Netanyahu Leaves Hospital for a Knesset Vote
Last week, there was a major stir in the Knesset when Binyomin Netanyahu showed up to vote on an important economic bill relevant to the new budget. The bill is called the “trapped profits law,” and I don’t know exactly what it is about, but I do know that it is expected to generate 10 billion shekels in proceeds for the Treasury. The reason this created a stir is that Netanyahu arrived at the Knesset straight from Hadassah Hospital, where he was recovering from surgery. This was not only a bold move but was also in violation of his doctors’ orders. The surgeons and specialists who were treating the prime minister insisted that he needed to remain in the ward at least until Wednesday evening and were surprised by his decision to leave the hospital, after he received explicit medical advice to remain there. The doctors felt that it was a medically unsound decision and that it was too early in the recovery process for him to leave. When the prime minister insisted on leaving, the hospital sent a doctor to accompany him.
This decision was hatched when Netanyahu was informed that the coalition did not have a majority to pass the bill. The reason for this was that Minister Yitzchok Goldknopf announced that the three members of Agudas Yisroel (one of the two component factions of United Torah Judaism) would either vote against the bill or abstain, to protest the fact that the new draft law was not being advanced (as will be discussed in a separate article). At the same time, former defense minister Yoav Gallant began making noises of opposition (and, sure enough, he announced in a confused-sounding speech the following day that he was resigning from the Knesset), and Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that his party, Otzma Yehudit, would vote against the bill. Ben-Gvir’s motive was his feud with the minister of finance, with whom he had formed a political bloc, over the budget for the police force. That made several members of the Knesset who would not vote for a bill that was a key component of the new budget, while the Likud was down two votes due to Netanyahu’s illness and the absence of MK Boaz Bismuth, who was sitting shiva.
Netanyahu tried to drum up more votes for the bill from his hospital bed, but he was only partially successful. He convinced Almog Cohen, one of the members of Ben-Gvir’s party, to support the bill while the others abstained, and he also asked Bismuth to come to the Knesset for the vote despite being in the middle of shiva. He contacted the households of the Belzer Rebbe and the Sanzer Rebbe and managed to arrange for Eichler and Roth, who represent those two chassidic courts, not to vote against the bill. (One of them did not show up for the vote, while the other abstained.) Finally, he managed to convince MK Avi Maoz, who maintains a one-man party in the Knesset, to vote for the bill. This led to a tie, so Netanyahu decided that he had to show up and vote, and the bill passed by a margin of a single vote, with 58 MKs voting in favor and 57 against. Netanyahu thus spared the coalition from a painful defeat that might have heralded the beginning of the end for the coalition itself. Nevertheless, the cracks in the coalition had shown, and it was shaken by the internal controversy. This is often how a government begins to fall.
Ben-Gvir Shows Remorse
Sitting in the Knesset, Netanyahu glared at Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was positioned three seats to his side. The prime minister went on to speak out harshly against the Otzma Yehudit chairman. “There is nothing more foolish or irresponsible than shaking up the coalition at this time or risking the fall of a right-wing government,” he said. “Throughout the past year, the minister of finance and I have been navigating Israel’s economy through the longest and most expensive war in Israeli history, with responsibility and professionalism.” He went on to address Ben-Gvir’s grievances directly: “The Israel Police Force received a large addition to its budget over the past two years, and for good reason. Funding for the Ministry of National Security has also been significantly increased in the budget for the year 2025. Therefore, I expect all members of the coalition, including Minister Ben-Gvir, to stop threatening the coalition’s integrity and endangering the existence of a right-wing government at this decisive moment in Israeli history. It is both possible and necessary to bridge the gaps in the coalition without jeopardizing it, and that is what we will do.”
Ben-Gvir remained self-assured in interviews with the press at the end of the week. “I did what needed to be done, and I will not apologize,” he insisted. Nevertheless, he came under a barrage of criticism from every direction, and the coalition decided to penalize him and his party with various measures, such as refusing to approve bills that they submitted. On motzoei Shabbos, Ben-Gvir made an about-face and released an apology. “I made a reckoning on Shabbos,” he said, “and I realized that I made a mistake when I saw the prime minister and Boaz Bismuth entering the Knesset and we did not offset their votes. I am saying this explicitly: I apologize to the prime minister and to my colleague Boaz Bismuth. From now on, until the prime minister has completely recovered, we will offset him.”
