that speaks directly to the essence of this blog: Torah, Israel, Zionism, etc? In truth, yes, it is.
And yet I hesitated, not because I don't have what to write. I do. Problem is, I have too much to write. It's not a blog post - it's a mini-essay.
The issue raises a number of critical questions including:
1. Is there halachic basis for Rav Eliyahu's call?
1b. If his claim is halachically valid, does that mean that halachah is in some sense racist?
2. Even if Rav Eliyahu was right, should he have publicized his opinion as he did?
3. What is the nature of a Jewish State that claims to give full rights to its Arab citizens?
4. If the Jewish State does give such rights to its minority citizens, how does it ensure that it in fact remains a Jewish State?
5. What do we do about the little-discussed fact that many Jewish towns and neighborhoods are slowly becoming Arab enclaves? (While we fight over the settlements, we may very well be losing our cities.)

All of these are, to my mind, good and important questions. And yet, I haven't written because (a) I haven't had the time to write an article of that length and (b) I'm not sure blog readers really want to slog through a long, serious article.
In any case, even thinking about these questions is to my mind, important - even without my personal spin on the issue.
I recently gave a shiur at Orot (where I teach a weekly class on Hilchot Shabbat) on this very topic, and prepared a source book that deals with many of the questions I raise here.
For interested parties, you can access the source book here. (Note to all - the sources are entirely in Hebrew. If I had time to translate them, I'd be halfway towards writing the real post.)
In the meantime, if these types of sources are your cup of tea, have at them!

My Letter to MK Orit Zuaretz on Rabbis and Abortion

From: Reuven Spolter

To: Orit Zuaretz
date: Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 3:52 PM
subject: Your attack on the rabbanut letter about abortion

Shalom Orit,

It says on your website that you speak English, so I'm going to write in English, as that is easiest for me. I'm an Oleh (Chadash) living in Yad Binyamin.

I read about the recent discussion in the ועדה לקידום מעמד האישה, and that you were quoted as saying the following:

לדברי ח"כ אורית זוארץ, "ביטול ועדת ההשפלות יכול לשנות את המצב, הרבנים הראשים לישראל שמקבלים את שכרם של המדינה מנסים באמצעות אמירות והפחדות לכפות על נשים לא לבצע את ההפלות, הרבניים דורשים הקמת ועדה נגד הפלות שאין להם מקום בחברה הדמוקרטית, לא נותנים לנשים להחליט על גופן".

It seems to me that your comments were cheap and unfair.
1. What is the connection between where rabbis get their salaries from and their right to express their opinion? You seem to be feeding into stereotypes that might get people excited, but don't really have much practical meaning.
2. To claim that distributing a pamphlet about the traditional Jewish view on abortion represents כפייה is patently unfair. The rabbanim never claimed that a woman "may not" have an abortion. That's a legal matter. What they did say in their letter is that they should not - it's against Jewish law and the values of יהדות. Isn't it their job to tell us what Judaism teaches us in matters of this nature?
3. I don't know much about the ועדות from which you speak, but an article in the Jerusalem Post seems to imply that the law is that the women must appear before a committee:

In order to have a legal abortion carried out by a recognized practitioner, a woman must seek approval from a three-person review committee, of which at least one of the members must be a woman. Two of the members must be licensed physicians, and the third must be a social worker.

If that's the law, first ask whether the women do feel humiliated, whether the committees meet properly. Why jump to conclusions?

It would be reasonable to say that while you respect the rabbis' position, you feel that in a democratic state a woman should have the right to make her own decision on such a personal and intimate matter without any State intervention. About this we could agree to disagree. But calling a meeting to complain about members of the Rabbanut performing their duty - to disseminate information without coercion - that seems like the height of hypocrisy.

Best wishes,
Reuven Spolter
Yad Binyamin