On Politics, Youth Movements, and Divine Providence (Column 271)
With God's help
In recent days the shtiebel (and not only it) has been in an uproar over the decision of Rabbi Rafi Peretz, head of the Jewish Home party, not to honor the agreement and to part ways with Ben Gvir's Jewish Power party. In his case, political calculation outweighed commitment and the agreement he had made with him, and the public criticism has not subsided. For humble me as well, this decision stirred thoughts on several levels, and I would like to raise some of them here. I hope this will also serve as an answer to some of those who asked me what I think about the matter (for example here).
Background
About a month ago, the Jewish Home party, headed by Rabbi Rafi Peretz, who was chosen (not by all party members but by some sort of arranging committee) several months ago to lead it, decided to unite with the Jewish Power party headed by Itamar Ben Gvir and to run together for the Knesset in the upcoming elections (round C. They still have a few months before round D to decide, so they can take their time). There was broad opposition to this problematic step, and many protested the cooperation with a racist party (the term 'racism' has indeed been badly cheapened in recent years, but in my opinion here it is an entirely precise use of the term) made up of Rabbi Kahane's disciples. Your humble servant was, of course, appalled by this revolting alliance, but I am not really a factor here, because I have no expectations of these naïve and messianic circles. As you will see, my discussion below also does not depend on my a priori attitude toward Ben Gvir (because once an agreement has been signed, one must discuss the justification for violating it, along with other points that will arise below). In the end, the decision was approved about a week ago, and this was presented as a success for Rabbi Rafi Peretz (see here).
And lo and behold, not five days had passed since that impressive approval and success, and Rabbi Peretz was summoned to a meeting in Bibi's office (who has for some time now been playing him like a child), together with, how could it be otherwise, Rabbi Druckman (and Rabbi Aizman). There, within those four oppressive walls, under Bibi's intense pressure (who is of course acting solely to advance right-wing rule and the correct ideology, with absolutely no connection to his personal interests. And of course he will not siphon off their seats after they finish dancing to his tune), they decided to join up with Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked (Yamina) and with Smotrich (Tkuma), and to part ways with Ben Gvir, his faithful partner.
The reason for not honoring the agreement with Ben Gvir was that this union would not have been possible had Ben Gvir remained on the list, since Naftali Bennett declared that for him this was a non-negotiable condition (which of course did not prevent him and Shaked in the previous election from supporting a run together with them), and without this union they estimated that they would not pass the electoral threshold (the very threshold everyone was so happy about when Liberman raised it in the Knesset in order to hurt the Arab parties. The irony of fate).
The reactions to this decision were far harsher than to the first one. Social media and the press are full of furious responses from devoted supporters of the Jewish Home, who declare that they have lost all trust in the system and its leaders, and that they are not going to vote for it—or even vote at all (they have finally seen the light). Kalman Libeskind announced that if Rabbi Rafi Peretz comes to speak in his synagogue, he will get up and leave. MK Moti Yogev, among the most establishment-minded and consensus-oriented supporters of the Jewish Home, resigned and announced that he is unwilling to participate in and support a party led by a liar. And so on and so forth—furious and disappointed reactions from wall to wall. This move was probably a mistake whose consequences will accompany us for quite some time. The main point is that even if from ordinary politicians we have all learned to expect nothing, from a rabbi and spiritual leader who came to rescue the party from its dismal condition, everyone expected more. Not to mention that he is also the minister of education (it seems there are still naïve people among us who have expectations of holders of public office). The big problem is that here the reactions seem justified. This is not ordinary political grumbling from opponents or the merely disappointed. There is a real rupture here. That is why I feel this phenomenon requires attention (admit it: all that was still missing from the bewildered, chaotic mess prevailing here was me and the lashing of my whip).
Initial Reflections on the Decision
The question that arose regarding parting from Ben Gvir was the question of honoring agreements versus political interest (assuming that in the present case there really was a clash between the two. I am not at all sure of that, but I will slide into that discussion a bit further on). Rabbi Druckman and Rabbi Aizman repeatedly explained to us what Rabbi Rafi Peretz also said: that there are situations in which one may refrain from honoring agreements. I do not know whether they meant this as a statement of Jewish law, but on the plane of Jewish law in the laws of contracts there may be something to what they say (it is doubtful how far such a contract is even binding under Jewish law, and of course legally it is not binding either). The question here is more moral than legal. Was it educationally right to violate a signed and approved agreement when a political problem arose? The educational and image-related damage they caused is enormous, and I estimate that in the long run it is far greater than the dubious benefit brought by this separation (if there was such a benefit at all. See below).
As noted, the very alliance with Ben Gvir was the root of the evil (a wise man does not enter a pit from which the clever manage to escape, and certainly not a pit from which even the clever cannot escape), but the question whether to part from him does not necessarily follow from our attitude to the original agreement.[1] Had they justified the separation by saying they were retracting on the value plane, that decision would have inspired more respect and understanding. But they did not raise that argument; they raised only the pragmatic-political one. In their eyes, the value of honoring the agreement would have stood in the way of this immoral decision, but not in the way of cold political interest and calculation.
Rabbi Druckman explained his move by claiming that this was a joint suicide. What good is it to keep the agreement at all costs if in the end both parties to it will not enter the Knesset and will not pass the electoral threshold? In the sense of "It shall be neither mine nor yours.". On its face, a fairly sensible consideration. Even so, there is still room to examine it from many angles, and here are some of them (which are of course interconnected):
- Is this assessment of reality correct? The fact that Bibi presents this or that poll does not mean much. For quite some time he has been playing the Jewish Home children like marionettes. Was there not at least a reasonable doubt that perhaps they would enter the Knesset after all, which would nevertheless justify keeping the agreement?
- Moreover, many have already pointed out that after the merger they have a large enough reservoir of voters that Bibi can siphon off a substantial part of it without fearing that he is leaving them outside (as has always been his way). Is it really so clear that this merger will in fact prove useful?
- Is there moral and halakhic justification for violating this agreement, even if those are indeed the results expected from it (that is, if with it they will enter the Knesset, whereas without it they would not)?
- Is the loss of Jewish Power's votes that will result from the new merger justified? One must remember that as a result of this new merger, it is highly likely that the total number of votes given to the joint party will be significantly lower than the sum of the votes that would have been given to each separately. One must also remember that the chance that the right-wing bloc will obtain a majority of 61 seats is exceedingly slim, almost nonexistent, and precisely had they remained split, that chance would have been a bit higher. Is it not right to take the risk that they may fail to pass the electoral threshold in such a situation?
- Does the long-term damage from not honoring the agreement not harm the party even more than failing to enter the Knesset?
- Would it not have made more sense for Rabbi Peretz to say that the agreement with Ben Gvir was his, and that he (especially as a rabbi) cannot take part in dishonoring it, and therefore he resigns and leaves others to do it? After the remnants of his credibility were crushed and his public standing collapsed, it became clear to everyone that the man does not understand much about politics and is subject to Bibi's pressures and manipulations like any child. It is obvious to everyone that his considerations are driven by immediate pressure and not by long-term ideological thinking. As anyone who understands these matters a little says, he is probably approaching the end of his unimpressive political career, and rightly so. As a rabbinic figure, such a resignation might at least have prevented some of the great desecration of God's name caused by this move (internally and externally).
All these considerations, of course, cast major doubt on the very involvement of rabbis in politics, and bring back to center stage the logic of the Haredi policy, which even when it gives rabbis a role in the political arena does so within the framework of the Council of Torah Sages and not as actual members of Knesset (although specifically regarding Rabbis Peretz and Druckman, it is doubtful whether these categories are relevant. See below).
First Reflection: On Providence
The first thought that crossed my mind regarding this move—philosopher (or, if you will, theologian) that I am—was none of the ones presented above. I thought specifically of the prevalent mantras about providence and its involvement in the world.
Think of a person who believes that everything is in God's hands. He turns all affairs, and all our actions are nothing but necessary effort (=the 'commandment' of making an effort), which one undertakes so that we may be worthy of His involvement and help. From such a point of view, does it seem reasonable to you to take such a step? If God wants the Jewish Home to enter the Knesset (does He have the right to vote?…) and we are merely making an effort to enable Him to bring it about, it is patently unreasonable to do something forbidden, or even merely immoral, in order to make sure that it happens. If I do something morally or halakhically forbidden, is that supposed to improve God's motivation to help me? Never mind making an effort by natural means; we have already grown used to that illogical slogan. But to do something forbidden so that God will help us enter the Knesset—does that not sound problematic to you? To my mind, such a step testifies louder than a thousand witnesses that the person taking it assumes that everything is in his own hands, not that this is mere effort and the preparation of ground for divine intervention. Will those who were involved in this decision admit that (and buy the second book of my trilogy)?
Does it seem reasonable to you that every person who is murdered, or every evil that happens to me, is God's handiwork; that our livelihood is in His hands and all our labor is only effort; that illnesses and victories in battle, or the establishment of the state and the conquest of Jerusalem, are all nothing but miracles wrought by God—but who will or will not enter the Knesset is not in His hands, only in ours? Why? What is special precisely about that?
It is important to understand that even if one adopts the approach that "Everything is in the hands of Heaven except the fear of Heaven." ("everything is in the hands of Heaven except fear of Heaven"), meaning that specifically aspects of our lives connected to values and the service of God are in our hands and not His, it still does not make sense to conclude from this that we should do something halakhically or morally forbidden in order to advance those matters. Is that the way to express our fear of Heaven? On the contrary, if you take care not to violate a prohibition and to honor an agreement even at the price of political risk, God will appreciate you more and help you enter the Knesset.