Netanyahu’s associates accepted Ben-Gvir’s apology and told him that it was the correct move. At the same time, they also stressed that his remorse would be meaningless unless he learned from his mistakes. Other individuals in the government added that Ben-Gvir wasn’t contributing to the coalition’s stability; he was simply freeing himself from the need to show up in the Knesset. “His party will continue to vote against the coalition bills, while he will personally be absent. That will not add to the government’s stability at all,” they said.
Ben-Gvir’s apology may be worse than his initial offense. By promising to offset the prime minister’s absences, he essentially defined his party as part of the opposition. The procedure of offsetting votes is employed when an individual on one side of the political aisle must be absent from the Knesset, and someone on the opposite side agrees to relinquish his own vote in the interest of fairness. Ben-Gvir’s message was essentially that his party will vote against the coalition in the future, and he will simply agree to personally abstain from voting whenever Netanyahu requests an offset.
Smotrich Denies Interest in the Polls
Perhaps I should add some information about the current feud between the two right-wing ministers, Ben-Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich. When Smotrich first demanded control of the Finance Ministry, he was warned that no one ever emerges unscathed from the position of finance minister. And his own experience has proven that this is the case: Smotrich’s party, which calls itself Religious Zionism, is performing very poorly in the polls and is hovering around the electoral threshold, while Ben-Gvir’s party, Otzma Yehudit, has been steadily rising. In fact, recent polls show it receiving 14 mandates in a hypothetical election. Remember, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir ran on a joint list that was divided evenly between them, on the presumption that each party was worth about the same number of mandates. And even though the polls showed a sharp drop for Otzma Yehudit after last week’s fiasco in the Knesset—which probably had a powerful impact on Ben-Gvir’s “reckoning” this past Shabbos—Ben-Gvir still holds the upper hand in his competition with Smotrich. This is somewhat surprising, since most of the rabbonim in the national religious community support the Religious Zionism party.
I recently read an interview with Betzalel Smotrich. To his credit, Smotrich carefully refrained from making any negative comments about the chareidi parties, despite the interviewer’s best efforts to draw such statements out of him. That doesn’t mean that he is opposed to drafting chareidim into the army, which is the hot button issue of the day. Smotrich is very much in favor of chareidi conscription, but he explained cogently why nothing will be achieved through force, and why the chareidim have taken a firm stand against the draft. I was also amused by Smotrich’s answer when he was asked if the failure to draft chareidim, the loss of his candidate for the position of chief rabbi, and similar failures account for his dramatic decline in the polls. “Is it possible that your voter base is disappointed with you?” the interviewer asked pointedly.
Smotrich replied, “The polls do not interest me. When half of my family is in the middle of a war, polls are not important to me, and I am not affected by them. In any event, the only pollster in Israel who knows how to take a poll, Filber, always shows us stable and passing the threshold.”
That was a bit of a mixed message: He has absolutely no interest in the polls, but he is also clinging to the one poll that doesn’t show his party failing.
Netanyahu’s Discharge
In case you were worried about Netanyahu’s health, let me reveal to you that he was discharged from the hospital on Thursday afternoon. His doctors advised him to ask the court for a two-week delay before his next scheduled date for testimony, so that he can make a full recovery before returning to the courtroom. As you are undoubtedly aware, Netanyahu is scheduled to testify in Tel Aviv on a daily basis; this was the decision made by the judges, at the prosecution’s request.
Upon his discharge, Netanyahu wrote a message to the public: “I have just left Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, and I would like to thank many of you, the citizens of Israel, for your prayers, your encouragement, and your support, which moved me and my family very much.” The prime minister thanked the doctors who had treated him, his personal physician, the nurses, and the rest of the medical staff.
The hospital released a statement stating: “The prime minister’s doctors have announced upon his discharge that his condition is stable and he is recovering satisfactorily from the operation. He still has a period of recovery ahead of him, and the standard postoperative follow-up will be maintained. Upon his discharge, the prime minister asked to convey his profound gratitude to the specialists in Hadassah and the entire staff, to the specialist from Assaf Harofeh who participated in his care, and to his personal doctor, Dr. Tzvika Berkowitz, who treated him with dedication.” The doctors’ recommendation for a two-week break from the trial was relayed to the court by Netanyahu’s attorney, Amit Chadad, and the judges acceded to the request.
