General Golan: “Enough Learning Torah!”
This week, the State of Israel has witnessed unprecedented incitement against Torah learners. The attack began last week, when MK Boaz Bismut’s outline for the draft law first came to light, and the secular media began its attack against “the chareidim.” In the course of that onslaught of criticism, Yair Golan, the leader of the Democrats party and a major general in the army reserves, made an appalling statement. The interviewer—Ben Caspit, who is likewise not a friend of the chareidim—asked Golan why he opposed granting draft deferrals to bochurim or yungeleit who spend their days learning Torah. Golan replied, “I think that after almost 78 years of independence, we can say that there is no longer a need for that.”
But the distraction was not long in coming. On Sunday morning, a bombshell was dropped in Israel, as the media reported the shocking news that Prime Minister Netanyahu had decided to formally request a pardon from President Herzog. This was billed as a political earthquake, and for good reason. Until now, Netanyahu has repeatedly asserted that he would not ask for a pardon under any circumstances. He has always believed that he will be exonerated of all the criminal charges against him, and he has declared that he is waiting for that moment to come (although it could easily take several years for the trial to wrap up). But now he has suddenly filed a formal request for a pardon. This seems to have shoved the issue of the draft for yeshiva bochurim out of the public focus, even though the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee is scheduled to have multiple discussions on the subject every week, beginning immediately.
Actually, I should qualify that statement. The rest of the country may be distracted from the draft law for the time being, but the chareidi community is still focused on the topic. Will the chareidi politicians be able to actively support the bill? And if they do not vote in favor of it, will it have a majority? We already know that several members of the Likud party have announced that they will vote against the bill, which seems to make its fate uncertain. At the same time, some of the Knesset members who originally opposed the bill have reversed their positions, growing fearful of antagonizing the chareidi parties. For the time being, the chareidim are not certain how to relate to the new bill. There is no question that this is a very difficult crossroads for the religious community, perhaps one of the most difficult quandaries it has faced since the establishment of the state and the institution of the “Toraso umnaso” status as a basis for a draft exemption during the times of Ben-Gurion.
The public reaction of the chareidi world has been outright opposition to the bill. The chareidi media is fiercely denouncing Bismut’s formula, which has appeared in all the headlines. But that is because the chareidim have no choice but to oppose it. If they accept the bill, the chilonim will cite their support for it as evidence that it is a sham and will never actually lead to greater enlistment. Therefore, even if the chareidim wish to pass the bill so that the police will stop arresting yeshiva bochurim and so that government funding for yeshivos will be reinstated, they have no choice but to declare their opposition to the bill to prevent anyone else from using their support against them. But this isn’t merely a strategic move; the chareidi parties must oppose the bill on principle as well, as they cannot possibly support the sanctions and quotas that it includes.
Thousands of Secular Israelis Evade the Draft
Last week, the members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee received drafts of the Bismut outline of the draft law (not to be confused with the Edelstein outline, which I discussed in my article last week) for their review. No one was particularly surprised by this development, since Netanyahu had already given Bismut the green light to move forward with the legislation after he received approval from the representatives of Degel HaTorah and Shas, who had, in turn, received their own green light from the rabbonim guiding the parties. Once we knew that Bismut had received the go-ahead, the next step would be handing out copies of the bill for the committee members to review. The committee has begun discussing the text of the law. As soon as the copies had been distributed, Boaz Bismut, the chairman of the committee, announced, “We are getting underway with a balanced, responsible draft law that is good for the nation of Israel. The purpose of this law isn’t to stabilize the coalition; its purpose is to stabilize the state.”
Amazingly, even before the ink had dried on the latest version of the bill, many people suddenly knew exactly what was written, down to the finest details, and fierce objections began pouring in. Yuli Edelstein declared, “This is not a real draft law…. We will not give in. We will fight to the end for a real law.” Let me just remind you (and someone should remind Edelstein himself as well) that he is not only a member of the Likud party but a man who wears a yarmulke. Former prime minister Naftoli Bennett, who would very much like to become the prime minister again and believes that bashing the chareidim will help him collect votes, weighed in as well, declaring it “a law of draft evasion … the most anti-Zionistic law in the history of this state.” To fan the flames of hatred even more, Bennett added, “This is the government declaring war on every reservist, on all the soldiers of the IDF, and on the entire serving public.” Despite his vehement assertions, I can guarantee that Bennett did not even read the text of the law.
