1.
“Look what an amazing thing this is,” Shimon Breitkopf, the Jerusalem mayor’s political adviser, told me. “Look at the stormy applause Herzog receives here. In such a turbulent and polarized period, there is only one person in the leadership of the state who is the pinnacle of consensus! ”
We were both crammed under the big stage of the nation’s buildings. A minute earlier, I stood at the podium and invited the President to open the main event on the 40th anniversary of the death of the late Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. The president took the stage behind the scenes, not before getting off it, at the request of the security personnel, the production team, the photographers and even the musicians of the band ‘Flame’ (maybe the name of the orchestra scared the president’s security guards?).
“Our sages said that ‘there are no doers of souls for the righteous, their words are their memory,'” the president began with the words of the Jerusalemite, and continued: “It is the teachings of the righteous that stand in their memory. Our Rabbi, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, a blessed male Tzaddik, did not receive a lasting seed, but he did receive tens of thousands of male and female students who carry his teachings and remembrance. Generations that illuminate the Torah of the Land of Israel, the redeeming Torah, all over the Land of Israel. ”
2.
I like President Herzog. And it seems to me that it’s not just me. First of all, 87 MKs also like him and voted for him. I know that MKs do not decide to vote based on personal affection for a candidate, but since I know Herzog and his conduct closely, I think that in this particular case – yes, the sweeping support Herzog received is based on a lot of personal connections, affection and appreciation.
And besides, one does not have to be the political advisor of the mayor of Jerusalem to understand that the people are with him as well. And this is not an obvious thing, both because of the so turbulent political period, as mentioned, and also because of the president’s background: he headed the Labor Party and faced Netanyahu and the right, as the representative of the left bloc, along with Tzipi Livni. And he comes from the elite, a member of a true aristocratic family.
I personally consider this a great virtue, but in today’s racist discourse, being an Ashkenazi from a good home is a bad starting point for those who want to win the support of the masses. And here Herzog is somehow also forgiven for being an elite.
And the climax: Last week, MK Miri Regev called for Herzog to be appointed to the commission of inquiry into the Pegasus case. That is, even in the most charged story, which concerns the government coup carried out here by improper means, at a time when all institutions of the country will collapse, and there is no trust in either the police or the State Attorney’s Office or the judiciary – President Herzog is trusted.
And Herzog has another upside, and unfortunately it is very rare: Herzog is traditional. Traditional Ashkenazi. I do not know many more such examples – in fact I do not know at all – of a person from Herzog’s social and cultural environment who is so connected to tradition. Just a week ago he thrilled everyone with his mourning beard on a visit to Dubai. Excitement and in fact obliges in this act all who shave in a period of mourning, claiming that there is no choice, that it is unrepresentative, that it seems neglected.
Here, the number one representative figure adheres to Jewish mourning customs, even in front of the world, without apologizing. This is called Jewish pride. And I know where it came from: Herzog is deeply connected to the character of his great-grandfather, whose name he bears. Nor is it self-evident in an age of declining generations.
3.
And precisely because of all this introduction I think the continuation of the President’s speech at the event of the Rabbi Center should not be ignored. “My teachers and gentlemen, Jewish morality was also a candle at the feet of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, and in a way that should be a candle at the feet of us all, especially at this time,” Herzog said.
And I, not yet knowing where this speech was going to deteriorate, was already starting to feel uncomfortable in the back. The very use of the term “Jewish morality” does me no good. What’s wrong with Jewish morality you ask? Nothing bad. I am in favor of Jewish morality. really. This Jewish morality is great. But what to do, people who talk about “Jewish morality” usually do it to give morality to someone who in their eyes is less Jewish-moral than them. Certainly if at the end of the same sentence they use the words “especially at this time.” Here I know that this is no longer just my conditioning, a kind of associative aversion to the discourse. Here is already really going to come preaching morality to the audience.
And indeed Herzog did not disappoint. In other words, I was greatly disappointed: “Seventy-five years ago, after witnessing a shocking incident of Arab attacks by Jewish boys, the rabbi wrote and published the following lines, and I quote: ‘I was sorry and very ashamed at the sight of this eye. To commend you for the need for excessive and special educational attention to the abolition of such possibilities, both on the part of Judaism’s doctrine and morality and also on the part of the local and political value of the peace path and neighborly relations. ‘
“Rabbi Zvi Yehuda’s words are even more valid today,” said Herzog. “Only a few days ago we heard about a tragic case, in which eighty-year-old Amar Assad died in an incident that should be a warning sign for all of us. Jewish morality cannot contain or be indifferent to it. The present, poignant, precise words of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda are binding even today. “And he was a holy disciple” is a basic commandment asked us to deviate from it.
