While His Soldiers Fight And Die, Defense Minister Takes Time Off To Visit Chabad, Participate In Torah-Writing Ceremony

While the soldiers he commands are fighting and dying in Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe took some time off Thursday to appear at a Chabad function some are calling a publicity stunt in Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv.

Above: Moshe Ya'alon

While His Soldiers Fight And Die, Defense Minister Takes Time Off To Visit Chabad, Participate In Torah-Writing Ceremony
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

While the soldiers he commands are fighting and dying in Gaza, Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe took some time off Thursday to appear at a Chabad function some are calling a publicity stunt in Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv.

Ya’alon inscribed one letter in a new Torah scroll being written by Chabad in the merit of all IDF soldiers.

Chabad hasidim from longtime Chabad families generally do not serve in the IDF. Many Chabad baal teshuvas and children of baal teshuvas, however, do frequently serve in the IDF, giving Chabad what some say is an undeserved reputation for supporting IDF service.

Chabad also makes public shows out of providing frontline soldiers with visits, food packages and entertainment – although in practice, these events are actually rare and often serve a public relations purpose for Chabad ≠ along with providing it with an opportunity to try to convert soldiers to Chabad.

Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Aharonov, director of the Chabad Youth Organization in Israel, said in front of Ya’alon during the letter-writing ceremony held to gain Chabad publicity that Chabad was “assured” that “every soldier for whom a letter has been written in this special Torah will feel an added measure of security.” He also said writing a Torah scroll for the soldiers was a form of “spiritual security” for the soldiers.

“We are assured that every soldier for whom a letter has been written in this special Torah will feel an added measure of security. In our tradition, the letters of the Torah are especially potent with regards to safety and security, and we felt it incumbent upon us to deploy this spiritual means of security for our troops,” Aharonov said.

Aharonov also said that tefillin (phlacteries) will also put “fear” of the Jewish people into the “nations of the world” and emphasized the importance of encouraging Jewish men worldwide to wear them. He cited the Tefillin Campaign launched by the Chabad’s late rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, before the Six Day War in 1967, citing Deuteronomy 28:10: “The nations of the world will see that the name of God is called upon you, and they will fear you.”

Ya’alon obliged and donned a pair of tefillin (phylacteries) and briefly prayed before leaving.

Ya’alon is under fire by Israel’s High Court of Justice for granting blanket military draft exemptions to haredim, including Chabad hasidim, even though the High Court has already ruled that similar blanket exemptions of haredim are illegal.

Earlier this year, Ya’alon openly promised haredi leaders – who all vehemently oppose the draft of any haredim – that no haredi yeshiva student will ever be drafted against his will, and Prime Minister Netanyahu followed shortly afterward by openly making the same, apparently illegal, promise.

But neither Ya’alon or Netanyahu – who are both members of the right of center Likud Party and neither of whom are themselves Orthodox – have made similar offers to secular university students or Zionist Orthodox yeshiva students, who all must serve in the IDF, as do all other non-haredi Israelis. (Zionist Orthodox females can opt to do civilian national service rather than be drafted, but many are now choosing to serve in the military.)

Ya’alon is seen as Netanyahu’s rival for Likud leadership.

Likud’s only natural Knesset allies are haredi political parties and observers think it unlikely Likud will be able to hold power in the next election without them.

Only a tiny number of soldiers identified as haredi by the IDF – exponentially below the actual number who proportionately should be serving in Gaza – are actually serving there. But many of those so-called  "haredi" soldiers are not actually haredi. Instead, they are ex-haredim, baal teshuvas, and far right-wing Zionist-Orthodox (commonly known in Israel as harda"l).

Comments

[Sarek]

>>Aharonov also said that tefillin (phlacteries) will also put “fear” of the Jewish people into the “nations of the world”

Yes, we see Hamas and their pals in Europe quivering in their boots.

OK, I've had enough. Do these clowns really believe the b.s. they spout, or is it all a show they put on for their flock?
Or, stated another way, who lives on Saturn - the rabbis or their congregations?

[steinberg]

Shmarya basterd,
What the hell are u basing ur shit on?
Is david maroziv , the chabad soldier killed in action a baal teshuva??

[Yahoshua David]

He's attneding events?!?! This is unacceptable during time of war. Wow.. Just tasteless.

[malaach hamooovies]

I agree!
he must sit in the basement and just wait-wait for the war to end or go to the bathroom. But that's it!!!!

[Shmarya]

Steinberg –

Try reading what I wrote again. Do it slowly so you have a chance to understand it. It might help you to look up the meaning of the word "many."

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

Are their opportunities for shluchim in 'Aza?