Another Video from Gaza
The hostage videos emerging from Gaza have been denounced in Israel as psychological terror, and there is no question that this assessment is correct. Every few months, Hamas has been releasing a video of a hostage to sow further anguish and turmoil. It happened again on motzoei Shabbos this week, when the terror group released a video of Liri Elbag, one of the IDF lookouts who was abducted from her base on her first Shabbos on duty. Elbag had just completed her training and was beginning to serve on the base in Nachal Oz, where she was abducted along with four other soldiers. Sixteen other lookouts were killed, and one more was murdered in captivity. The army has been accused of abandoning the lookouts to their deaths, and as I mentioned last week, this is the reason for the fierce conflict over releasing the recordings of the female soldiers’ final hours on their base. The video of Elbag released by Hamas is three minutes long and begins with the young woman announcing that a new year has begun, which is evidence that the video was filmed last week. It was a shocking video, and the family asked for it not to be publicized.
The video shows Elbag sitting alone in an IDF uniform in a dark room and appealing to her family and the government to sign a prisoner exchange agreement. The Elbag family released a statement after viewing the footage: “The video that was released today has torn our hearts to pieces. We watched the video that Hamas sent with dread, and we are unable to breathe. This isn’t the same daughter or sister that we knew. She is in very bad condition; her severe psychological state is evident. We saw our heroic Liri surviving and begging for her life. She is just a few dozen kilometers away from us, but for the past 456 days, we have been unable to bring her home.”
The family addressed their next comments to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the other decision makers in the government: “The time has come for you to make decisions as if your own children were there! Liri is alive, and she must be brought back alive! It’s completely up to you. You must not miss the current opportunity to bring them home—all of them. There is no choice other than to stop this Gehinnom immediately and to free Liri and the other hostages. We call on the prime minister urgently to use his power and to order the negotiating team to complete the talks immediately. We thank everyone for their interest in Liri and in her plight.”
Mixed Reactions from Hostages’ Families
Liri’s parents weren’t the only ones to be shocked and saddened; it was a reaction shared by the country. Netanyahu’s office announced that the prime minister spoke with Liri’s parents after the video was released. “The prime minister told the family that he identifies with the suffering experienced by Liri, her family, and all the hostages and their family members,” his staff reported in an official statement. “The prime minister has promised that Israel will continue to work tirelessly to bring Liri and the other hostages back home. Those efforts are continuing even at this moment. The prime minister repeats that if anyone dares to harm our hostages, his blood will be on his own hands.”
President Herzog also put in a call to Liri’s parents, Shira and Eli Elbag, and tried to comfort and encourage them. An official statement from the president’s residence related, “In an emotional and pained conversation, the president reiterated that the representatives of the State of Israel who are conducting the negotiations must remain in the negotiating room until all 100 hostages have been brought home.” The Elbags informed the press that they had also received calls from the minister of defense and the chief of staff of the IDF.
Netanyahu’s detractors used the video as another weapon against him (and possibly may have played into Hamas’s hands by doing so). “This is the 456th day that our loved ones are in Gehinnom in Gaza because of Netanyahu,” they declared. “We watched the sign of life from this heroic hostage who has survived against all odds, and our hearts go out to her family at this time. This Gehinnom cannot be allowed to continue any longer. We must bring them all home and end the war.” Of course, no one disputes anything they said—except the fact that they blamed the entire nightmare on Netanyahu.
A different message emerged from a more neutral forum of hostages’ families: “The sign of life from Liri is a painful but solid proof of the urgency of bringing all the hostages home. Every day in the Gehinnom of Hamas in Gaza represents immediate mortal danger to the living hostages and further jeopardizes our ability to bring the deceased hostages back for burial. There are only sixteen days remaining for the ultimatum that was set by President-Elect Trump. We must not lose this historic window of opportunity. The time has come for the prime minister to decide to bring Liri and all the other hostages home.”
Blinken Confirms: Hamas Withdrew from the Deals
This brings us to the bombshell dropped by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in an interview with the New York Times. During this interview, Blinken admitted that whenever America exerted pressure on Israel, Hamas hardened its stances and withdrew from any agreements it had made with Israel for the release of the hostages. This is exactly what Netanyahu and his staff have repeatedly claimed. One can also presume that the intense pressure on the Israeli government that came from other quarters—namely, the protests in Tel Aviv—likewise caused Hamas to harden its positions, which is exactly the argument made by the hostages’ families who are opposed to the fierce, vocal protests.
“Whenever there was a publicized lack of agreement, when there was daylight between the United States and Israel and the perception that the pressure on Israel was growing, Hamas backed off from any agreement for a ceasefire or the release of hostages,” Blinken said. When he was asked if there was a time when Netanyahu blocked a deal for the release of hostages (in reference to last July), Blinken said, “That isn’t accurate. What we saw time and again was that Hamas did not conclude a deal if it didn’t have to.”