Yair Lapid put in his own two cents as well, denouncing the bill as “an anti-Zionist disgrace … petty politics of corruption and draft dodgers at our children’s expense.” Lapid insisted that “this will not happen; the bill won’t pass.” In his case, as well, I can tell you with certainty that he did not read the law. The proof is simple: The bill may be only 48 pages long, but it takes at least half an hour to read that quantity of text, and it would take an hour or two to read it carefully. Yet Lapid and Bennett released their statements within a matter of minutes, perhaps having prepared their reactions in advance.
Unfortunately, additional harsh reactions came from people who haven’t been among the enemies of the chareidi public in the past. Perhaps it is the scent of elections in the air that is driving them to take these positions in a bid to woo secular voters. Gadi Eizenkot, the former partner of Benny Gantz who resigned from his party and from the Knesset to launch his own political party, announced, “Bismut’s draft dodging law is a national disgrace…. The law’s intent is to distance the chareidim from military service and to discriminate between one person’s blood and another’s. This government has lost its connection with the people of Israel and the legitimacy of its voters. A government that adopts this law is not worthy of our soldiers and our fallen.”
On the other hand, some public voices spoke up in the chareidim’s favor. For instance, an attorney named Yoram Sheftel (who served as the defense attorney for the notorious Ivan Demjanjuk) pointed out a blatant double standard: “Over the past fifteen years, about 100,000 secular leftists have avoided military service as conscientious objectors opposed to occupation. That is more than the entire number of chareidim who could have served in the army since the state was founded.”
Propaganda in the News
One aspect of this situation remains bewildering: If the enemies of the chareidim such as Lapid, Bennett, and Lieberman are attacking the draft law with such vehemence, then it is probably a good thing. On the other hand, if the chareidi politicians are so hesitant to accept it, that seems to indicate that it is not good for the community. (Indeed, the gedolei Yisroel refused to promise Netanyahu that the chareidi parties will vote for the bill.) So what is the truth? Is it good or bad? The basic answer seems to be that the reality is somewhere in the middle: There are elements of the bill that are good for the chareidim, and there are other elements that are not favorable. Besides, the religious community’s enemies will always oppose any draft bill simply because they despise chareidim. By the same token, the chareidim have no choice but to oppose any draft bill, because they cannot support any law that would require even a single young man to put on an army uniform, even if that young man isn’t learning in a yeshiva.
Amazingly, the chareidi extremists who have taken to the streets to protest the bill are actually fueling its advancement. The average member of the Knesset who is uncertain how to vote, who is not driven by hatred of the Torah but sincerely believes in “equality” in military service, is likely to be swayed to support the bill upon witnessing these protests in the chareidi street. The typical MK will reason to himself, “Well, if this law is so bad for the chareidim, then perhaps it is good for the chilonim.” But that is a parenthetical point. What bothers me even more is the way the media has added its collective voice to the anti-chareidi chorus. The media’s job is to report the news, not to promulgate opinions, and certainly not to slyly inject their biases into the news. A news report should be impartial and should not use underhanded tactics to shape the audience’s opinions. But that is exactly what the secular media has been doing. For instance, the front page of Yediot Acharonot this past Thursday was dominated by a single phrase in large print: “The Exemption Blitz.” All other news, including stories that deserved to be front-page material, had been shoved aside so that the newspaper could trumpet its report of an “exemption blitz”—in other words, the whirlwind process of passing a law to formalize the chareidi draft deferment. But this is a classic example of manipulation. For one thing, the very phrase itself is deliberately misleading. Yeshiva bochurim receive temporary deferrals from the draft that must be renewed repeatedly; they do not receive exemptions. And the subheading beneath this headline was no less provocative: “Netanyahu and Bismut have decided to fast-track the passage of a law to perpetuate chareidi draft dodging at any cost.” Now, this is certainly a skewed description of the situation. The law is being passed rapidly because the Supreme Court is breathing down the government’s proverbial neck, demanding a new draft law to replace the one that the judges struck down. And it is absolutely untrue that the law would “perpetuate chareidi draft dodging”; once the law is passed, the deferrals will be completely legal.