[Adam Paul]

Shmarya --

I imagine that most readers of this blog agree with your central thesis that there are more than a few things that are not right, and even not properly Jewish, about Haredi/Hasidic society.

But for God's sake, can you not find ANYTHING good in the actions of any Haredi group? Here's the ONE Hasidic group that does SOMETHING for the sake of Israel and her soldiers. Putting on Tefillin and writing sifrei Torah for the sake of the soldiers may not, in your view, be as important as serving on the front lines in uniform, but unlike virtually all of their Haredi and Hasidic brethren, the Chabadniks are at least doing SOMETHING to acknowledge, respect, and support, the war effort. Though it might well not be enough, it is something...and in the face of all of the other black-hat hostility, their willingness to break from the 'mainstream' Haredi/Hasidic world, and make an effort, however small, to acknowledge the oneness of the Jewish people should be applauded, not derided.

[Adam Paul]

I would add that you castigated other rabbis for not making specific mention of the soldiers in their prayers. These Chabad guys, by contrast, are not only making mention of the soldiers, but doing specific mitzvot in their honor (writing a Torah scroll "earmarked" for them) interacting with them directly by bringing care packages, etc. Again, ideally, 18 year old Chabadniks would be strapping on machine guns and fighting alongside their brethren, just as devout Jews did in days of yore. But short of that, the fact that Chabad is willing to make a specific effort to acknowledge and assist in the war effort, even via a means that you don't think is effective, sets them apart from most other Haredim/Hasidim. You appear to just be too cynical, and too full of anger and hate, to acknowledge any bit of virtue in your ideological enemies. That's an indictment of your closed-mindedness, not theirs.

[Account Deleted]

Adam Paul,chabad is a cancer within the Jewish people!They are a racist,pagan,idolatrous proto-Christian sect which corrupts the minds and hearts of those who it gets in touch with.
One of my dreams is that they were one day kicked out from the Jewish people and put into cherem for good!

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Sarek | July 25, 2014 at 01:31 PM

we can laugh all we want, as silly as it gets, and chabad as fraudulent as can be. this prick is not the first to come up with the idea.
nevertheless, there is a verse in Deuteronomy 28:10 -parashat ki tavo- that says:
10 And all the peoples of the earth shall see that the name of the LORD is called upon thee; and they shall be afraid of thee.
there is a midrash on this verse:
what will the peoples of the earth see?
- they will see jews wearing tefillin, and they will be terrified.

[state of disgust]

Ya'alon should be spending his time meeting with Generals, meeting with and comforting the families of dead soldiers, visiting soldiers in Gaza, the West Bank and in the north, talking to counterparts in other countries, explain to the public why APC's were not properly equipped with defense mechanisms ... the list goes on. He shouldn't be meeting with Rabbis who can offer no useful military advise and whose only useful purpose is to bolster Ya'alon's political ambitions.

[Franklin Clinton]

"to appear at a Chabad function some are calling a publicity stunt in Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv."

Where did you see that the event took place in Kfar Chabad ?

It is probably took place in a room in the Kirya where the minister accepts visitors (probably between 11:30 and 12:00)

It is highly improbable that he left the Kirya for non essential event and I am sure Yediot and Haaretz will be all over it if it was.

[Jekyll Jacobson]

I just love how many of you are just sitting on your tushes and voicing your opinions over what a defense minister from a foreign country should be doing. While most of you are too filled with hate you don't realize that the man has the right to participate in short events if he so chooses. If he attend a baseball game and a Haredi would argue the same, you'd say, aw c'mon, cut the guy some slack; he needs a breather...
What may be bothering you subconsciously is the fact that he is substantiating that G-d does have a say in matters. That really doesn't sit right with your beliefs.

[William G.]

It seems to me, as an Orthodox Christian interested primarily in the preservation of religious liberty, to the extent that it exists, and safety of persecuted religious minorities in the middle East, most especially those in the region of Mosul, that the defense ministers action was commendable, equivalent to serving a moleben or paraklesis in honor of each solider in our own tradition, or serving a mass on their behalf within Roman Catholicism, Essentially, the writing of a Torah scroll is a sacrificial act of supplication, equivalent to animal sacrifices in earlier periods of Judaism; just as the Kings of Israel offered these sacrifices, the defense minister is performing the modern equivalent of that action, which one could argue is a part of his job. I would assume, for that matter, that similar acts of supplication are performed by Hamas militants on the other side, such as extra prostrations during their mandatory prayers. For my own part, I pray that Israeli. Kites stop bring hit by missiles, and that the rulers of Gaza stop creating situations where civilians are paying the price for their own belligerence.