Blinken described the intense pressure that he personally exerted on Israel on his first visit after the massacre, when he demanded that humanitarian aid trucks be allowed to enter Gaza. Blinken even claims to have threatened that if Israel didn’t comply with his demands, President Biden would cancel the solidarity visit that was planned for a short time thereafter. Blinken claimed that five days after October 7, he had a nine-hour argument with Netanyahu and other Israeli officials deep underground at the Kirya base in Tel Aviv. He related that it wasn’t only Netanyahu who wanted to block humanitarian aid to Gaza; rather, the entire Israeli public was opposed to allowing any aid to reach any Palestinian in Gaza. “The Israeli people had been completely traumatized,” Blinken said. He claimed that Netanyahu ultimately gave into the American pressure to allow aid to reach Gaza, and Biden arrived for his visit to Israel.
It was amazing to listen to Blinken speak candidly as he approaches the end of his term. He attacked former defense minister Bogie Yaalon for accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing, and he said in amazement, “For all of the understandable criticism of the way Israel has conducted itself in Gaza, you hear almost nothing against Hamas…. Where is the world? Why isn’t the world telling them, ‘End this! End the suffering of these people!’ That doesn’t absolve Israel from its actions in conducting the war, but I must question how it is that we haven’t seen a greater sustained condemnation and pressure on Hamas to stop what it started and to end the suffering of people that it initiated.”
We all hope that the hostages will be freed soon, and I have no doubt that Trump’s threats played a significant role in bringing about any change of heart that occurred within Hamas’s new leadership.
Immigrants Arrive, Collect Benefits, and Leave
Last week, the Central Bureau of Statistics released a report at the end of the secular year that sparked an uproar in this country. On the one hand, there was some good news: The population of Israel has passed the ten-million mark. However, what actually captured the headlines and caused collective disappointment was another piece of information that appeared in the same report: In the year 2024, about 82,700 Israelis moved out of the country. Yitzchok Rabin once referred to citizens leaving Israel derogatorily and later apologized.
The four cities that saw the largest number of emigrants departing this year were Tel Aviv, which lost 11,000 residents; Haifa, with 6000 departing residents; and Yerushalayim and Netanya, with 5000 emigrants each. Another interesting statistic is that 7.7 million Israeli residents are defined as Jews or “other” (i.e., people who are legally registered as Jews but are not halachically Jewish; the state recognizes an immigrant with a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother as Jewish for the purpose of immigration), 2.1 million are Arabs, and 216,000 are foreigners.
A few more statistics put the above numbers into perspective. It is true that 82,700 citizens left Israel in the previous year, but 23,800 citizens returned to the country. Nevertheless, there was a dramatic increase in the number of citizens leaving Israel since the previous year; according to the data from 2023, about 55,300 Israelis left the country over the course of that year for an extended stay abroad. As for incoming citizens, the bureau reported that 32,800 new immigrants arrived in Israel in the year 2024, representing a drop of about 15,000 since the year 2023. The CBS also reported that about 181,000 babies were born in the year 2024, with about 76 percent born to Jewish and “other” mothers and about 24 percent born to Arab mothers.
The report about the number of Israelis leaving the country attracted a good deal of media attention and sparked debate as to whether similar numbers of citizens had left the country in earlier years. I will reveal a secret that is fairly well-known in Israel but isn’t often discussed: Most of the people who leave the country are immigrants, many of whom are not even Jewish but managed to procure the right to immigrate to Israel because of a Jewish or even half-Jewish grandfather. These people come to Israel, collect the full range of immigration benefits, and then move on to somewhere in Europe. This isn’t a subject that is frequently discussed, since it isn’t pleasant for anyone to tell the truth about the immigration from Russia or Ukraine, but this is the reality. As for the spike in the number of people leaving the country, experts have pointed to several factors contributing to the phenomenon: the security situation, the rising cost of living, and the sense that “something has changed” in Israel.
Rising Prices
The rising cost of living in Israel is an issue that cannot be ignored. Prices are rising for everything, even the most basic food items. The price hikes might not represent large sums when taken individually, but they add up collectively to a huge burden on many families, especially those in the weaker sectors of society. Exactly two weeks ago, I wrote in this column about the various chessed organizations that are bearing the burden of aiding the weaker sectors of society today. I also mentioned that there are many kollel yungeleit in Israel who have chosen to live a frugal lifestyle for the sake of pursuing their ideals, and that they are very content with their way of life.