The body of the article likewise injects the editors’ opinions into what should be an objective news report, such as in this line: “The Knesset members and the broader public will be exposed for the first time to the latest version of a bill that will allow chareidim to continue evading the draft after two years of warfare.” Notice how the writers take particular care to constantly describe the chareidim as “evading” the draft rather than acknowledging that they are receiving legal deferrals. Moreover, they made sure to mention that this is occurring after a long period of warfare. What does the war have to do with anything? It isn’t actually relevant to the subject of the article, but it helps stoke the audience’s emotions and drum up hatred for the law and, by extension, for the chareidi community.
Nevertheless, as I mentioned, the draft crisis has now taken a back seat to the latest explosive developments in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s legal saga—namely, the prime minister’s request for a pardon from President Herzog. And it is probably a good thing that the public will be distracted.
Another Revelation of Attorney General’s Misconduct
Let us now move on to some other news. I would have liked to write about the milk reform and Moshe Gafni’s attack on Finance Minister Smotrich on the subject, and I would also have liked to write about the rabbonim’s warning to the public to avoid traveling between cities late on Friday afternoons. (Candle lighting in Yerushalayim on Friday these days is around 4:00.) I would also have liked to write about the burial of Dror Ohr, a hostage whose body was returned by Hamas, and about police officer Ran Gvili, the only Jewish hostage whose body is still being held by the terror group. There is also plenty to write about the IDF’s involvement in Syria and about the soldiers who killed terrorists in Jenin and are being accused of opening fire even though their victims had already surrendered (an echo of the Elor Azariah story, which you may remember from several years ago). But there isn’t enough space on these pages for a full treatment of all these issues. Instead, we will turn our attention to the ongoing revelations of corruption at the highest levels of the judiciary.
I have already written at length in the past about the scandal concerning the military advocate general, but the story is far from over. Every few days, more information comes to light that reveals even greater corruption in this story than we already knew about. Remember, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara categorically rejected the arguments that she has a conflict of interest in this case, even though she was the one who presented the MAG’s web of lies to the Supreme Court. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the military advocate general, claimed that she had investigated the leaked video from Sde Teiman and was unable to uncover the source of the leak, and Baharav-Miara defended her before the Supreme Court; however, it has since been revealed that Tomer-Yerushalmi herself was the source of the leak. Not only did Tomer-Yerushalmi violate the law by leaking the video to the foreign media, causing incalculable damage to Israel’s foreign relations, she also lied about it after the fact and told the judges that she had conducted a thorough investigation to identify the culprit—and the attorney general defended her in court. Since Baharav-Miara is suspected of knowingly abetting the cover-up, it seemed obvious that she could not be the one to lead the investigation—obvious, that is, to everyone else but her. The attorney general refused to accept the demands for her to withdraw from the case, but the Supreme Court ultimately accepted the argument and upheld the justice minister’s decision to place the investigation in the hands of an external official.
This is merely the background to the events of this week, when something even more explosive came to light. During the first few days after the scandal broke, when the attorney general was still involved in the case, she worked hard to have the investigation placed in the hands of a sympathetic official in the police force. A reporter named Avishai Grinzaig exposed these machinations: On Thursday, October 16, the IDF chief of staff contacted Deputy Commissioner Meni Binyamin, the head of the Lahav 433 investigative unit, and scheduled an urgent meeting with him for the following Sunday. The purpose of that meeting was to discuss the investigation into the MAG. The Lahav director updated Deputy Commissioner Boaz Ballat, the head of the Investigations Division of the police force, about his scheduled meeting with the chief of staff, and Ballat ordered him to bring another police official, Deputy Commissioner Momi Meshullam, to the meeting with him and to assign him to lead the investigation. Meni Binyamin refused, and Ballat notified Baharav-Miara, who then contacted the office of the chief of staff and ordered them to cancel the scheduled meeting with Binyamin. “I am handling this case,” she told them. “Do not interfere.” Meni Binyamin was on his way to the meeting with the chief of staff when he was notified that it had been called off. He wasn’t aware of the reason at the time, but it is now very clear to us: The attorney general did not want him to be the one to lead the investigation.