My feeling is that there is a blatant lack of honesty here. I do not mean to say that this violates the 'commandment of making an effort,' a mantra that seems ridiculous to me, but rather that this is an expression (another one, beyond many others) of the fact that people do not really believe that everything is in God's hands. We all understand that the matter is entirely in our hands and that He is not in the game, and therefore if we do not act, it will not happen. From this they conclude that when there is a real danger that the desired result will not be achieved, it is proper to take problematic steps, because achieving the holy goal (more or less) justifies them. So from now on, I would appreciate it if all the rabbis who took such steps and/or supported them would not tell me stories about "My beloved has gone down to his garden, to graze in the gardens and gather lilies.", or about "Everything is in the hands of Heaven.", or about this or that person being taken because none of us knows the depths, and that the ways of providence are beyond us, and so on and so on. Let them be honest and admit that God is not in the game and that everything is in our hands. That if a person is murdered in a terror attack or in the Holocaust, it is not because God decided it but because that is the nature of the world. That if a state was established, if we won a war, or conquered this or that place, it was our doing and not a divine miracle. Not that such a conception necessarily justifies the step taken here (see above for some of the questions about it), but it at least makes it possible to justify it. The conception that everything is in God's hands and that we are merely making an effort makes it absurd on its face.
Second Reflection: Permissions on Grounds of Saving Life
Those were my initial reflections. Once again, one time out of many, it became clear to me that people do not really believe the dogmas presented to us as binding principles of faith that came down to us straight from Sinai. But on second thought, I raised for myself the question of parallel permissions in Jewish law. After all, the Talmud in Yoma deals with the question whether one may or must desecrate the Sabbath or violate any other prohibition (except the three gravest ones) in a case of danger to life. Ostensibly, there too we ought to conclude that if our role is really only the commandment of making an effort—that is, if our healing is in God's hands and not ours—what sense is there in violating prohibitions in order to be healed? Does doing something forbidden improve our chances with God that He will heal us? What we ought to do is pray that God will save us, and not desecrate the Sabbath or violate some other prohibition so that He will do so. Ostensibly, the argument I raised regarding steps like those of Rabbis Peretz, Aizman, and Druckman can be raised regarding every halakhic permission to do something forbidden.
In truth, I am indeed inclined to think that this is correct. From those passages too one sees that our actions are not merely 'effort,' but rather they are what bring about the results. These permissions do indeed imply that it is not true that everything is in the hands of Heaven, but rather that everything is in our hands, and that if we do not act and do not desecrate the Sabbath when necessary, the result will not be achieved. Somehow, steps like those of Rabbis Peretz and Druckman sharpened this point for me even more, since these were steps taken in a case of dubious uncertainty, and it was specifically there that I would have expected them to let God do what He sees fit and not violate prohibitions.
Still, it is not clear to me how they reached the conclusion that what God wants is precisely them in the Knesset. Perhaps the fact that the public does not vote for them says that they are not the ones who should be there representing it? Is it not the hand of providence that placed Liberman's raising of the electoral threshold at our doorstep? Does such a situation justify violating a prohibition? Is the fact that Rafi Peretz, or some other emissary of Rabbi Druckman, will not be in the Knesset a case of public danger to life that justifies prohibitions and desecration of God's name? Would we all be annihilated without them? For my part, I cannot see, even through a microscope, what the difference is between what will happen if they are in the Knesset and a situation in which they remain outside. On the contrary, in my estimation, a sober look at this comparison reveals several very clear advantages to the second situation.
Third Reflection: The Halakhic Consideration
So let us enter a bit more deeply into looking at this issue as a halakhic question of violating a prohibition where life is at stake. I read that Rabbi Aizman explained that there are situations in which it is right to violate or not honor an agreement. He said so without elaboration, and I in my poverty began looking on my own into the laws of contracts in Choshen Mishpat (despite the great doubt how far these two fellows actually acted according to the details of the laws in Choshen Mishpat, on the optimistic assumption that they are even qualified for that). But the consideration I cited above from Rabbi Druckman points in a different direction, practical in essence. There is no point in keeping an agreement that in any case will not bring results. Perhaps that was what he meant.
To my delight, elsewhere I found a much fuller explanation, specifically formulated in the language of Jewish law. I found a screaming headline, a journalistic sensation, according to which Rabbi Druckman himself reveals to us his considerations from the innermost furnace of Torah and explains the consideration that lay behind his decision. And here is the headline chosen by the site's editors (let me just clarify that headlines are usually the system's choice):
Exclusive: Rabbi Druckman explains the halakhic consideration that stood behind the decision not to run with Jewish Power.
Admit it, that sounds intriguing (and 'exclusive'), doesn't it? So let us enter the thick of the beam and the inner sanctum of da'at Torah (authoritative rabbinic judgment). Perhaps we will learn something from their conduct and the edges of the ways of the great men of the generation, for as is well known, "Whoever takes counsel from the elders (=Bibi) does not fail.".
Within the piece, Rabbi Druckman's explanation for his step is brought:
"The decision was in accordance with what Jewish law instructs," says Rabbi Druckman, and explains: "If two people are walking on the road and one of them has a flask of water, such that if one drinks he will live, whereas if both drink they will both die, Jewish law says that one should drink. What is preferable—that both should die? The same thing applies here: just as in Jewish law, so too here. If by going together no one enters the Knesset and all the votes are lost because the list did not pass the electoral threshold, the decision was difficult, but called for. At least we saved what could be saved".
So Jewish law was their guiding light in making the decision. Let us examine this halakhic consideration a bit, and it is worth remembering that this is the consideration that stood at the basis of the principal strategic decision made by the political leadership of Religious Zionism ahead of these elections. And let us assume, within the framework of the principle of charity, implausible as it sounds, that this is not something invented as a last-minute explanation because of distress—that is, not a decision made in two minutes under Bibi's pressure with no connection to Jewish law. Let us assume that this really is the result of deep halakhic, moral, and political thought.
The basis of the matter is the passage in Bava Metzia 62a, which brings a dispute among tannaim regarding the case of two people walking in the desert:
As it was taught: If two people were walking on the road and one of them had a flask of water—if both drink, they will both die, but if one drinks, he can reach civilization—Ben Petora taught: It is better that both drink and die than that one of them should see the death of his fellow. Until Rabbi Akiva came and taught: "that your brother may live with you"—your life takes precedence over the life of your fellow.
For practical Jewish law, most halakhic decisors ruled like Rabbi Akiva, since the law follows him against a single colleague (although the conclusion of this passage is for some reason not brought by the classical decisors, Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh). Is this similar to our case? Absolutely not, in almost no respect I can think of. I will explain this briefly, because each of these aspects requires discussion, and they are also interconnected and cumulative.
First, in our case the flask belongs to both sides, not to one of them. Do the seats in the Knesset belong to Rabbis Rafi Peretz and Druckman, and are they in their goodness granting them to Ben Gvir?![2] Second, in our case the flask is actually intended to save a third party, and this is not a matter of the lives of the two men walking with it in the desert. The discussion here is not about the personal fate of Ben Gvir or of Rafi Peretz, but about the fate of the public they represent. If anything, then schematically (and not accurately at all) there is room to compare this to two people walking in the desert with a flask of water intended to save a third person. Now there is concern that when they reach their destination there will be no water left to save that third fellow. Therefore one of them takes the flask from the other in order to ensure the third person's rescue. Does that sound reasonable to you? Entirely. So reasonable, in fact, that it has no visible connection at all to the passage of the flask and the two people in the desert. For here even Ben Petora would agree that one of them should take the flask and save the person in danger. And again, the agreement in question is not between two people but between two publics represented by those people. Third, in our case there is doubt whether the person will die or not (that is, there is doubt whether separately they would fail to pass the electoral threshold). Do we say even in a case of doubt the rule that Your life takes precedence., especially when the flask belongs to both of them and there is theft here and possible murder (on their view that this is indeed a matter of danger to life)? And fourth, in our case this is not really a case of danger to life for anyone (see above). It is highly doubtful whether the entry of these fellows into the Knesset will benefit anyone (in my estimation they will mainly bring harm, as until now). The megalomania of those who think their presence in the Knesset is a matter of danger to life for the public (which itself does not want them—otherwise they would of course pass the electoral threshold) troubles me greatly. On the strength of that, these two fellows make problematic decisions as though we are all walking in the desert and have only one small flask of water in hand—the pure cruse of oil that is Rabbis Peretz and Druckman. This childish condescension is genuinely laughable. One must remember that a benefit that is not the saving of lives does not justify violating a prohibition. Hey, and do not forget the higher providence, which surely will not abandon us to the mercies of blind fate (which is of course our own perfectly conscious decision not to vote for this gang). Rabbis Druckman and Peretz are sacrificing values and morality in order to save us from ourselves and from the political desert around us. Well done.
In short, the comparison to this halakhic passage is simplistic—indeed, positively childish and absurd. In fact, this is just an ordinary consideration of common sense (or is it?) as described above. But even if one agrees with the conclusion, you will surely ask why there is any need to insert it into imaginary halakhic categories. Beyond the common failure that imagines every topic and every dilemma must be translated into the language of Jewish law (that is, that morality and common sense are not enough), it seems to me that there is some ex post facto apologetics here. I assume its purpose is to leave the public with the impression that what we have here is a professional rabbinic decision, made on the basis of deep and skilled halakhic judgment and in light of the sources (and not a hasty decision made under Bibi's pressure and in light of dubious and uncertain data), and therefore there is of course no room for public criticism from laymen like us. Only the princes of the generation and their spokesmen are qualified to make such fateful, deep, and delicate decisions. I am just not entirely clear at the moment who is the wise professional and who is the layman in this whole story, and I will return to that below.
The Connection Between the Theological Plane and the Practical Plane
If, as I briefly noted above, this move is very far from being self-evident or even correct, neither halakhically nor politically, that only strengthens the theological argument made above. In order to act in a forbidden way under the assumption that everything is in Heaven's hands and that we are merely making an effort, then even if we accept the assumption that such a thing is possible in circumstances that Jewish law permits (as in danger to life and the Sabbath), such a move must still have substantial justification. It must come from serious and well-founded judgment, and not from a small, accidental, and not particularly brilliant forum under a few minutes of local pressure from Bibi. If this move has no clear justification, that only returns and sharpens even more the theological problem as well: why did they not leave the matter to God, who in any case watches over and Himself brings about everything?!
The Book of Esther as a Parable
This picture joins other points throughout the saga of Jewish Power, and even before it, that arouse in me the feeling that we are dealing with little children playing on a field whose nature they do not understand.