4.
In this passage there were loud and prolonged shouts of contempt from the stands that surpassed even the rhythmic shouts of contempt I heard within me. Yes, sometimes I hear voices. Do not worry, this is not a psychiatric syndrome. It happens to me when I want to shout “contempt” but can not do it because I am a polite person.
We’ll start from the end. From the second paragraph. I do not understand why the president joins Aliyah against the dedicated ultra-Orthodox Nahal soldiers. The most unifying man in Israeli society is in fact connected to the most divisive man in Israeli society, Yair Golan, who said, “The Eternal Judea Battalion must pass from the world. I am against sectoral battalions. ” True, Herzog did not express himself like him. More than that, I estimate that he does not think that the ultra-Orthodox Nahal should be closed down. But his very choice to rush to condemn the battalion’s fighters and turn them into a warning sign that Jewish morality cannot contain, is something the soul dislikes.
To the best of my knowledge, the investigation of the incident has not yet been completed, but it was reported that in the initial investigation in the IDF, the ultra-Orthodox Nahal soldiers claimed that the hero of Herzog’s speech refused to present an ID card and went on a rampage. In order not to be exposed in the center of the village, they transferred him to be questioned in a side building, along with three other suspects. After half an hour they were released, but Assad remained in the building. The soldiers say they did not recognize any signs of distress and thought he was asleep. In retrospect, it turned out that he had a cardiac arrest.
I believe them. And even if a mistake was made here, and even if more mistakes are made, Yair Golan’s call to dismantle the ultra-Orthodox Nahal is outrageous and it is very appropriate for those who said it. If there are faults in the Border Police in the Golani Brigade or in the Kfir Brigade, does anyone say that they should be closed? (There is only one military unit that after this week we all understand needs to be closed: IDF waves).
5.
But they left the Amar Assad incident. I have a problem with choosing the story of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda. I really do not understand why out of all the hundreds and thousands of wonderful stories about Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, the President chose this particular story in this place. True, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda once sent a letter to a school principal on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem, after passing by he saw his students harming Arabs. Well, then, if the Honorable President passes by a school in Jerusalem and sees that his students are behaving badly towards the Arabs, he is welcome to send such a letter to the school principal. But how does this relate to our school?
The president was invited to open an evening of salute to Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook and his life’s work, is this the message that is important for him to convey to the thousands who filled the hall and to the tens of thousands who watched the broadcast? The most decent, most contributing and non-violent public in the State of Israel. The public that I was overly stately. It is clear that these things are not relevant to this beautiful tribe of the center of the rabbi.
But what, the president is actually doing a round on them? Maybe there is a wink here to his supporters on the left? Although I was in Hebron a few weeks ago and gave a speech in the Cave of the Patriarchs (amazing speech, by the way), and although I came tonight to salute the generator of the idea of settlements, but wait, look what I tell them, I educate them in Jewish morality. They even shout at me.
After the shouts, the president continued his speech, but then did not hold back and returned to the loud protest. He looked in the direction of the youngsters’ stand and said: “I can not ignore what was here a few minutes ago. And I say to everyone: we need to learn to know and love the other, because we were all created in B’Tselem and it can also be our grandfather. ” It’s already blown me away.
Does any of those who shout contempt against you, Mr. President, at an event of the Merkaz Harav yeshiva, support the killing of eighty-year-old, or seventy-year-olds, or sixty-year-olds, or fifty-year-olds, etc.? come on. This is how you see the students of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda, who did not receive a lasting seed but received them, as you say? Boys who need to be reminded that the Arab in front of them is their grandfather’s age so please hold back and not kill him soul?
And in general, why in the days when Arabs repeatedly burn cars, houses and baby cribs of Jews in Jerusalem, in weeks of security tensions in Judea and Samaria (by the way, even in times when there is no special tension civilians and soldiers absorb stones and Arab violence on a daily basis), the threat And what warns him is the Jewish violence against Arabs?
6.
It’s hard for me to write things down, and it’s mostly painful for me. Like I said in the opening I also like the president personally and also appreciate him. But that is precisely why it seems to me that the speech should not be passed on to the agenda. If you use your terminology, Mr. President, I’m putting a warning sign here.
In the delusional political reality in which we live, in which the prime minister is a man with six seats, the president with eighty-seven seats has an important role to play. An even historical role. And so it will be very painful if you start now, Mr. President, educating us with Jewish moral speeches.
I really do not want the 14th of Adar 5722 to become a historic milestone: the date on which it was forty years since the death of Rabbi Zvi Yehuda and when the beloved President Herzog took his first step on the path to becoming Ruby Rivlin.
• The column is published in the newspaper HaSheva