Perhaps it is superfluous for me to point out that Meni Binyamin is a close associate of Minister Ben-Gvir. And Momi Meshullam was involved in the investigation of Prime Minister Netanyahu.
In the interim, the Department of Internal Police Investigations suddenly opened an investigation into Meni Binyamin on suspicion of certain ethical breaches. In retrospect, everyone can now connect the dots and recognize that this is a politically motivated investigation with the sole objective of removing him from the pool of possible investigators. It is not surprising, then, that this has been labeled the work of a mafia-like crime organization. The attorney general’s actions befitted a criminal, as she sought to maneuver behind the scenes to prevent a real investigation of herself or her cronies. Moreover, last Sunday, Meni Binyamin was scheduled to return to work after being completely exonerated of all suspicion, but then he was summoned back for additional questioning at the DIPI on Sunday morning. Apparently, the people who are afraid of the investigation into the Sde Teiman affair are desperate to prevent Meni Binyamin from leading it.
Israeli Arabs Participate in Terror
This week, the media reported that an 18-year-old Arab youth in Israel was arrested and indicted on charges of planning a terror attack inspired by ISIS. This is a very significant report; as I have mentioned in the past, when an Arab citizen of Israel participates in terrorism, it is much more serious and dangerous than terrorism that emerges from the West Bank. Israeli Arabs are ubiquitous; they live in Yerushalayim, in Lod, in Yaffo, in Haifa, and in many other places. After the arrest, the Shin Bet released a public statement announcing that they take a very severe view of the involvement of any Israeli citizens in activities that endanger the security of the state.
This week, the Shin Bet’s public relations office released another statement revealing that Arab citizens of Israel had been caught participating in terror activities: “The Shin Bet has uncovered a network of residents of Kfar Kassem and Rahat for the transfer of weapons and money to the area of Yehuda and Shomron, which operates on behalf of Hamas under the direction of an Israeli citizen living in Turkey.” The leader of this gang is an Arab originally from Israel, who operated on behalf of the Hamas terror organization from his current residence in Turkey. The weapons, of course, were intended to be used for terror attacks within Israel.
The fact that Arab citizens of Israel are committing terror attacks is relevant to everyone in this country, not only because of the danger posed by an actual terror attack but also because of the impact on the nationwide pool of bus drivers. The terror attack in Ramot focused a good deal of attention on the many non-Jewish bus drivers in Israel. Can anyone be certain that the drivers who operate our buses do not include some individuals with extremist views? In case you have any doubt of that, this story should make it absolutely clear: It was recently reported that a driver from the Superbus company was ordered by the court to compensate a chareidi passenger who was imprisoned on his bus and forced to declare, “I love Palestinians.” The passenger was a 15-year-old yeshiva bochur who was left alone with the driver at the end of his route; the driver stopped the bus, refused to open the doors, and tormented the passenger. Sadly, the driver, who is a resident of East Yerushalayim, was originally given an extremely light sentence—community service and a fine of 1000 shekels. The legal organization Honenu then stepped into the picture and filed a civil suit. This time, the judge was more levelheaded and decided to fine the driver 32,000 shekels.
Military Officers Blinded to a Threat
Last week, I wrote about a number of officials in the army who were rebuked for their failures at the time of the October 7 massacre. It has become clear that the events leading up to the massacre were a failure on a massive scale on the part of the IDF. The investigative committee has released reports about officers who arrived for their meetings with the chief of staff and simply burst into tears. But the strangest thing about this story is that most of the officers who were penalized have already left the army over the past two years, and the penalty is that they will not be called up for reserve service. That is simply ridiculous; at their age, they would not be called for the reserves in any event. The chief of staff, however, did not even dare to impose more severe consequences, such as stripping the officers of their pensions. (IDF and police officers tend to receive huge pensions from the government.) There is a general sense that the entire process has been a cover-up. Given the tensions between Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir and Defense Minister Yisroel Katz, this issue has the potential to create even further discord.