The whole story here is bizarre. It begins with the fact that the unions of these parties, both the first and the second, were made, as usual, along the wrong axis (the political and diplomatic right). Instead of focusing on the axes that are truly relevant (religion and state, liberalism, etc.), regarding which there is of course no agreement among these parties (see, for example, here and here), they chose the ideological axis of Religious Zionism. In my estimation, Yamina is much closer to Liberman and even to Meretz than to the Jewish Home or to Ben Gvir. There is indeed a difference between it and Meretz on the utopian diplomatic plane (what the ideal character of the state is supposed to be in the days of the Messiah, and what the peace agreement with the Palestinians is supposed to look like, which will probably come a little afterward), but that is in no way relevant to our present lives. By contrast, on the plane of religion and state, which is far more relevant to our lives now, they are closer to Meretz than to Rafi Peretz and Smotrich. But who cares about our concrete lives when it is possible to discuss and argue about utopias and delve into laws for the messianic age?! It seems that this is not a party but a study hall.
And in the discussion of the importance of a right-wing government, I have not yet even mentioned the fact that our right-wing government presents marvelous credentials regarding the security of Israel's citizens, while conducting a glorious battle against Hamas's doomsday weapons (explosive condoms and incendiary balloons)—a magnificent defeat, the like of which, in my estimation, has not been recorded since the world was created and its first struggle waged. Is this the right-wing government for whose existence all these maneuvers are being made? Benny Gantz cannot beg Hamas for an arrangement and send them Qatari bribes in suitcases? (Or annex the Jordan Valley, like the absurd discussion of the last two days.) Is this the government that will provide all of us with security and calm? Is it not worthwhile for us to keep a corrupt and decadent prime minister like Bibi, if only to get high-level security?! No doubt.
The absurdity continues in the saga concerning the picture of Baruch Goldstein, the admired murderer, which had hung in Ben Gvir's living room. Bennett announced that he was not prepared to run in the election with someone who hangs a picture of a murderer in his living room, and then Ben Gvir, in his nobility, took down the picture, and now he, like many others (also in the Jewish Home), wondered why Bennett was not retracting and declaring him fit to enter the congregation. People sent me such articles on WhatsApp, and I was convinced it was parody. To my astonishment, it turned out that this discussion was being conducted in complete seriousness. Incredible. How the wicked Bennett endangers holy right-wing rule with his own hands when Ben Gvir has already acted and taken down the picture (and has presumably become a Peace Now activist).
And let us not forget that all this is being conducted, of course, under Bibi's scepter, as he maneuvers everyone and does with them as he pleases (I hope they do not forget to recite over Bibi "who has made me according to His will"). A hysterical group that does not enjoy the trust of its voters, who are sick of it, and out of pressure and a desire nevertheless to represent them (against their will), it ends up doing things all its voters recoil from. Various thrilling Turkish telenovelas are taking place here. Connections and disconnections, separations, protests and resignations, tears and joy, meetings and votes. As though any of this changes anything…
In short, everything taking place here looks like a parody of reality, and sometimes we need to pinch ourselves to realize that this is reality itself. It reminds me of what I always feel toward the Book of Esther. It is a third-rate Persian melodrama, the intrigues of children who scheme and fail and for whom miracles and wonders occur. Laughter, fasting, and weeping, redemption and disaster, all in an accidental and banal way (or perhaps a 'hidden miracle'). I always think to myself: what, exactly, is interesting about this whole story? It is like hundreds of other telenovelas that one can watch on the small screen every day. And then I tell myself that I allow myself to feel those things from a distance of two thousand five hundred years. Someone who lived there and had been sentenced to death certainly did not laugh at what was happening. For him, those were life itself, not a telenovela. If I thought that the events described here were truly our life, I would have to cry and not smirk. Fortunately, I understand that this has nothing whatsoever to do with our lives. Children are playing marbles, and it has no importance. No danger to life and no nonsense. It is all the fruit of the fertile imagination of those involved in this telenovela.
Interim Summary
I must clarify that the decision to part from Ben Gvir in such circumstances, in and of itself, is still within the bounds of reason (though in my personal opinion mistaken), at least from the political standpoint. My problem is not only with the decision as such, though it too is saturated with problems. My question is how the original decision to join with Ben Gvir was made. How was the saga conducted from then on, and how was the decision finally made? Who made these decisions, and in what way? How is it possible that this is the way decisions are made here?
The bizarre mode of decision-making of these parties and figures—without judgment and without thought—requires discussion no less than the decisions themselves. People who are not fit (see below) make problematic decisions in a rather foolish and unconsidered way. Without consulting responsible and wise factors, without consulting the party's institutions. Rabbi Rafi, in his desperation, turns to Rabbis Druckman and Aizman, who sit with him in Bibi's room, and asks them to make the decision (to rule) for him. They enter an adjacent room and come out with a new policy. All this under unreasonable pressure, without considering basic considerations (only some of which I have described up to this point). Is this serious? And afterward they concoct for us explanations that are dubious, to put it mildly. Even after time had passed, when they could already have built some plausible ad hoc explanation, they still could not produce anything more convincing than the bizarre analogy to two people walking in the desert.
Children rule over us, and there is no deliverer from their hand. (Children have ruled over us, and there is no deliverance from their hand)
I cannot avoid a personal discussion, and I hope I will be forgiven, because the hour requires it. I want to focus the gaze on the figures involved in the matter, the producers of the telenovela, Rabbis Peretz and Druckman. To my impression, these are two dear Jews and God-fearing men full of good intentions, who probably truly and sincerely think that the world needs them, and that without them all of us are in a state of danger to life. A bit childish, but I want to believe that this is really what they think (the alternative interpretation is worse).
On the other hand, this very thought only strengthens the impression I have long had about both of them: that each is very overrated. We are dealing with two good Jews whose main occupation is giving lectures on the Maharal and running Bnei Akiva activities for high-school students or students in a pre-military academy (and Rabbi Druckman also in a hesder yeshiva). They pass the critical scrutiny of teenagers aged 17 or 19-20, and apparently make a strong impression on them. But their main business is conveying educational messages to youth, such as speeches about the state as the beginning of the flowering of our redemption (seasoned with passages from Rabbi Kook and verses from the Hebrew Bible), the value of meaningful military service and contribution to society, deep discussions about the soul of the nation and the special essence of the root-rock from which it was hewn, the holy trinity of the Jewish people, the Torah of Israel, and the Land of Israel, all sorts of important and useful ideas (and some of them, at least the minority among them that has any meaning at all, may perhaps even be somewhat true), but still, with all due respect, these are slogans intended for teenagers. We swallowed quantities of them in Bnei Akiva. That is the public nourished by them and that is the kind of material and study with which they occupy most of their time, and therefore it seems to me (though I do not know them deeply. I have heard a bit from both of them) that this more or less defines their Torah and intellectual level. I will not mention here the many statements and decisions of Rabbi Druckman from the past, but there are quite a few such things that ought to make all our cheeks flush.
I very much doubt how far one can expect from them a deep and original lesson in thought, and certainly in Talmudic and halakhic analysis. I know that I am a Litvak, and as such I have a deep inner resistance to notions such as 'a great man of the generation in faith,' which were invented in those circles in order to cover deficiencies in analytical learning (apparently in place of the jokes about spiritual overseers common in Lithuanian yeshivot). I am also fully party to the criticisms of the Lithuanian great men of the generation (almost all of whom are indeed Torah scholars of high caliber) and of their decisions, and therefore even in my Litvak eyes analytical learning is not an exclusive measure of public and political leadership. Not at all. But I do believe that its absence expresses a defect that must be taken into account. A good analyst becomes accustomed to thinking in an orderly and deep manner, to analyzing things from the ground up (and therefore he does not confuse the passage of two men walking in the desert with the case we dealt with here). True, sometimes he is detached from the world, and therefore his political decisions (and at times even his halakhic ones) are problematic. Still, he has proven capacities in thought and analysis, and I would trust him ten times over more than these or those spiritual preachers. In my view, analytical learning is a necessary condition, though not a sufficient one, for spiritual and public leadership (not for a political operative, but for one who directs and charts a path. See below).[3] Incidentally, if I had to decide who would make decisions for us in the political and social world, the main figures I see before my eyes are indeed rabbinic figures, but emphatically not those who actually do so.
The decision-making of this duo throughout all their years of political activity seems very much the direct outgrowth of what I have described up to now. True, among the Religious Zionist public serious learning usually stops at age 22, and afterward most of them move on, at best, to Daf Yomi,[4] but even so it seems to me unworthy that their spiritual leadership should be made up of the Bnei Akiva counselors who accompanied them at those ages. Come on—have we still not grown up?!
We are told that Rabbi Rafi turned to Rabbis Aizman and Druckman and asked them to make the decision for him (I think I read somewhere the expression 'to issue a ruling for him'). The decisor of the generation for the Religious Zionist public—a public full of sages and writers—is an upgraded Bnei Akiva counselor or a branch coordinator instructing another counselor under him. Thus the counselor turns to the branch coordinator to make decisions. They only forgot that there is also a rabbi or rabbis for the branch, and parents, and wise people. They are not alone in the world. And given such a level of decision-making, this is all the more baffling and outrageous.
We are dealing with good Jews who, in my eyes, resemble upgraded Bnei Akiva counselors who suddenly found themselves in the big leagues, and then do not understand what they are doing there. They do not understand the rules of the game, the commitment and responsibility, the level of argument and decision-making, the duty to consult, the fact that they are not in the league that can make decisions for the public. Like rash youths, they arrogate to themselves the right to make decisions for the whole public, even where the public did not send them. It looks like a situation in which the staff meeting of the youth branch decides to go to war. Who appointed Rabbi Druckman to make decisions? Rabbi Peretz too was appointed to be chairman of the party (by a body in which one of the dominant figures, if not the most dominant, is… none other than Rabbi Druckman), but not the sole decision-maker. How, in a meeting of three Jews with Bibi (really only two in a closed room), are decisions made for the entire public? Rabbi Druckman appoints Rafi Peretz as chairman of the party, and then the latter summons him to make decisions in a closed room at Bibi's office. And thus a strategic decision of a party that calls itself democratic is made. I would not let them run a kiosk.