The unrelated question of the dogmatic divergence between Chabad and other interpretations of Judaism would, if it were a more popular issue, raise another question of propriety, but as an outsider looking in, it seems to me most Jews are unaware or disinterested in Chabad's messianic theology. I do suspect at some point in the next 200 years Chabad will emerge as a distinct religion with its own radically different theology based on the idea of the late Rebbe being deified, related to Hasidic Judaism as Mormonism is to Protestantism, but that clearly hasn't happened yet.

[Michael-Meir]

Chabad does good things for IDF soldiers. For Judaism, not so much. Chabad treats the wearing of tefillin and the writing of Torah letters as techniques of protective magic.

[Enoch]

Mr. Shmarya, I think Mr. Adam Paul has a point.

If Chabad does nothing, so they are like all Haredim who doesn't want to give credits to our soldiers in the front.

If Chabad does something, so they are trying to corrupt and monopolize the government, as they does in the Russia.

I understand that you have a long and bitter affair with the Chabadniks. I had one with Catholics. You worked it better than me: you did a site able to denounce haredim's worst side, a hidden side who we wouldn't be able to see without your help. We really appreciated.

But sometimes, it sounds like you're generalizing. It's not like all Chabadnik are evil conspirators across the world. Some does really believe in their Rebbe and do true charity to the world. Not all Chabadnik does interpret Tanya in a racist way and they still remember Rabi Meir's words as non-Jews being like the High Priest.

Of course, there are evil in the world. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps they are trying to brainwash Ya'alon. Or perhaps not. Perhaps they did believe that a mitsva can bring peace to Israel and to the world and he does believe on that.

[Account Deleted]

Exactly,Michael-Meir!

[m]

time off to attend any function or any group , but time off to go to chabad is the worst thing anyone can do .
it's not morally acceptable .
moshe must be impeached from visiting a sect of crooks , deviants
and anti Zionist who refuse to be real israeli citizens and do not want to serve in the army .
chabad ppl are not real jews . they also are fake religious .

the torah writing is for business = to make money , nothing else , bc they don't observe torah laws . chabad do what's good for them , sticking to their
tania book , not the torah .

[Yosef]

Mr Ayalon had a chance to be with and perhaps even pray amongst people who stress Hashem's will, not secular mans plans or Allah, are supreme. Writing a letter in the Torah focuses holiness and salvation, even if not readily apparent. A moment reading the Rebbe's "Eyes Upon the Land" or parshas Masei gives powerful spiritual and strategic insights into the current situation.

(Hamas had planned to massacre 1000's on Rosh Hashana thru the invasion tunnels that IDF soldiers have been tasked with uncovering. Is a miracle they were found before a mini Holocaust happened. In every generation they tried to kill us.)

This war was made possible by the leftist (Pro-Peace/anti-settler) purge of Jews during the Disengagement of 2006, which was made possible by the withdrawal from Sinai in 1991. The cement and iron bars from the shuls and yeshivas destroyed by the Gaza Muslims after the Disengagement were used to build the invasion tunnels.

[Office of the Chief Rabbi]

at some point in the next 200 years Chabad will emerge as a distinct religion with its own radically different theology based on the idea of the late Rebbe being deified, related to Hasidic Judaism as Mormonism is to Protestantism,

Posted by: William G. | July 25, 2014 at 07:40 PM
----
For some years now I have tried to promulgate the notion that Chabad is to Judaism as Mormonism is to Christianity. I even submitted it to the College Board for the analogy section of the SATs, but I haven't heard back from them, mamzerim g'murim that they are.

[Maxim]

At this volatile time, let us stick together and each one of us should do the best he/she can to help our brethren to the best of our ability - according to our understanding. believing Jews believe that by adding Mitzvot it will help the Jewish people around the world.
bottom, line, let us all do what we can - in accordance with our understanding and belive

[Yosef ben Matitya]

Maxim,
Trouble with those minim is that they are not part of 'us'.
Of their 'mitzvas' it was said, 'chested leumim chatas'

[Account Deleted]

What does 'chested leumim chatas'mean,Yosef?

[Yosef ben Matitya]

AJS 6:06pm
It should read 'chesed leumim chatat'- the letter t was added by the auto edit feature - .
A verse interpreted in the Tanya to mean, that among the (other) nations of the world, acts of loving kindness, will be considered as sins instead.

[Account Deleted]

Many thanks,Yosef!

[boredyid]

Adam Paul, you raised a good issue, which I now ask as a question to Shmrya. "Putting on Tefillin and writing sifrei Torah for the sake of the soldiers may not, in your view, be as important as serving on the front lines in uniform," If serving in the front lines is so important for you, can you share with us your military experiences? I assume an outstanding secular guy like you at least served in the National Guard. Tell us, please.