All of us have been shocked by the images of yeshivah boys and their rabbinic mentors disrupting traffic and causing mayhem in Israel. They were protesting the recent arrest of two young men who refused to register for the Israeli army — a prerequisite for any yeshivah student who wants an exemption from army duty.
While we instinctively know that these protests are wrong, the organizers justify them by claiming that it is their religious duty to resist the Israeli government, even as their actions have been condemned as a “Torah desecration” by ultra-Orthodoxy's most elevated authority, Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky of Bnei Brak.
Read Full Article »