Dozens of rabbis signed three letters published today (Thursday) and attacked the rabbi of Har Bracha and the head of the yeshiva in place of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, including Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, Rabbi Dov Lior and Rabbi Yaakov Ariel. The storm did not pass over the Har Bracha yeshiva, in which one of the prominent rabbis in the yeshiva and head of the Torah Institute, Rabbi Maor Kayem, addressed the allegations in the letters and answered students’ questions on the subject. And came to dome news.
“Opposition to the rabbis has always been, as against Maimonides,” said Rabbi Kayem, adding that, “despite all the comments and objections we have not found a single content comment that was not brought up in advance while the issues were being discussed and written.” For example, the Pua Institute and Rabbi Shmuel Ariel were answered in detail and in an orderly manner. “The fact that someone is defaming us does not mean that we should stop respecting him,” the rabbi emphasized to his students.
“Rabbi Lior refused to meet with Rabbi Melamed,” the rabbi clarified firmly, adding that “Rabbi Druckman and Rabbi Ariel and many rabbis met with him. In practice, most rabbis spoke in person with Rabbi Melamed, but the disputants still manage to quarrel and lie.”
In Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu’s letter published here for the first time, he states that Rabbi Eliezer Melamed supports the kosher reform and the conversion law led by Minister Matan Kahana, which is contrary to the Chief Rabbinate’s position, to which the rabbi replied that “Kahana trusts Rabbi Melamed. In any case, they put him on the side of the government and oppose him as well.”
Throughout the day and after the letters were published, many waited for an official response from the yeshiva to be published, but this has not yet arrived. According to Rabbi Maor, the reason is mainly strategic and the desire not to create additional publication for the story: “We should not address it. If we ask, we can certainly respond and answer, but we should not initiate a response ourselves. It is a long-term dispute and it is impossible to respond every time.”
One of the main allegations in the letters was the meeting of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed with a Reform rabbi, which in the opinion of the signed rabbis is contrary to Halacha. The head of the Torah Institute in Har Bracha also commented on this and clarified: “Many of the Reformers who spoke with Rabbi Melamed have now written a book and see how it has a positive effect both in terms of encouraging Zionism to immigrate to Israel, and religiously strengthens Jews, and even sends some to Orthodox frameworks.”
Following a request from Kippah, Yossi Drummer, head of Rabbi Dov Lior’s bureau, said that “the claim of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed’s associates that Rabbi Lior refused to meet with him is very, very far from accurate.