We must admit honestly, if Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef were a leftist calling for service refusal, he would not receive the 'celebrity discount' from the right like the spiritual leader of the Shas movement does.
Rabbi Yosef's latest statement, that even ultra-Orthodox idlers are forbidden from enlisting, joins his numerous reckless calls to prohibit conscription, even as we are a year and a quarter into the war. It seems that this time the limit has been crossed.
But in the coalition, for reasons that are probably not substantive, there is silence. After all, if it had been a leftist, just an hour after his statement that even those who do not study in a yeshiva should not enlist in the army, the right would have demanded that the Attorney General investigate him for incitement to refusal – one doesn't need to look far, just see the right's reactions yesterday to the statement of former State Attorney Moshe Lador.
But more than that, every statement by an extreme leftist is always accompanied by an automatic demand to ban their entry into educational institutions and IDF bases. Right-wing organizations have compiled a list of refusers and government protestors who lecture in the IDF, demanding to ban their entry.
Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef should not be different in this approach. In the military synagogues, there are booklets of "Daily Halacha," which in their title state that they are arranged according to "Rulings of Maran, the First Generation Posek of Our Time, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, may he live long." They are not published by the military rabbinate, but they are found in the synagogues—meaning within the army, a person who openly calls not to enlist in the army is being taught. An absurdity that cries out to the heavens.
When the halachic writings of Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef are given prominence and taught before or after prayer, it is impossible to perform 'plag hamincha' and nullify his calls for the complete exemption of the Haredi sector. On the other hand, if someone does not want them to enlist in the army, there is no reason to teach its contents within military bases.
The teachings of Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef may be suitable for the sector he comes from, but not beyond it. Torah students who enlist in the IDF need to learn Torah from rabbis who do not rule that they are transgressing a prohibition by enlisting. Rabbis who can indeed be followed in all matters related to the integration of Torah and military service. Certainly, one cannot learn Torah from a rabbi who says that even those who are idle are forbidden from enlisting in the army.
Rabbi Bar Bar Chana said in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, "What is meant by the verse 'For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek the Torah from his mouth, for he is a messenger of the Lord of Hosts'? If the teacher is like a messenger of the Lord of Hosts, then people should seek the Torah from his mouth. But if not, they should not seek the Torah from his mouth" (15b).
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