Beyond the naïveté, I must say that there is also an element of brazenness here. These two lads allow themselves to make decisions for an entire public full of sages and writers, whose little finger is thicker than the waists of these two. It reminds me of my article on Rabbi Druckman's conversions, where I wrote that I see them as a violent move of takeover by an unauthorized and unqualified factor of the public halakhic arena. The phenomenon there is very similar to what is seen here, because there too a man whose Torah stature, let us say gently, is not in the relevant league, goes and makes decisions on his own initiative for the whole public, while the overwhelming majority of rabbis and halakhic decisors strongly oppose it. A Bnei Akiva counselor appointed himself the high commissioner. Like Louis XIV, he holds that Religious Zionism is me. This is the reason I permit myself to speak here in such harsh terms about positive and good people. Their good intentions, seasoned with a problematic combination of naïveté and brazenness, are leading the public they are supposed to represent straight to hell.
In the Haredi parties there is a reasonable structure for management and decision-making. There are political operatives and politicians whose business is political familiarity and skill, and there is the Council of Torah Sages, which is composed of clearly outstanding Torah scholars and is supposed to chart their path and make principled decisions (of course this does not actually work exactly that way, but I am speaking about the principled model). In the Religious Zionist world, by contrast, there is a collection of operatives who in the past opposed any rabbinic involvement (Burg, Rafael, and their colleagues), and today there is a tendency to bring rabbis in as operatives, or at least to consult rabbis, but without anyone choosing them and without ensuring that they are in fact worthy of the role and qualified for it. In many cases confusion arises when a rabbi is brought in to serve as an operative: he comes in the capacity of a spiritual leader and not in the capacity of an operative, but then it turns out that he is nevertheless an operative and nothing more. He is now supposed to consult his spiritual guides, but he is not qualified to determine who they are and which of them is fit for that role, so he turns to a senior operative (coincidentally, precisely the one who appointed him). And thus random and ad hoc groupings make political decisions without anyone having chosen them and without their being qualified in terms of wisdom, talents, and suitability for the role. It seems to me that among other things this is the result of an inherent confusion between the role of the operative and the role of the spiritual leader. The two figures under discussion here served and still serve in both roles, or in some mixture of them, but they truly are not qualified for it. It would have been far better for them and for the world had they remained teaching the sons of Judah archery, or the writings of the Maharal and Rabbi Kook.
I always used to hear wonderment about the Haredim, whose rabbinic leadership is cloistered within the four cubits of Torah books and therefore makes foolish decisions for the entire public. Now I see that this exists everywhere, and that in the Religious Zionist world it is much worse. It is hard not to miss the days of the old NRP people, whom we always scorned and saw as consummate operatives devoid of values and ideology. As I recall, they strongly objected to rabbinic involvement in politics, and we younger students of the religious high schools always rebelled against their lack of fear of Heaven and their bourgeois lay mentality. Now I feel that I owe them a great apology. Our eyes can see how right they were. They truly had 'da'at Torah,' and with it they foresaw through their crystal eyes the future that was to unfold.
A Final Question
The personal question with which I want to conclude is this: how does it happen that Rabbi Druckman time after time represents Religious Zionism and makes decisions for it? Who on earth appointed him? The fact that Bibi for some reason decided to summon him, or that Rabbi Peretz, who was appointed by him, invites him—does that authorize him to make decisions for the public that votes for the Jewish Home party (which itself did not appoint him)? Quite apart from their views, which really do not appeal to me, it seems to me that everyone should admit that they simply are not qualified for it.[5] But despite all this, the world is silent. Despite this ongoing parade of folly, almost no significant rabbinic figure from within the camp responds. Respect for Torah and the concern not to harm the honor of good people who are also rabbis cause us to deteriorate into such an absurd situation, and it is no wonder that this arouses harsh reactions of disappointment, frustration, and despair, as I described above. Has the time not come to put things on the table and address the personal plane as well? As I tried to show, the way one relates to the figures reflects a systemic problem in the public itself. It seems to me that the Religious Zionist public is so detached from learning and Torah that it does not even have the tools to see that these are figures who, even on the Torah plane, belong to a rather low league.
Therefore I decided to puncture this balloon. Our sages have already taught us that In a place where there is a desecration of God's name, no honor is shown to a rabbi. (where there is a desecration of God's name, one does not accord honor to a rabbi). As I wrote, the main problem is not with the people in question. These are good and likable people with many good intentions, from whom we should not have great expectations. The problem is with us, who again and again allow youth-movement counselors to lead the camp, to speak and make decisions in its name, and to constitute its spiritual leadership. If it is made clear to people that these are, all in all, decent operatives with positive intentions but not the sharpest pencils, and certainly not spiritual leadership, perhaps it will be possible to save something of the lost honor of Religious Zionism. And perhaps, at long last, some conclusions will even be drawn among us. Give the youth movement what belongs to it, and Caesar what belongs to him…
[1] Here I should comment on something Shlomo Pyoterkovsky, usually an insightful writer, wrote about the step of Rabbis Peretz and Druckman (on his Facebook page). In his final remark he writes:
- And a final word to the hypocrites who for the past three weeks have been explaining to us how terrible it is that Religious Zionism is joining forces with Kahane's disciples, and tonight suddenly remembered that 'a word is a word': please spare us the lectures; we can see right through you.
There is no need to elaborate on the logical failure in these words. Why is there any contradiction between opposing an alliance with Ben Gvir and opposing the violation of an agreement (even an agreement with that same Ben Gvir)? There is not even a shred of contradiction here. On the contrary, even if they opposed violating the agreement because of its immorality, there would still be no contradiction. But when the violation of the agreement is not done at all for moral reasons but for political reasons, then I cannot even understand how an intelligent person can see in this any contradiction whatsoever.
[2] Admittedly, even here there may be room for discussion, because Ben Gvir had no option of being saved, since the other parties would not agree to unite with him. Perhaps such a situation can be compared to a case in which the flask belongs only to Peretz. But it seems more appropriate to compare it to a case of a flask that belongs to both, where one of them can be saved by the flask (his body does not require much water) and the other cannot. In such a situation, as I argued in my article in Techumin 27 on the separation of conjoined twins, there is no permission to take the flask unless the other agrees. That is of course not the case here (Ben Gvir most certainly did not agree). There may perhaps be room to discuss and analyze this claim, but I am not under the impression that any thorough and systematic discussion here actually addressed this point.
[3] In light of these events I am only strengthened in my long-held view that halakhic and Talmudic analytical learning brings a person to higher and wiser places than 'great men of the generation in faith,' fluent speakers of Maharal-ese and Kook-ese and preachers of Rabbi Nahman, interpreters of aggadah whose hand is mighty across the entire Talmud.
Ostensibly, people who deal with thought and current affairs are more connected to life, and therefore might be expected to make better decisions on the practical plane than those who deal with an ox that gores a cow, or with the law of one who throws the blood in order to receive it outside its proper time and place, or with the laws of second-order taste transfer within a single day. And lo and behold, these artisans of the Maharal and aggadah behave like the geese of Rabbah bar bar Hana, and cause far more damage than the above-mentioned analysts and halakhic decisors cloistered in their studies (about whom I have already written here that in my view they too generally do not exactly excel in the practical sphere).
[4] No wonder a wave of enthusiasm and excitement washes over the Religious Zionist world at the completion of Daf Yomi. Forgive me for not managing to restrain myself from releasing that nasty remark.
[5] As is well known, the views of Rabbi Yaakov Ariel and Rabbi Dov Lior are not my cup of tea, but no one disputes that these are clearly outstanding Torah scholars. I am convinced that neither of them would have fallen for empty arguments like those we sampled here and their like.
Discussion
With God’s help, 25 Tevet 5780
Politics is the “art of the possible.” Political agreements are not covenants of loyalty “for better or worse till death do us part” between those who cling to one another. When two political forces find that joining together will benefit them both, they form a “coalition,” and when they conclude that circumstances have changed—the “coalition” breaks apart.
A public representative’s primary obligation is to advance the values that the public who sent him wants advanced, and the moment it appears that a certain coalition will not promote the goals they set for him to realize—the public’s emissary is obligated to dismantle the partnership. His constituency will demand of him: “I sent you to repair, not to ruin” [Talmudic idiom].
In the case at hand, experience showed that a union of HaBayit HaYehudi, Otzma Yehudit, and the National Union yielded 5 mandates. It is therefore clear that if one side of the “triangle” is missing—the chances of passing the electoral threshold are negligible. At the time the agreement with “Otzma Yehudit” was approved in the HaBayit HaYehudi central committee, an agreement with the “National Union” for them to join was close to immediate signing.
Once the chairman of the National Union unexpectedly decided to join with the New Right, HaBayit HaYehudi was left with no practical choice but to join them and not commit “collective suicide” that would have thrown tens of thousands of votes down the drain. Therefore, the experienced figures in HaBayit HaYehudi, among them Rabbi Druckman, Rabbi Aizman, MK Moti Yogev, and others, called on Rabbi Rafi Peretz to abandon the impractical dream and join Bennett, Shaked, and Smotrich in order to save what could be saved.
Politics is not a “noble sport of knights.” Politics is realistic action for the public and its values, and what must be done is what will advance those values.
Regards, Shatz
A nice column. I identify with almost all of the criticism.
One point I didn’t understand: at the beginning you wrote that Rabbi Rafi represents a small and unimportant ציבור, in your words:
“Fourth, in our case this is not really a matter of life and death for anyone (see above). It is highly doubtful whether these guys getting into the Knesset will help anyone (in my opinion they will mainly cause damage, as until now). The megalomania of those who think their presence in the Knesset is a matter of life and death for the ציבור (which itself is not interested in them, otherwise of course they would pass the electoral threshold) troubles me greatly.”
And later you complained that they make decisions for the entire ציבור without having authorization or qualifications to do so.
So I didn’t understand: in your opinion, are their decisions significant or not?
With respect, the distinctions between the flask parable and the current political case seem a bit too forced. The logic is the same logic, and I find this comparison quite meaningful (even though I’m very far from Bnei Akiva age and am usually a super-critical person).
The criticism of Rabbi Druckman’s public/political conduct may be very correct, but this is perhaps not the right case in which to clash with him so frontally.
With God’s help
Regarding what you said about Rabbi Druckman, despite my reservation about your sharpness toward him, I am forced to agree very strongly, from close up and from personal knowledge.