In the interim, I came across a long newspaper article under the title, “It’s Expensive to Grow Up Here.” The article described some of the expenses that are crushing the average Israeli family due to the wave of price increases, but I was somewhat amused, since many of those expenses are not even in the frame of reference of the average chareidi family. For instance, one of the families told the writer that they were suffering under the weight of the cost of thousands of shekels for recreation every year. Over the past year, the writer explained, the cost of a hotel stay in Israel has risen so dramatically that many families choose to vacation abroad instead. One cannot help but feel bad for their suffering…. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the old joke about the young girl who wrote in an essay in school, “We are poor. Our maid is also poor. My father’s chauffeur is also poor. And our gardener is also poor.” What a stirring description of a poor family!
The article was accompanied by a chart listing the average annual expenses of a typical Israeli family. Some of the items on that list were simply astounding. Here is a partial rundown: high school parties—1000 to 3000 shekels annually; travel in Israel and abroad—10,000 to 20,000 shekels a year; furnishings per room—15,000 to 20,000 shekels a year; and toys, games, and bicycles—8000 to 10,000 shekels a year. These things, bemoaned by secular Israelis as part of the rising cost of living, are irrelevant to chareidim. Others live in luxury and suffer, while many chareidi families live in contentment with their frugal budgets and simple diets.
The New Chief Rabbis Get Right to Work
There is something exhilarating about the activism of the newly elected chief rabbis—Rav Dovid Yosef, the Rishon Letzion and Sephardic chief rabbi, and Rav Kalman Ber, his Ashkenazic counterpart who served as the chief rabbi of Netanya until his election. The two rabbis recently put out a call for the public to daven for rain, which was followed shortly thereafter by a similar call from the Badatz of the Eidah Chareidis. Last week, the chief rabbis penned a letter to the president of the state appealing to him to grant clemency to Ari Rosenfeld, the second defendant in the leaked documents case that is roiling the nation. “Based on our meetings with a large section of the public,” the two rabbonim wrote, “we feel that this issue is causing a deep and serious rift between different communities in the state…. The verdict that was reached regarding him is dividing the nation. This obligates us, having taken it upon ourselves to be a unifying force and to promote peace and brotherhood, to appeal to you.”
The Israeli public is confused and confounded, and even outraged, by the judiciary’s obsessive persecution of Eli Feldstein and Ari Rosenfeld. The people have a keen sense of truth and falsehood, and the chief rabbis, with their eloquently phrased letter to the president, have given expression to the feelings of the people of Israel. They should be applauded for that.
Road Fatalities in Yerushalayim
This week, I came across some shocking statistics about the phenomenon of road accidents in Yerushalayim and the number of fatalities due to these accidents. Twenty people were killed in traffic accidents in Yerushalayim since the beginning of the year 2024, marking a 43 percent increase over the year 2023. There were 19 fatal road accidents in Yerushalayim in the year 2024, which is a 73 percent increase over the previous year. And just to illustrate the dramatic rise in fatalities, let me reveal that the year 2014 saw only six fatalities in traffic accidents in the city, as opposed to the twenty deaths that occurred ten years later.
These statistics were published by the National Road Safety Authority, although I find it strange to write in terms of percentages when we are counting human lives. Every person killed in a car accident is a neshomah that was capable of continuing to live and accomplish in this world. While it’s true that no one can suffer any harm unless it is decreed in Shomayim, we are also required to make proper hishtadlus, and some of the accidents were clearly caused by deplorable negligence—such as drivers dialing on their cell phones while on the road.
Taking a closer look at the numbers, we will find that there were six fatalities in Yerushalayim in the year 2014, then twelve in the following year, and then ten in the year after that, which is evidence that it is possible for the numbers to fall. Nevertheless, the figures rose again: There were eleven fatalities in 2017 and the same number in 2018, followed by 19 in the year 2019. The number dropped in 2020, possibly because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the year 2024, as I mentioned, brought us the horrific number of 20 road fatalities.
Incidentally, there are two roads in Yerushalayim that are known to be particularly dangerous: Golda Meir Boulevard and the road in Talpiot. The perils of Golda Meir Boulevard have been brought to the attention of the Knesset many times by members of the Shas party over the past twenty years, and the government has made many promises to rectify the situation. The latest report will also be brought before the Knesset, this time by MK Avrohom Betzalel, who lives in Yerushalayim.
