Question

Where is the rabbis’ value-based statement?
In recent days, a great many articles by rabbis have been appearing in the media about the formation of a government in Israel—some blessing the establishment of a Lapid-Bennett government, and others thinking it would be a disaster for the country. There was even a public call issued (a broadsheet) under the title “Love truth and peace,” in which rabbis and women rabbis called for considering joining a unity government.
Both opinions are legitimate, just as there is no halakhic obligation or Torah prohibition to vote for one party or another. We all agree that there is blessing in different and diverse opinions. The rabbis surely do not think that their political opinion is “Torah from Sinai.” But everyone would agree that honesty, decency, and morality are the foundation stones of Judaism. By contrast, lying, deceit, and misleading others are among the gravest prohibitions.
All the important rabbis writing these days on political matters are dealing with petty politics, where their opinion does not really count. Many times one even hears statements—sometimes from those very same rabbis—that rabbis should not be mixed into politics, and maybe that is true and maybe not. But the teaching of Torah and the teaching of ethics are, according to everyone, a central role in the lives of rabbis.
So where is their moral response to a public official not keeping his promise?
Where is the value-based statement regarding misleading the public?
Where is their shock at a betrayal of the mission entrusted to him?
Do they agree and think it is right to crown a prime minister contrary to the will of the people (even if this operates according to the laws of modern democracy)?
After all, everyone agrees that many voters of Yamina voted for it because of its leaders’ commitment, in every medium, in writing and orally, not to sit in a government together with Lapid, Meretz, etc. There is even a reasonable chance that Yamina would not have passed the electoral threshold at all if they had announced in advance that they would agree to sit in such a government.
Fine, so surely there will be those who say that the current prime minister also does not excel at telling the truth.
But if so, honored rabbis, would you permit the religious Knesset members to eat carrion and non-kosher meat because some other minister or Knesset member behaves that way?!
“But we are doing this for the good of the people,” cry the public officials.
It may be that you Knesset members think this is for the good of the people, but your senders do not think so. Those who chose you think it is a bitter mistake.
Public officials are entrusted with a mission and are morally obligated to that mission. Since it is so natural that an agent does not alter his mission, the Talmud establishes: “There is a presumption that an agent carries out his mission.”
Everyone understands that if I sign an exit permission slip for my child for a trip to the safari in Ramat Gan, and the teacher or guide takes him rappelling in the north instead (because it is better for the child’s development), the parents’ committee and the school administration will immediately make sure to remove that staff member from the institution. So why is it not true in politics?
There are those who will say: but alongside the commitment not to sit with Lapid, Bennett also promised there would not be a fifth election, and also promised more and more things. So what should we do? In order to keep some commitments, we have to violate others.
The answer is that we are not supposed to be his “accountants” regarding promises, calculating each promise against the others and concluding that it was not really a promise because perhaps it might clash with another promise. The moral duty of a public official is to keep promises and fulfill his mission. And the duty of rabbis and people of spirit is to write and cry out when there is a moral distortion, to cry out and warn when “falsehood” is walking the streets.
So why don’t we hear their view on this?
On the contrary, if there are rabbis who think it is permissible to depart from the truth or to mislead public opinion for the good of the people, then please write about it. The public expects you to provide a Torah response to these questions. A broad public—men, women, and children—wants to hear a value-based statement on this specific issue.
 
G.
A resident of Ra’anana, a neighbor of MK Naftali Bennett