Israel Matzav

National Religious community split over rally attendance

The National Religious community is split over whether or not to attend Sunday's rally.

Several leading rabbis from the conservative wing of the national-religious community, including Rabbis Shmuel Eliyahu, Mordechai Sternberg, Micha Halevi and Shlomo Aviner, have come out in support of the rally, and significant numbers of men from this sector are expected to participate.

But other senior figures in the national-religious movement said they were opposed to the demonstration.

Speaking to Channel 2, Rabbi Haim Druckman said that the suggestion that the government of Israel was fighting against God was unacceptable, and people should not join the protest.

The Beit Hillel association of national-religious rabbis spoke out strongly against the rally and the participation of people from the Zionist sector, saying that one of the central foundations of religious Zionism was the integration of Torah study and military service.

The group said that the state was still in a period of war for which religious law mandates obligatory military service, called on haredim to serve in the army and said that participation in the rally would contradict the central values of religious Zionism.

Meanwhile, JPost reports that Sunday's prayer rally - at which no politicians or rabbis will speak, but which will be attended by Rabbi Aryeh Leib Steinman shlita (who is rumored to be around 100-years old) - may be the "largest gathering of Jews in modern times."

Here's something rare to watch for:

A spokesman for Shteinman said that there is a special prayer to be recited if one witnesses a gathering of 600,000 Jews, in recognition of the tradition that in the biblical account there were 600,000 men at Mount Sinai when the Israelites received the Torah.

The prayer rally organizers estimate that some 600,000 people will be in attendance, including all of the major haredi groups and political movements. According to Shteinman’s spokesman, there has been a direct call not to engage in provocative or violent action, as has been witnessed at several anti-conscription demonstrations in recent months.

The last haredi protest of a similar size and nature was in 1999, when the community protested against several Supreme Court rulings on religious issues, including a ruling that ended the exemption of haredi yeshiva students from military service.

At that rally, some 250,000 members of the community turned out to protest. More than 100,000 haredim protested in 2010 against a Supreme Court ruling regarding separation of Sephardi and Ashkenazi girls in a school in the settlement of Emmanuel.

The prayer they're referring to is חכם הרזים, a blessing that is only said if 600,000 Jews are in attendance. It was said with God's name at the 1999 rally (yes, I was there), so obviously organizers felt that there were more than 600,000 people present. I would bet on it being said again today.

So yes, I am going to the rally, and the blog will be silent during that time (except to the extent that I queue posts before I leave). For those who follow me on Twitter (@IsraelMatzav), I will try to tweet if anything is relevant. But if all that's going to happen is that everyone is going to stand and say Tehillim (Psalms), there won't be much about which I can tweet.

Labels: God, Haredim, IDF, Jerusalem, Torah

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:25 PM