The media has reported on the rebukes received by a number of former generals: Shlomi Binder, Yochanan Finkelman, Oded Basyuk, Aharon Chaliva, Tomer Bar, and David Salama. The targeted criticism has reached lower-level officials as well, including the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, the commander of Unit 8200, and the commander of the Gaza Division. All of these officers failed on that Simchas Torah; they were blinded to the danger by their hubris and complacency, which paved the way for a mass slaughter that left lasting scars on the entire nation.
Perhaps the school for army officers should be required to teach the tochachah in Sefer Devarim, which warns of the prospect that Hashem will deliver the Jewish people into their enemies’ hands, as well as the Torah’s warning in Parshas Vayikra that the Land of Israel will spit out the Jewish nation if they defile it with immorality. Just as one can see the Divine Hand at work in creation itself, and in such “natural phenomena” as the structure of an apple or the beating of a heart, one can also detect Hashem’s Hand at work in the army’s oversights. The officers of the IDF and the leaders of the state are uniquely positioned to recognize that there is a fine line between victory and defeat, and that line is easily crossed when Heavenly judgment is in force and we are deprived of siyata d’shmaya. Anyone who learns Torah can appreciate this, but the decision makers in the government are often blinded to this reality.
Another School Takes a Stand Against Tefillin
I don’t want to speak ill of Israel, but we must be concerned about the repercussions when the things that are sacred to the Jewish people are treated with scorn and are disgraced. The current atmosphere in the State of Israel seems to give a veneer of legitimacy to enemies of Judaism. Last week, I wrote about the terrible desecration of a shul in the community of Kadima-Tzoren, which the police have identified as a crime motivated purely by hatred. The damage wasn’t inflicted in the course of an attempt to steal money from the tzedakah boxes or even to make off with a sefer Torah. On the contrary, the vandals broke into the shul solely for the purpose of destroying the chumashim and siddurim and throwing the sifrei Torah on the floor in disgrace. A suspect was apprehended; we will have to wait and see how the case progresses.
Then there is the issue of tefillin in schools. I have written in the past about the secular high school principals who mounted stiff opposition to young men who took the initiative of opening tefillin stands in their schools. These students used their own money to finance tefillin stands either on the school grounds or adjacent to the premises, and the principals waged a fierce battle against their activities, perhaps forgetting that Israel is a Jewish state. This issue was raised in the Knesset and discussed in the Knesset Education Committee, and a law is currently in the works to protect the rights of students to wear tefillin in school, but another incident has occurred in the interim.
A tefillin stand has been operating for the past year at the Achad Ha’Am school in Petach Tikvah; the stand was first opened a year ago in memory of Idit Shirom, the mother of Naor Rachinian, a graduate of the school. After Naor graduated, the principal took advantage of his absence to remove the tefillin stand from the school library. The tefillin were brought to her office, and she instructed the staff to contact the young man and instruct him to retrieve them. Naor spoke to the media with undisguised anguish: “Why should they remove such a small stand, which was placed in a corner of the library, hidden from view, with the approval of the vice principal?” he demanded. He added, “We have done everything possible so that no one can say that we were causing provocations. Our goal was to keep my mother’s memory alive while making it possible for every student in the school to put on tefillin if they desired to do so, without preaching or rebuking them. This was meant to be a zechus for my mother, who passed away last year on erev Chanukah.” The orphaned boy added, “Dozens of students have used the tefillin; some put on the tefillin every day, while others wore them when they felt the need. But the school administration has decided to make a unilateral move to cut them off from the source of their Jewishness. Why are they doing this? Whom does it disturb? I didn’t position the tefillin at the entrance to the school, and I didn’t build a special structure that would attract everyone’s attention. It was merely a small box on a chair in a corner of the library. Why is it suddenly bothering someone? I am deeply pained by this, and I am especially pained by the fact that they refuse to meet with me and engage in dialogue on this subject.”
