Following the publication of my book about Rabbi Ovadia Yosef and Chief Justice Aharon Barak six years ago, I was invited to a meeting with the rabbi. The meeting took place in his home, and lasted some 25 minutes (an exceptional amount of time, considering the rabbi's tight schedule). Rabbi Yosef was interested in hearing about the book's academic analysis of his courageous rulings regarding religious law, and showed great interest in my comparison of him to other ultra-Orthodox adjudicators from the second half of the twentieth century. I told the rabbi that the movement back to religion and Jewish heritage, which he led, is the most interesting social-religious phenomenon since the founding of Hassidism by the Ba'al Shem Tov in the eighteenth century. Needless to say, I told him, the number of people returning to religion among Sephardic Jews is numerically much greater than Hassidism, with all its branches. I also told him that a great battle is raging in Israel between those who see Israel as a state of all its citizens, and those who see it as a Jewish state. The conflict will eventually be decided, I added, according to the rate of success of Rabbi Yosef's spiritual-religious movement. Toward the end of the meeting, I commented to the rabbi that a group of corrupt people had managed to hijack his movement, and that they have the ability to destroy its momentum, values, principles and, mainly, its integrity and purity. The rabbi didn't respond, but he didn't seem surprised. Upon leaving Rabbi Ovadia's room, one of the his people, who had been listening to our conversation, asked me: "Do you think the rabbi doesn't know-!" I left the meeting feeling depressed. Indeed, the rabbi knew then that his work was drowning in an ocean. Central figures in the movement were being investigated, charged with crimes, put on trial and sent to jail. A terrible plague of corruption had cloaked itself in a robe of piety. The very same heads of the movement who were supposed to serve the emerging revolution had become convinced that the revolution was supposed to serve them, and thus sank it into a deep pit. Today, years later, those who brought down Yosef's beloved movement seek to return to leadership positions, based on the mistaken assumption that the public does not remember. In their eyes, it is as if a giant eraser exists that inevitably purifies all of the crime and corruption in Israel's short history; as if the world of Torah forgives every criminal just because, for several years now, he has been a free man. Serving time in prison does not make a criminal into a righteous man. Jail time is an opportunity to pay one's debt to society, there is nothing in it that rectifies flaws such as immorality, corruption, blasphemy or a tendency to damage the fundamental values of Judaism. Corruption and Judaism are incompatible. All of the prophets insisted that belief in God is not just an abstract concept, but at its core requires upholding the commandments, the most basic of which is the commandment to do what is right and good. This is the essence of the entire religion. It is reasonable to assume that Rabbi Yosef is well aware that Israeli society has undergone a fundamental change. Chiefs of staff, police chiefs and elected officials are held to higher ethical standards these days. Israeli society will not accept as leaders criminals who want a second chance on the backs of a country bent over by the force of their corruption. The distance between a lie and an opinion poll are the letters shin and samech, or Shas. Let's hope that Shas voters don't get confused this time around.
Shas, Ovadia and Deri's damage
מערכת ישראל היום
מערכת "ישראל היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