For several years I dealt, together with a number of friends, with the issue of “forced mixing (between boys and girls) in Bnei Akiva,” when the movement de facto does not permit branches to separate—to the point that a former secretary-general called the desire to separate “something that originates in Christianity.”
When I clarified the issue from the halakhic and practical side, I asked to speak with Rabbi Druckman, the mara de-atra of Bnei Akiva. After a period of time, a conversation with him was arranged. The rabbi argued that the reality is one of “mixed ex post facto,” relying on the words of the Seridei Esh regarding the “Yeshurun” movement, where he ruled that since the alternative is assimilation—it is preferable that they go to a mixed youth movement rather than to nothing.
Aside from the puzzlement at the very comparison between the cases—the fear of assimilation versus mere secularization, an ex post facto leniency for a widespread reality turned into an a priori ideal (from a survey I conducted among more than 300 counselors of the older tribes, most of them see Bnei Akiva as the flagship of “a mixed movement ab initio”)—there is also a practical difference: I laid out before the rabbi the reality in many places (especially communities) where it is impossible to claim there is any concern of life-and-death danger, because the branch’s place there is minimal to nonexistent (as opposed to some cities where it’s either the branch or hanging out on the bars)…
The rabbi replied that one should not relate to particular cases, and that the issue must be handled in a general way, and that this is how it is “in the laws of the ציבור.” I, a small person who has been studying Rav Kook’s Torah for about 25 years, was astonished by the answer.
There is much criticism of Rabbi Tau and the Kav people that they “look from above,” in a kind of “prophetic inspiration” that knows about the redemption process. The attitude toward Rabbi Druckman in all his enterprises—Bnei Akiva, national service (where, incidentally, there are also not-small problems, and in my humble opinion the problems there are no small part of the acceleration in the enlistment of girls to the army, but this is not the place to elaborate), and the like—is similar to the Kav people: Rabbi Druckman, from a kind of general perspective of “laws of the ציבור,” permits things the ear has never heard of, and many other rabbis I spoke with say, “Rabbi Druckman researched the issue deeply; he is the mara de-atra.”
There is a sort of aura of “generation’s great leader in public guidance” around Rabbi Druckman, and unfortunately, from what I encountered in not a few of his decisions, there is a defect in that. There is here “Da’at Torah” with few halakhic sources, mostly meager, taking one principle and turning it into the whole picture—sometimes it is “Klal Yisrael,” sometimes “little by little,” etc. By the same token, one could take the principle of “great is peace” and say that Da’at Torah is to return territories, or “let the law pierce the mountain” and say one must not yield the Arabs even an inch…
(I must note that, by contrast, in the Kav yeshivot, with all their problems, there are quite a few rabbis from the very top scholarly rank—Rabbis Sternberg, Edri, Kostiner, and others.)
There is completely real value to “gentlemanly values” such as keeping your word.
To violate an agreement in such a blunt and public way means that the next person who considers making an agreement or political partnership with you will know he has no reason at all to trust you. Therefore the instinctive contempt and revulsion toward the move are entirely reasonable.
Rabbi Peretz tried to present Smotrich with a fait accompli, to “threaten with a gun,” but like Bennett in his time, he was caught threatening with a toy gun. Smotrich did the same move to him, only stronger; the bluff was exposed. He broke מול Bibi, and his public “stock” fell to rock bottom.
Why go after a rosh yeshiva in Israel like this, to say he’s just like a Bnei Akiva counselor and that he doesn’t know how to learn?
A similar argument could have been made without belittling him.
It seems to me the rabbi is biased. And I say this as someone who would have voted for Bennett even if he were in danger of not passing the electoral threshold (simply because I can’t vote for a Haredi party [which does not represent me], and the Union of Right-Wing Parties was in practice a Hardal party). First of all, even though Otzma is a racist party, the rabbi’s wording that joining with them is “disgusting” is self-righteousness on the rabbi’s part. I assume that if the left can join with the Arabs (whom I perceive as a kind of fifth column—though apparently they themselves are not aware of this at all—and as C-4 explosive that will join our external enemies on the day of reckoning, as happened in the days of the riots under British rule), then the right, and I too, can join with them calmly. This is just self-righteousness on the rabbi’s part. As he said, the concept of racism has been cheapened; it has undergone so much debasement that almost nothing of it remains. For me this is a minor flaw and no more. Racism today is an empty concept. It is simply a kind of discrimination (discrimination on grounds of race). Discrimination is unjust, and that’s all. No more than that. I don’t know why race merited that discrimination on its basis should be privileged over all the other forms of discrimination on other grounds. After all, every discrimination comes on some basis (nationality, religion, social affiliation, appearance, height, and anything the rabbi can think of—just not liking someone’s face). Anyone who discriminates does so for some irrelevant reason. In that sense all parties in the Knesset are racist, because they presumably discriminate against someone in the state on some basis. I haven’t heard of nausea that people constantly feel from those discriminations.
By the way, the thing I hate most in the world is self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is evil’s helpmate (an “ezer kenegdo”—a help against him, assisting him). A self-righteous person is an evil person who is unaware that he is evil (though at least he understands what is bad and what is good). And this, by the way, is what itself makes me unable to stand Haredi-ism (and, by the way, Otzma Yehudit suffers from it even more than HaBayit HaYehudi and the National Union). Haredi-ism is the father of all self-righteousness (and Hardal-ism too). And this is also what makes me unable to stand leftism, which competes with Haredi-ism not badly at all. Self-righteousness is a costume that comes to cover lack of talent. Talented people, and certainly geniuses, have more of a tendency toward evil than a simple person does (though their moral sense is many times more developed than that of a simple person). Of course, among the Haredim this is expressed as piety and saintliness
(or should we say sanctimoniousness and self-righteousness) that come to cover ignorance and infantilism, and among leftists as lack of talent that sends them to the humanities faculty rather than the natural sciences.
In any case, after thinking about the matter quite a bit, and as someone whom HaBayit HaYehudi does not represent, I came to the conclusion that I think Rabbi Rafi Peretz probably made the right decision, at least for his party. The chance that they would not have passed the electoral threshold was serious. Bibi presumably weighed the matter; if he was willing to lose Otzma’s 84,000 voters, then he probably really believed they would not pass the threshold. And apparently that was why they believed him.
In addition, since the discussion here is really moral and not halakhic, it seems to me that the whole agreement (subconsciously and implicitly) was limited to the range of combinations between HaBayit HaYehudi–Otzma–National Union–Noam. That is, the agreement was vis-à-vis the National Union and did not address a situation in which it would become clear to them that they were not passing the electoral threshold. If HaBayit HaYehudi had decided to withdraw from the race a month later because it became clear they would not pass the threshold and they did not want to throw voters’ votes in the trash and harm the right-wing bloc (as Stav Shaffir did), would that also have been a breach of agreement? I don’t think so.
Likewise, HaBayit HaYehudi today does not represent any sector among the young. It perhaps represents the Mizrachi people age 60 and up (to whom the rabbi belongs). Those no longer exist in the generation younger than that. On the one hand it does not represent the Hardalim (even though they took it over), nor on the other hand the Gush people, and certainly not the various “light” religious types. I don’t know why the rabbi cares so much about what happens there. It is a narrow political decision regarding itself, and the voters who have a reflex to vote Mafdal, and as such Rabbi Druckman has indeed been deciding for it for several years (he was even once an MK on its behalf). This is known and accepted by all its voters, and I don’t know why the rabbi is so upset that they decided “on their own authority” to lead it.
Likewise regarding Rabbi Tau (“the generation’s greatest in faith”), I understood that he is also great in Talmudic scholarship (I understood that Rabbi Michael Sternberg, who is a known scholar, respects him greatly), only that for various reasons he refrains from teaching Gemara. I do not think this concept was invented to create a new concept. Surely the Maharal and the Ramchal were among the greats of their generation even though they wrote nothing in halakha. They certainly mastered Shas and the kind of learning of their generation. That is not so hard. It’s not physics. But to be a kabbalist, that is hard (that is physics). What is true is that among most students, aggadah study somehow attracts more because it is perceived as less serious (because that is how it is taught and marketed), and that in turn repels talented people from touching this field. Indeed in yeshivot
What is really happening here is that the rabbi is lamenting the lack of status scholars have in society (and his own status too). Something I of course understand and justify. Rabbi Druckman and Peretz reached their status precisely because they have connection and contact with ordinary people (“Bnei Akiva counselors”). Smart people tend to shut themselves in their homes and not want to be in contact with the childish, emotional masses. On the other hand, this creates a vacuum into which untalented people are drawn. But what can one do? However talented a person may be, he cannot lead people he despises, and so in the end they are led by an untalented person who is not repulsed by contact with them. But then the wise are also led by people less wise than they are, which is intolerable (“a servant when he reigns”). But that is already a problem in world politics in general, and this is not the place to elaborate.
Continuation of the end of the second-to-last paragraph: indeed, in practice in yeshivot the talented people engage in halakha, and that is a distinguishing sign (the less successful deal in “outlook and thought”), but that says nothing about the field itself. It is like how the talented go to physics and mathematics and look down on students of philosophy, but that says nothing about philosophy itself (which, unlike the other humanities, is actually an even more serious field than physics [science] and mathematics, which themselves are a kind of philosophy [science = philosophy verified by experiment and that works; mathematics = philosophy with a high level of definition and internal consistency]). But the Ramchal was certainly greater than the other scholarly figures of his generation (and even than the Vilna Gaon), and certainly the holy Ari was greater than the Shulchan Aruch and the rest of his contemporaries. They themselves subordinated themselves before him.
Likewise, regarding what the rabbi noted about a right-wing government that is not really right-wing, I don’t know what the rabbi remembers, but every time there was a left-wing government here in the last 27 years, there were attacks here and buses exploding every week or so. It turns out that precisely on the Arabs the label “left-wing government” actually makes an impression. (They don’t read the rabbi’s columns.) The rabbi has grown used to good times, thinking they are self-evident, that it is time to deal with Haredi-vs.-liberal issues (though I agree with him on those matters) and that the days of security threats are over. The State of Israel cannot act against Hamas because everyone is afraid to do what is right (and indeed frightening in terms of the world’s reaction toward us), which is to respond with missiles for missiles, as every normal country would do. Only in the State of Israel, with regard to an independent entity that attacks it, does one distinguish between the “regime” and the “citizens,” no matter how much independence they are given. Does the rabbi want to tell me that Gantz, who is a weak and shallow man (the lives of Palestinian civilians of an enemy entity matter more than the lives of our soldiers), and the rest of the leftists of the land—really? At least Bibi has common sense, even if he lacks courage. When there is a left-wing government here, we will not get Rabin’s government but a bunch of dimwitted enthusiasts who will bring upon us a disaster many times worse than Oslo.