The Obstinate Principal
In fact, with all due respect to the prime minister’s request for a pardon and the hullabaloo surrounding it, I feel that the battle over tefillin in schools is a more important and momentous story, especially because it is such a painful issue. Rachinian, the orphaned youth who placed the tefillin stand in his school, didn’t manage to solicit an explanation from the principal, but one of his friends relayed to him a recording of a conversation between the principal and the students after she ordered the tefillin removed from the library. The conversation was published in Maariv, and I will quote the transcript here.
Student: “What is wrong with the tefillin stand?”
Principal: “Students are coming late to class.”
Student: “I am making sure that it is used only during recess and that no one will be late.”
Principal: “This is a secular school.”
Student: “But it’s a Jewish state.”
Principal: “I respect you and your beliefs, but you must respect the place where you are.”
Student: “Why does it bother you if the tefillin are kept in a place where no one will see them, such as the library?”
Principal: “I repeat that this is a secular school. The parents send their children to a secular school.”
Student: “What if I come to school with my own tefillin?”
Principal: “You can wear your tefillin yourself and then put them away in your schoolbag.”
Student: “What if every student brings his own tefillin to school?”
Principal: “Absolutely not. I will not allow students to begin walking around with tefillin in this school. If you want to daven, go to a different school.”
Naor Rachinian did not give in. Perhaps he is not intimidated by the administration now that he has graduated. He made three arguments: First, it is completely untrue that the parents are opposed to the tefillin stand. Second, the principal’s claim that students come late to classes because of the tefillin is unfounded. And finally, he added, the school administration should have approached him to discuss the matter rather than making a unilateral move. Rachinian insists that he would have come up with a solution.
When the Ministry of Education got involved, the principal tried to downplay the conflict. “Last year, we didn’t interfere with the tefillin stand,” she said. “Now that the student is no longer in the school, we asked him to come retrieve his tefillin. We’ll be happy to meet with him and resolve the matter.”
Naor scoffed at this response. “They’ll be happy to speak with me?” he repeated incredulously. “I have been begging them to speak with me, but they have repeatedly refused. And to say that they didn’t interfere with the tefillin for a full year is also disingenuous. The tefillin weren’t there last year; I brought them with me to school every morning. But now, five months after the beginning of the school year, it suddenly began bothering someone! The principal pretends that she isn’t opposed to it, but that can’t be true; she told another student on the recording that it is a secular school and there is no place there for tefillin.”
Rachinian’s arguments are indeed persuasive. The Ministry of Education responded, “This ministry will organize immediate, sensitive talks between Naor and the school administration, recognizing the importance of this topic and the natural right of every student to wear tefillin on school grounds… The ministry will oversee the process and guide it to a rapid solution.”
Like Father, Like Son
In a recent article on a discussion in the Knesset, I wrote about a speech delivered by Yair Lapid, in which he said “Our children will continue dying, while their children continue sitting in their air conditioned yeshivos,” he said acidly at one point in the speech. On that same day, Lapid published another revolting screed, titled, “A child has been born to you.” Lapid went on to tell his secular audience that a chareidi child had been born in Beit Shemesh who would be their responsibility; the secular public, he asserted, would have to provide funding for this hypothetical chareidi child throughout his life. “When Yesh Atid wins, we will tell them that the party is over,” he added.
Lapid seems to be vying with Lieberman to rake in the largest number of anti-religious votes. Unfortunately, there are many voters in the country motivated by hatred for religion. And Lapid is following in the footsteps of his father, Tommy Lapid, who won 15 mandates in the Knesset with his venomous anti-Semitic propaganda. Nevertheless, Yesh Atid is hovering in the vicinity of the electoral threshold today, since many of the immigrants from the former Soviet Union who despise Yiddishkeit tend to favor Yisroel Beiteinu, the political party that they consider closer to their hearts.