The Fight Against Terror
I am approaching the end of my column but let me briefly touch on some important stories. For one thing, the Houthis in Yemen are continuing to fire occasional missiles at Israel. There may not be many missiles, but even one such projectile is enough to cause chaos, setting off sirens all over the country that force millions of people to race to shelter. This led to a miracle in Yerushalayim: One night, a family was awakened by an air raid siren and discovered that their house was filled with smoke. If the siren hadn’t sounded and woken them, the results could have been tragic. That interception, incidentally, caused missile fragments to fall in the neighborhood of Gilo in Yerushalayim.
There was also a recent attempt by a terrorist to murder a soldier, which ended with the death of the terrorist. Many missile launches were also detected from Gaza; this might be the reason that the IDF demolished a neighborhood in Gaza, known as the “officers’ neighborhood,” which posed a major threat to the communities in the Gaza envelope.
Speaking of the Gaza envelope, the missiles launched from Gaza have set off sirens in those communities as well as in Sderot. These are sensitive areas whose residents haven’t yet recovered from the trauma of October 7—and it is not clear if they will ever fully recover. A siren was heard in Kibbutz Beeri, where many homes were torched on that black day, and the residents who returned to the kibbutz trembled at the sound.
Another recent event that bears mentioning is the Israeli raid in the heart of Syria, in which an elite army unit demolished an Iranian nuclear facility in Syria and collected some extremely valuable materials that yielded significant information.
Meanwhile, there is no end in sight to the feud between the minister of justice and the man who expects to become the next chief justice of the Supreme Court. Justice Minister Yariv Levin is doing everything in his power to block or at least delay the appointment of Justice Yitzchok Amit, who is supposed to take over as chief justice due to his seniority. And in other news pertaining to the court, the justices stuck down a law passed by the Knesset that granted certain powers to National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. The judges claimed that some clauses of the law would politicize the police force. These judges are certainly brazen….
And speaking of Ben-Gvir, I should mention that the people who are close to him are still being investigated vigorously. I wrote an article about this subject not long ago.
Let me also mention a couple of important statistics. At the end of the civil year, the Shin Bet reported that they had foiled 1040 “significant” terror attacks during the year, which is a staggering number. They also reported that their activities have led to a 40 percent drop in terror attacks in Yehuda and Shomron. In general, when the Shin Bet manages to foil a terror attack, it is because of information they receive from Arab collaborators.
When Rav Ovadiah Quoted Likutei Maharan
I recently quoted Chazal’s injunction for a sick person to seek out a chochom to daven for him (which the Shevet Halevi maintains is obligatory) and I noted that some clarity is required as to the precise definitions of an ill person and a chochom.
Rav Yaakov Sinai, a grandson of Rav Ovadiah Yosef, told me this week that according to the Nimukei Yosef, it was customary in France to present such a request to a rosh yeshiva, while Rav Ovadiah writes, “In our times, we do not go to a rosh yeshiva but rather to a chochom who paskens on halachos. His psak in the bais din on earth will be mirrored by the psak in the Bais Din shel maalah.” Uncharacteristically, Rav Ovadiah quotes the Likutei Maharan, which states that it is customary today to seek the tefillos of a rov who paskens on halacha, and that “a miracle will take place through him.”
Rav Ovadiah’s interest in seforim outside the usual realm of Sephardic Torah literature was not limited to Likutei Maharan. Rav Yaakov Sinai once told his grandfather that he was learning Tanya. Rav Ovadiah replied, “I also used to read it when I was young.”
Let me add one more thought. At the Chefetz-Stern wedding that I mentioned in the past, I met a distinguished man at the chuppah to whom I told an interesting story: I had been at a wedding in Tel Aviv, and I noticed Rav Yitzchok Ezrachi leaning against a wall and hurried to bring him a chair. However, he refused to sit down. After the chuppah, he whispered to me, “Don’t you know that we are not allowed to sit during the sheva brachos? It is an explicit halacha.” He quoted the source and added, “Look in the Beer Heiteiv there.”
This week, a wonderful bochur who is close to Rav Ezrachi, Reb Shalom Tam, showed me the Beer Heiteiv, which appears in Even Ha’ezer siman 62 and states that attendees at a chuppah are required to stand during the sheva brachos. The Beer Heiteiv quotes the Knesses Hagedolah and adds that the same statement appears in Tikkunei Zohar.