In addition, how much more can one hear the garbage about Bibi’s “corruption”? The rabbi is simply lacking self-awareness. What happened? All the crowd (the “right” people) say he is corrupt, so the rabbi also has to say it (in order to curry favor with them?)? The rabbi is living in a movie if he thinks there are decent people here (by the standards he sets for decency) in politics (or in the country generally. Naivete is not decency). Even the word “depraved” in this context is self-righteous. What is the point of pretending there is some single society here with standards binding on everyone? Everything Bibi is accused of would have been done by left-wing people and no investigation would even have been opened. After all, under “breach of trust” one can put anything that leftist self-righteousness throws at us. Cheshin said they did not open a trial against Sharon because it was “against the will of the people.” It turns out that evacuating settlements whitewashes offenses more than Bibi’s, and suddenly the rabbi becomes self-righteous in Bibi’s case? It is simply unbearable. He is worth choosing just to throw the activist judges out of the courts. And the self-righteous, shallow legal people out of the prosecution service. (Not that it will help much.) I already prefer a right-wing dictatorship that takes care of Jews (if only because it takes care of itself) over a left-wing dictatorship that takes care of Arabs and harms us. And let the rabbi not delude himself that there is any democracy.
A note from Haamek Davar on Parashat Shemot. I hope the author is considered more than a Bnei Akiva counselor.
I Will Be What I Will Be. The manner is not clear now, because it depends on the preparation of the recipients. And so, I will conduct Myself in My action according to what I will be in the power of Israel that they will, as it were, give Me. And according to appearances, it should have said: “I will be as they will be,” meaning, according to how the congregation of Israel will be in their deeds, so I will be in My deeds. But in truth, this too comes from God’s providence, that Israel should be worthy of this mode or that mode. And though this is wondrous to human understanding, nevertheless so it is; and it is explained in the book of Deuteronomy, in Moses’ blessing to Benjamin, based on a baraita in the Mekhilta, with a wonderful parable about a king who commanded his older son to wake him at the third hour of the day, and his younger son he commanded to wake him in the morning, etc. And the analogue is explained there: the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the tribe of Judah the understanding that at the splitting of the Sea the providence would be by way of nature; and to Benjamin He gave the understanding that it would be by way of an astonishing miracle. And whichever prevailed at that moment led the mode of the splitting of the Sea according to his will and understanding. And since both intended for the sake of Heaven, the Holy One, blessed be He, gave each tribe reward according to its understanding, as explained there at length. Thus, according to the parable, the king himself endowed the spirit of his sons. So too the Holy One, blessed be He, endowed the spirit and understanding of the tribes as to how they would think, and He pays reward according to their thought. This wonder is the famous difficulty concerning foreknowledge and free choice. And the famous resolution is God’s statement: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” So, what is wondrous to our intellect as to how it is, is not wondrous to Him, may He be blessed. But the matter is clear that so it is in every generation: according to the understanding of the leader of the generation and his preparation, so the leadership is drawn after him. And who measures the spirit of his preparation? That too is God, who brings all things into being. Therefore God said: “I Will Be What I Will Be”—according to how I prepare the understanding of the recipients, so the action will fittingly be:
What I wrote is that according to his own view, if there was a concern that he would not pass the electoral threshold, it follows that he simply does not represent the public and the public does not want him. So there is no need for him to force himself on the public and compel them to accept his representation. In practice, he is the one handling religious interests and speaking in the name of religious society. After all, he is my representative, even if I do not see him as such.
I didn’t understand the comment. The author here is of course an unmistakably learned Torah scholar; what does that have to do with our issue?
By the way, a comment unrelated to this passage: even outstanding Torah scholars, when they get to aggadah and Scripture, can say things that are not on a high level. This is extremely common (although the Netziv is usually not like that).
I explained in the post itself why I went after him like that.
With God’s help, 26 Tevet 5780
To Ofir—greetings,
Rabbi Peretz tried to prevent the 84,000 votes given to Otzma Yehudit in the elections to the 22nd Knesset from going to waste. To that end he created the agreement with Otzma Yehudit, which guaranteed them one-third representation, as befitted their electoral strength. The calculation was that the National Union would also join, and with combined forces they would repeat the achievement they had attained in the 21st Knesset.
And indeed, the National Union was already on the verge of signing an agreement for a joint run with HaBayit HaYehudi and Otzma Yehudit, who were supposed to sign the agreement the day after the convening of the HaBayit HaYehudi central committee. At that point Smotrich surprised everyone, “made a U-turn,” and joined the New Right, and together they pointed a gun at HaBayit HaYehudi by offering them the following choice: join Bennett and Smotrich on humiliating terms (receiving places 2, 7, and 11, while Bennett dictates to HaBayit HaYehudi who its representatives will be and who “shall not enter the congregation”) or plunge together with Otzma Yehudit into the abyss.
What Smotrich gained from his “brilliant” maneuver, I do not know. What Bennett gained, I am afraid I do understand. Reducing Otzma Yehudit by two mandates will weaken Netanyahu’s strength and enable Bennett to maneuver between Gantz and Netanyahu, while shaking off Smotrich and Rabbi Peretz in order to forge a new “brothers’ alliance” with Gantz and Lapid.
That is the dish Smotrich cooked by joining Bennett, and I am very doubtful that this dish will benefit Religious Zionism 🙂 Let us hope God will lead things to a better scenario.
Blessings, Shatz
The funny thing in this whole affair is that it is דווקא Rabbi Peretz whom they accuse of breaking the agreement with Otzma Yehudit. After all, he was the last one left on the “sinking ship.” A large part of the rabbis announced their support for abandoning Ben Gvir and joining Bennett and Smotrich. Even veteran HaBayit HaYehudi members such as MK Moti Yogev called on Rabbi Peretz to join Bennett and Smotrich. Idit Silman got up and moved to the New Right. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Rabbis Druckman and Aizman urged Rabbi Peretz to abandon Ben Gvir and move, for lack of choice, to Bennett and Smotrich—and Rabbi Peretz stood against the pressures until about an hour before the closing of the candidate lists and clung to the alliance with Ben Gvir until the last moment, when he finally understood that the entire HaBayit HaYehudi was already in the hands of Bennett and Smotrich.
So of everyone, you found no one to accuse of abandoning the agreement with Ben Gvir except Rabbi Peretz, who fought with all his strength until the last moment to keep his word? You’ve got to be kidding…
Regards, Shatz
On the one hand, the rabbi wrote that they think everything is in their hands, because if they believed the Holy One, blessed be He, oversees things, then they would not violate a halakhic prohibition. From this it follows that they do not think the Holy One, blessed be He, oversees things.
Quote:
“If the Holy One, blessed be He, wants HaBayit HaYehudi to enter the Knesset… and we are only making an effort… it is plainly unreasonable to take a forbidden or even immoral step to ensure that this happens”
On the other hand, you write that even in their view the goal was holy. Quote:
“Here they conclude that when there is a real danger that the result will not be achieved—it is proper to take problematic steps, since achieving the holy goal (more or less) justifies them”
If indeed the rabbis and politicians who decided on this halakhically problematic step did it for the sake of Heaven, then there is not the slightest basis for inferring that perhaps they hold (consciously or subconsciously) that everything is in their hands.
In my opinion this is a classic case of “It is time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah,” because it is for God’s sake. And from here one could also conclude that דווקא the proper human effort was in the direction of violating the halakha (betraying Otzma Yehudit).
With God’s help, 26 Tevet 5780
To Ehud—greetings,
Your reasoning regarding the duty of effort is correct, for in a place where danger is common one does not rely on a miracle, all the more so in a place where the damage is almost certain. After all, with the three parties together they only barely passed the electoral threshold and obtained only 4 mandates, so it is nearly certain that a union of only two is hopeless.
The agreement between HaBayit HaYehudi and “Otzma” was intended to spur the National Union to join a common run of the three parties. This is like someone who sells his field and explicitly says that the reason for the sale is that he wishes to go up to the Land of Israel; there is a “clear presumption” that he sold the land only for that purpose, and if the purpose is not realized, the undertaking is automatically void. We have here an undertaking that is nullified by law, not a case of “It is time to act for the Lord.”
Blessings, Shatz
Moreover, this is like a coalition agreement between parties, where it is clear that each can leave the coalition whenever it wishes. The agreement defines how matters will be conducted within the partnership as long as the parties desire it, but does not create an ongoing obligation to remain partners.
Everything you wrote sounds logical and correct; in my opinion the “malicious” remark, as you called it, about the completion of the Talmud was not really in place.
One might think there wasn’t excitement and huge celebration parties in the Haredi ציבור….
As a national-religious person, I read your article with full agreement and great sorrow.
With God’s help, 26 Tevet 5780
It seems that Bezalel Smotrich thought that running separately in two heads—“the New Right” on the one hand and “HaBayit HaYehudi–National Union–Otzma” on the other—could create a great danger that one of the lists (close to four mandates) would not pass the electoral threshold, as indeed happened in the elections to the 21st Knesset, when the New Right remained outside.
Therefore, the moment Smotrich received an offer from Bennett and Shaked to join on the basis of equality between “the New Right” and “HaBayit HaYehudi + the National Union,” an offer that it was clear to him HaBayit HaYehudi would also be forced to join, Religious Zionism was thereby saved from the danger of losing half its strength beneath the electoral threshold.
The optimal solution is indeed a unified Religious Zionist list chosen by the general public in open primaries, in which all streams and shades, from Bennett to Ben Gvir, will find their place.
Regards, Shatz
You absolutely killed me, Rabbi Michi.