When we watch Yair Lapid in action, we will not be shocked by his vicious rhetoric if we remember his father. Tommy Lapid made statements that were no less appalling, and perhaps even more so. He used to mock everything that is sacred, and he had no problem displaying aggression and hurling personal insults in every direction in the Knesset. He once mocked Amir Peretz, “With your mustache, you look like Stalin.” Peretz ran out of the room in tears! Tommy Lapid’s political career came to an end when he clashed with his colleagues in the Shinui party and disappeared in disgrace, and it is very likely that his son’s career will follow the same trajectory.
The Lapid father-and-son duo reminds me of the famous story about the town informant. In one particular town, the story goes, the community leaders decided that no niftar could be buried until someone had delivered a hesped containing at least a few words of praise. When the town informant passed away, however, no one could find anything positive to say about him. The man’s wicked behavior had caused untold misery for the community, and no one had a single kind word to include in a hesped. His body lay in disgrace for nearly a full day, until one clever young man came up with a solution and announced that he had thought of a way to praise the deceased. The community members gathered for a funeral, the man stood up to deliver a hesped, and he announced, “Let us praise the deceased, for he was better than his son.” After receiving that dubious compliment, the niftar was ready to be buried.
Time passed, and eventually the informant’s son passed away as well. This time, it was even more difficult for anyone to come up with a positive word to say about him, given that he was indeed much more wicked than his father. The town was in a quandary, until someone came up with a new solution. Standing before the community to deliver a hesped, he announced, “Let us praise the niftar, for it was in his merit that his father was buried!”
Yitzchok and Elifaz
I will end this week’s column with another thought about a son who learned from his father, this time with a mussar haskel. We are all familiar with the midrash that states that Elifaz, the oldest son of Eisov, was instructed by his father to pursue Yaakov when he fled to Charan. When Elifaz caught up with Yaakov, he burst into tears. “How can I kill you when you have taught me Torah?” he exclaimed.
“Who should you kill me?” Yaakov asked.
“Because my father instructed me to do it,” Elifaz replied.
According to the midrash, Yaakov advised Elifaz to take all of his possessions, rendering him impoverished. Since a pauper is considered like a dead man, he would thereby fulfill his father’s directive.
My son pointed out that Elifaz’s thought process seems completely incongruous. Did he really believe that the mitzvah of kibud av takes precedence over the prohibition of murder? How could he have entertained the thought of murdering Yaakov merely to carry out his father’s will?
The answer, my son suggested, is that Elifaz was merely following the example he had witnessed at home. His father, Eisov, practiced the mitzvah of kibud av to the greatest degree, but he was a murderer as well. And Elifaz learned his priorities from Eisov!
But Eisov wasn’t Elifaz’s only “rebbi.” Rav Yankele Galinsky once told a story about a visit to the home of the Steipler Gaon. Rav Galinsky remarked to the Steipler during that visit, “Bochurim come to me and cry that they were expelled from their yeshivos because they weren’t learning, they were wasting their time, and perhaps they were engaging in frivolities or even misbehaving. But what is the point of sending them into the street? Would we throw them into the sea as well? The Chazon Ish once said that expelling a bochur from the yeshiva is like throwing a dangerously ill person out of a hospital. If these boys don’t cause harm to others, why should they be expelled?”
Indeed, Rav Shteinman used to remark cynically, “Why stop at throwing a bochur out of yeshiva? Throw him into the ocean instead, so he will drown altogether!”
The Steipler agreed with Rav Galinsky and added that a similar message emerges from Rashi’s comment about Yaakov’s encounter with Elifaz: “Elifaz the son of Eisov chased after him at his father’s behest to kill him, and he overtook him, but since Elifaz grew up on Yitzchok’s knee, he refrained from doing so. He asked, ‘What should I do about my father’s command?’ Yaakov said, ‘Take everything I have, and a poor man is akin to a dead man.’”
“You see,” the Steipler said, “Yitzchok Avinu had a depraved grandson who committed every aveirah imaginable, who was the ancestor of Amalek and performed all sorts of wicked deeds, but he grew up on Yitzchok’s lap. Yitzchok did not drive him away; he kept him close, and because of his actions, Yaakov Avinu survived.”
There is much to learn from this story.