That sentence, “a corrupt and depraved prime minister like Bibi,” casts enormous doubt on all the tremendous esteem I have for you, following reading your books and articles. Really, there is no simple logic here:
You have no certain knowledge regarding these matters. There are accusations, including indictments, about things that even according to the indictment itself, under the far-reaching assumption that everything they tell us about the facts of the benefits he received is correct word for word—are objectively trifles. Something that causes a little discomfort to puritanical people, but no more than that. And all the benefits Netanyahu supposedly granted in return for the benefits he received (which are relatively minor, even according to the indictment) are things that in practice received regulatory approval from an army of officials and legal advisers, and even according to the indictment it is not said that the act itself was in any way against the interest of the State of Israel that Netanyahu was supposed to advance as the person elected to fill the office by whose authority he made the relevant decisions.
So the situation is this—even according to the indictment, these are unprecedented accusations in presenting positive coverage as a bribe payment, and what Netanyahu supplied in return were various regulatory steps approved by all the professional ranks. Everything I’ve written here is factual and undisputed.—So to write on this basis “a corrupt and depraved prime minister like Bibi”—that is a crime of demagoguery and a total loss of logic and rationality.
To be honest, I don’t know how to continue from here. I’d be glad for some response from you that explains something about this absurdity.
A. Educational damage: if the act is correct—it is correct educationally as well. You cannot educate that black is white.
Well, I completely disagree with you. And I also have information. But I’m not going to get into this discussion here. I’ve had enough of it.
??
Paragraph 2 line 1
…that Smotrich received an offer from Bennett…
I also wrote to him here about this. It’s simply a kind of brainwashing. There’s a sort of atmosphere that you have to say Bibi is corrupt because that’s what everyone (the people who “understand the matter”) says. And the rabbi got caught in this net in an uncharacteristic way (like some fool drawn after the pipers’ tune). I really can’t believe such a thing happens. It’s probably because of some kind of sanctifying attitude toward the law-enforcement systems without understanding that we are dealing with human beings. After all, it can’t be that the police and the prosecution and the courts… etc. Well, it absolutely can be. After all, there is no need actually to lie or invent facts, only to inflate their meaning and take them out of proportion, add a veneer of self-righteousness (the Israel Hayom story is the example of this—as if no one knew the law was proposed so that Yedioth wouldn’t collapse financially and that Israel Hayom was established from the outset so there would be balanced coverage of Netanyahu [as a counterweight to the other papers; not that Israel Hayom itself is balanced]). These things happen every day in the Knesset. What do lobbyists do there, after all? Don’t they trade in legislation? And this is not even an important law, except to journalists who think the world revolves around them. And suddenly with Netanyahu these people realized that trading in laws is unethical? This is how, by means of “breach of trust,” we’ll bring down the right) plus selective enforcement, and behold, Netanyahu is already corrupt. This is simply a kind of reality-creation by the left. If reality doesn’t work for us, we’ll invent a new reality. Here’s the slogan: “Netanyahu is corrupt,” and that’s it. We’ll repeat it a billion times and, by a try-your-luck method, it’ll win us a few mandates. This is a known leftist method in general. We have nothing to offer, so how do we get back to power? We slander the leader of the opposing camp (Begin is a murderer, Shamir is a dwarf, Sharon is a bulldozer—as if if someone from the left had been blessed with these qualities it would have bothered anyone. Need we recall how the southern communities rejoiced when the settlers of Gush Katif were evacuated). And when Bibi learned from them to fight them by their own methods, then he is “dividing the nation.” I suggest the rabbi recalculate his route.
For me, by the way, it is enough that Netanyahu hugs Putin, that dictator and murderer, in happiness. It is worth taking a look here— http://www.text.org.il/index.php?book=0904026
The author of the book was murdered, of course, a few years ago by the righteous Putin and his agent. See newspaper reports on this.
Good thing Chayota is not prime minister. If she hugged only righteous people, Naama would have rotted in the gulag until the day she died (and Naama for this purpose is only a symbol. What is happening in Syria is critical to the security of the state).
With God’s help, 27 Tevet 5780
The author of the post sees something inferior in a Torah leader who was and remains also a youth guide. However, it seems that the greatest leaders of Israel, Moses our teacher and King David, received their training for leadership from being shepherds devoted to their flock.
Moses comes to “the mountain of God,” where he will receive his mission, not מתוך his contemplation of philosophical or scholarly questions. Moses comes to the mountain of God while going to save a lamb that had strayed from the way. His leadership as a faithful shepherd who does not give up even on a single lamb and goes after it “wherever it is”—that is the test of his ability to lead the nation to its redemption.
A leader is first and foremost a good “guide,” attentive on the one hand to the will of the Creator and His wisdom as explained in Torah in all its breadth and depths, and on the other hand he listens with understanding to the souls of his students and charges, knows their aspirations, and is aware of their doubts. His mastery of Torah literature, together with apprenticing under sages, experience, and life wisdom, enables him “to hit the mark” and give fitting answers to the dilemmas of his charges.
When a person merits to educate generations of students over decades, seeking and finding paths to their hearts and remedies for their dilemmas—the students feel that here they receive proper counsel and guidance, and therefore even when they grow up and themselves become teachers of students—they continue to seek the advice and illuminating guidance of their rabbi. Thus the rabbi turns from a guide to a small group into a guide to the many.
Regards, Shatz
With God’s help, ערב שבת קודש Parashat Va’era 5780
A concise definition of the point of dispute on the question whether to run together or “in two heads” was given by Chaggai Huberman in his article, “The Price of Unity: No Risk, No Chance,” on the Arutz 7 website.
Through unity, one avoids the concern inherent in running with two lists, that one of them (or perhaps both…) will not pass the electoral threshold; but on the other hand, the chance is greatly weakened that the New Right will succeed in drawing right-wing-liberal votes from Blue and White and Yisrael Beiteinu, thereby increasing the strength of the right-wing bloc.
Either way, here too the well-known fact is revealed that no person, with all the best and cleverest plans, has the power to “close all the corners.” And after all our efforts, we must lift our eyes to the “Master of the castle” to bring things to a good conclusion for us.
With blessings for Shabbat shalom, Shatz
“::”
You wrote, as an obiter, that violating the agreement causes educational damage. To that I responded that doing the right act (usually) cannot be educational damage. Hiding it is the damage.
“Well, I completely disagree with you. And I also have information. But I’m not going to get into this discussion here. I’ve had enough of it.”
The Midrash says that one who goes down into the arena either defeats or is defeated. One who opens a website becomes, in a certain respect, a public figure and—either or, as said.
I did indeed write that. Your argument is completely implausible, both from simple reasoning and from the words of the Talmud and the decisors (about desecration of God’s name by a great person and dozens of other examples). Beyond that, one must distinguish between a permitted act and an obligatory act, and between a doubtful situation and a certain one, and this is not the place to elaborate.
With God’s help, ערב שבת קודש Parashat Va’era 5780
It should be added that not only is HaBayit HaYehudi not halakhically or morally obligated to keep the agreement, which was automatically nullified because of a “clear presumption” that “it was not on this basis” that they undertook it—that they would go without the National Union to an almost certain failure.
It is also forbidden for HaBayit HaYehudi to act piously and keep such an undertaking, for in doing so they would be assisting a transgression. After all, any run that leads to the loss of right-wing bloc votes may cause real damage by bringing the left to power and strengthening those who fight against the Jewish character of the State of Israel and in favor of a “false peace” with terrorists.
Just as Otzma Yehudit’s running, which causes the loss of right-wing votes, is invalid—so joining them in this evil is an invalid act. More power to Rabbi Peretz, who “took counsel from the elders” and set aside his own opinion before that of Rabbi Druckman and Rabbi Aizman. And “whoever takes counsel from elders does not fail.”
Regards, Shatz
There is necessary political courtesy, and there is enthusiasm. Remember the affair of the handshake with Arafat, when prime ministers here behaved as if possessed. I would have expected less enthusiasm—like the rabbi says to his student in the well-known yeshiva joke: granted that you eat non-kosher meat, but at least don’t let the drool run from your lips!
Blessed be He who directed me to the opinion of Amit Segal, who wrote a short while ago:
And in the end, when Naama Issachar returns home, everyone will not forget to warmly thank the president of Russia who helped bring her back. The family will shed tears over the humane gesture, the prime minister will bless, the president of the state will emphasize the friendship between the two nations.
Diplomacy sometimes requires not saying the whole truth, and therefore everyone will elegantly ignore what really happened here: this week Israel rolled out red carpets for the head of a kidnapping organization, the leader of a criminal and evil regime in whose eyes justice is the name of a star, not, God forbid, a moral principle. Putin threw an innocent young woman from a friendly country into rotting prison for many long years simply because he could, and afterwards traded in her shamelessly like a Middle Eastern militia, only in a more tailored style and at higher prices. His polite meeting with Yaffa Issachar is not essentially different from the condolence visit the king of Saudi Arabia paid the family of journalist Khashoggi, moments after ordering the father of the family cut into pieces because of his opinions.
Putin is not a communist and not a Marxist, but he is the heir of an empire that almost always insists on standing on the wrong side of history. The Russians resent the too-light weight Western historiography gives them in defeating the Nazi beast in World War II. But not entirely unjustly: they were forced to fight their ally Hitler only because he suddenly violated the most cynical alliance in human history, which he had signed in order to wipe democracy and the Jews from the world. Had he kept the alliance, there would have been no need for the monument unveiled this week in Sacher Park in memory of the veterans of the war against the Nazis, because there would have been no war against the Nazis and there would have been no Israel.
A chasm yawns between all the democracies in the world, for all their flaws, and the Russian state of darkness, where everything has a price: a regime that helped murder hundreds of thousands of civilians a short drive from Mount Hermon simply in order to obtain a warm-water port in Tartus; a state whose weapons are responsible for almost all the Israeli dead from war or terror since the founding of the state. An empire that even these days fights against sanctions on Iran, which seeks nuclearization, and hinders Israel in its justified efforts to prevent its enemies from rising up to destroy it.
Israel’s leaders cannot, of course, mention all this while delicately maneuvering מול Moscow. But one demonstration with a few signs outside Yad Vashem could have done the job. In Israel they don’t kill you for that.
You can’t fool Putin. He would instantly detect if it were fake politeness. He would release her only for someone he was convinced liked him, so in any case it wouldn’t have worked otherwise. Russia is indeed an evil state, but they are not stupid, and every person knows when someone is pretending to him. Bibi in any case had to pretend (whether he did so or not), like all previous prime ministers. Everything else is purism. Truly, thank goodness Chayota is not running the state.
As a graduate of Rabbi Druckman’s yeshiva, I have to say that from personal acquaintance with him, he is a smart man who understands politics very well.
Not all of his decisions were correct and wise (cf. Motti Elon). And one can disagree with the spark-of-the-soul-of-Knesset-Israel-in-everyone that underlies the conversions he performs.
But his decisions are usually correct. Including the decision to break the promise to Otzma (if one does not get hung up on the flask example, which should not be taken as a halakhic argument).
To Putin’s credit, it should be said that he is willing to grant a pardon and does not claim that this would harm the honor of the court that judged her ::)
And meanwhile, Putin has gone, and we return to rutine
Regards, Shatz
You wrote that in the previous election Bennett and Shaked had no problem running with Ben Gvir. That is not correct. Last time Otzma ran alone, and Yamina ran alone.
Dear Yishai2. There is a logical fallacy (not a factual mistake) in your words. Not for nothing did I provide a link. Kindly make use of it.
Awesome post! Keep up the great work! 🙂
By the way, it’s not that accurate that Bennett then had no problem running with Ben Gvir. I read on “Srugim” that in the previous election Ayelet Shaked managed those matters (that is, the right to decide on the issue of adding Ben Gvir was apparently hers) by virtue of her place on the list (and Bennett’s place as number 2 in the New Right and number 4 on the general list), and she explicitly said that Bennett did not want him and that she did, and he respected her decision. People in Otzma Yehudit also claimed then that Bennett did not want them and therefore “decided” (in their view) to push them into a place that seemed disrespectful to them (although it was actually very realistic. What is true is that the placement was really an internal matter of the three parties—the National Union, HaBayit HaYehudi, and Otzma. The New Right got three places in the first ten [under a ratio of 5 mandates for those parties and 4 for the New Right], and indeed they did not need to give Ben Gvir the places they received [1, 4, and 7]). Now that the situation has reversed and Bennett is at the top, he has indeed carried out his unwillingness regarding Ben Gvir. In short, reality is complex.
Although I actually wanted Bennett to unite with Zehut and run a genuinely liberal right-wing (economically) party (unlike Likud), even at the cost of taking the risk of not passing the electoral threshold, which was smaller than in the April elections (fortune favors the bold), I understand the caution he exercised. But once he joined Smotrich (and lost the liberals), then in for a penny, in for a pound—and it’s a shame he was not willing to add Ben Gvir (as a technical bloc or something?) and avoid losing 84,000 voters and even more.
In Rabbi Zvi Yehuda’s circle in the seventies, Hanan Porat was responsible for settlement, Rabbi Druckman for politics, and Rabbi Tau for Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav.
I think Naftali Bennett returned to lead Religious Zionism and everyone fell into line behind him. Rafi Peretz simply didn’t understand that, so they helped him understand.
Explain yourself, give the information. With all due respect, anything else is nonsense and demagoguery. Serious arguments I am willing to hear; repeating accusations that have not yet been adjudicated in court, and where one must at least entertain the possibility that they were generated from excessive political motivation—that is completely unacceptable to me.
The rabbi’s columns sometimes feel to me like the religious equivalent of Lior Schleien’s weekly monologue on Gav HaUma.
I would be glad to hear your view on the principled issue of breaching an agreement: suppose I made an agreement with a friend that he and I would do a certain business venture (say each of us would put in a sum and we would compete in a tender), and now he breached the agreement on the grounds that in any case we would not have won and instead partnered with someone else—but in my opinion we did have a chance. Is he allowed to breach just because it seemed to him that it was a losing proposition? And what if the judge also thinks it was highly likely they had no chance? And what if it is completely obvious to all that they had no chance?
Thanks
It is hard for me to write an orderly treatise on the matter. On the halakhic level, most agreements are not binding. And legally too, that is probably the case regarding political agreements. Fairness is of course another matter.
As for your questions, a person acts according to what seems right to him and not according to what seems right to you. And the judge does not determine matters here either, unless this is a halakhic question and not a moral one. But as I said, on the halakhic-legal plane, such agreements are usually not binding.
After thinking about it a bit more, I found proof that even if the engagement was a contract that was halakhically binding (effective act of acquisition, a condition not amounting to asmachta, etc.), Rabbi Rafi could still retract.
A sharecropper of a field who wants to withdraw from the field because it is poor (Peretz), while the owner of the field (Ben Gvir) claims that the field is fit to yield more than two se’ah (i.e., to pass the electoral threshold, not be worth nothing)—if an expert assessment (Bibi’s in-depth polls) shows the sharecropper is right, he may retract, even if he committed himself in a legally effective way. Choshen Mishpat 328 סעיף א.
If this is halakhically permitted and done for the sake of Heaven, in my opinion there is no moral problem here, and if there is, explain to me what it is.
I can understand that backing out of a non-binding agreement for an unjustified reason is immoral even if according to halakha it is permitted, but that is not the case here.
Until I thought about it, I was really anti–Rafi Peretz, but perhaps the intuition was not justified.
I don’t understand the discussion. I did not write that this was an immoral act. On the contrary, I wrote here more than once that there are sides both ways. What I wrote to you was that in principle, breaching an agreement can be valid yet immoral. That is exactly “He Who Exacts Payment” [mi shepara]. Irrelevant to Rabbi Rafi Peretz and his decision (you too posed the question as detached from the act itself).
But what I said still stands: even if it is halakhically permitted and done for the sake of Heaven—there can still be a moral problem in it. Many people do problematic things for the sake of Heaven.
I agree that there are cases where halakha itself says it is permitted, but one still violates “He Who Exacts Payment” / “the remnant of Israel shall not do wrong” / the injured party has grounds for grievance. But here that is not the case, because as I understand it the halakha is that this is permitted from the outset, since every agreement of this kind is based on there being profit from it, and therefore if I asked a halakhic authority he would say it is permitted even in a monetary matter, all the more so here.
By the way, it seems to me that this is actually what Rabbi Druckman meant to say in the story with the water: according to Rabbi Akiva, the moral obligation of “love your fellow as yourself” is based on the benefit that emerges from it and does not stand on its own; and so too the value of honoring an agreement is based on the benefit that is supposed to grow from it for both sides. There is no end to distinctions, but this seems to me a correct principle—that morality follows the result of moral behavior.
With God’s help, 3 Shevat 5780
To Avishai—greetings,
In such an agreement, where the facts were known and were presumably explicitly stated, that the purpose of the agreement was to bring about a joining with the National Union, it seems similar to the case of one who sold his property on the understanding that he would go up to the Land of Israel and was then prevented and could not go up (Kiddushin 50a), where there is a “clear presumption” that he sold only on that understanding, and it is as though there were an explicit condition nullifying the sale.
As explained in Choshen Mishpat (sec. 207:3): “One who sold his courtyard or field, and at the time of the sale explained that he was selling in order to go to a certain place, or because the rain had been withheld, in order to buy wheat with the money—this is like a sale on condition. Therefore, if rain fell after he sold, or wheat came and became cheap, or the road to that land or to the wheat was blocked—he returns the money and the land returns to him, for he explained that he was selling only in order to do a certain thing, and behold it was not done; and so too in all similar cases.”
Regards, Shatz
I saw that you wrote this. I did not agree with the argument, because Rabbi Rafi did not do this only in order for the National Union to join; on the contrary, he planned to continue with the agreement until the very last moment and had already inserted a replacement (Sarah Beck) in Smotrich’s place. There is no clear presumption in a situation where he himself shows that this was not what he intended.
What convinced him to cancel was only that they saw there was no chance of passing, and if there had been a chance without the National Union, they would have gone with it.
With God’s help, 3 Tevet 5780
It is obvious that Rabbi Peretz’s original plan was to close a deal with Ben Gvir in order to create pressure on Smotrich to join; and indeed they were about to finalize with Smotrich his joining, and thought that after the gathering of the HaBayit HaYehudi central committee the agreement for Smotrich’s inclusion would be closed. Once Smotrich chose to join Bennett, HaBayit HaYehudi was left in the impossible situation of running alone with Otzma Yehudit.
While all the veterans in HaBayit HaYehudi (including rabbis, MK Moti Yogev, and others) understood that in this situation there was no escaping canceling the alliance with Ben Gvir, Rabbi Peretz desperately tried to continue so as “not to break his word,” and he inserted Sarah B”K in a desperate attempt (and got further entangled with Moti Yogev and Idit Silman). In the end he “was afflicted, paid, and ate the fish too” 🙂
In my humble opinion, Rabbi Peretz should have followed his veteran and experienced colleagues and said to Ben Gvir: we have no chance running alone. After all, Rabbi Peretz is not the “owner” of HaBayit HaYehudi. He should have passed the decision to the “public council,” and they would already have made clear to him that there was no escaping a change in the original plan.
The “chairman” of a party representing a diverse ציבור should, in my humble opinion, be not “the leader” but “the connecting hyphen” of the leadership team, and “deliverance comes through much counsel,” and it is a pity they did not act that way.
Regards, Shatz
With all due respect to Sarah B”K—after all, I am the grandson of Rebbetzin Chava née B”K 🙂—was she really going to succeed in attracting anyone from among the admirers of Bennett or Ayelet Shaked or Smotrich?
By the way, in branches that want to separate, they can separate. And indeed there are such branches. Ramat Gan, for example.
Read a bit from the hundreds of stories being published now about Rabbi Druckman זצ״ל, and your opinion will no doubt change
Forgive me, but his political old age put his movement-oriented youth to shame.
Yes, without a doubt. My opinion has changed. In fact he was the greatest of the generation. I got confused.
What a shame. Rabbi Michael is always the reasonable one in the group of ranters.
If the idea is to hear someone speak “against,” there are enough people who know how to speak “against.”
Everyone understands that the parable of the flask is not literally the analogue. You can note that in passing. The attack on Ben Gvir too, and the attack on Rafi Peretz too, went beyond gentle words—which are the pure logic that is Rabbi Michi’s beauty, perhaps the only one who knows the “language of logic.”