After causing a stir with a blitz of interviews in the general media. Professor Aharon Barak, the retired President of the Supreme Court, appeared for a stormy confrontation with the journalists Aryeh Ehrlich and Aharon Kliger in the magazine ‘Mifsha’ and answered the harsh claims of the sector against him.
At the end of the interview, the journalists suggested that the judge put on a tefillin
Surprisingly, Barak happily agreed. “After my Bar Mitzvah, which was according to religion in Jerusalem, in the ‘Ohel Rivkah’, I put on a tefillin and was very religious. I wore a kippah. Yes, I have a religious period.”
Photo: Itzik Balintsky – Courtesy of the magazine ‘Family’.
Barak extended his left arm, blessed them to “put on tefillin”, and they wrapped the straps around his hands. After that he blessed with them “on the tefillin mitzvah”, and on his head the tufts were placed.
And when he said with them the verse “Hear Israel” – his voice choked. His eyes were moist. The words came out of his mouth with considerable emotional load.
He was not the only one in the room who wept during those refined Jewish minutes.
Put on tefillin. Photo: Itzik Balintsky – Courtesy of the magazine ‘Family’.
In the conversation, Barak revealed his connections with the great men of Israel, Marnan the Rabbi Yosef, the Rabbi Eliashiv and the genius Rabbi Eliezer Goldschmidt ztzel.
Among other things, he spoke in detail about his connections with the Chief Rabbinate of Salonim.
“When I was in the seventh grade, all the guys went to register for the army. It was somewhere in Jerusalem. I was there with my class. In the same unit, religious guys who came to get an exemption also appeared. I came to get a draft order, and they came to get a postponement. My friends attacked the group This one: ‘How do you evade the army’… you know these arguments.”
Was your name Eric Brick then?
“Then I was already Barak, but it was close to that time.
“I saw a guy there who was so humble, so quiet, standing on the side, and I felt sorry for him. I told him: ‘Let’s sit on the side. I’m not one of those people, let’s sit and talk.’ that we were born on the same day and in the same year: 29 Balol 1366. He looks at me like that with big blue eyes. He saw it as a sign from heaven that here he is meeting someone who was born on the same day and in the same year.
“We sat and talked and the conversation ended. I disappeared from him and he disappeared from me. Decades passed, and everyone went on their own way. Then, in 1999 (5799), when there was the big demonstration of the ultra-Orthodox against me, I received a letter from Rabbi Berzovsky, who at that time had not yet been appointed Rabbi Meslonim, and he says: ‘Listen, I see that there is a big attack on you. Are you the guy I met with?’ I immediately answered him: “Yes. Please come, let’s sit and talk. Not about the demonstration.”
“I invited him to my place, and he came to my court. I was the president. A Jew came in with such an old man, my age, thin, with piercing and special blue eyes, I can’t describe to you how much. The picture I saw in my heart was ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’ We sat and talked And we talked, what we didn’t talk about. We also talked that we would meet. So he wasn’t a rebbe, he told me about his father, the rebbe.
“Later, his wife passed away and I said to him: ‘I want to come to comfort the mourners.’ He said: ‘Okay, but come after 12 at night, then the boys go to the Wall.’ I told him: ‘Okay, I’ll come at 12.’ 20, the Shin Bet notified the police and the police notified the whole world, and there was a large gathering around his house. I called him and said: ‘I’m ready to come, the police will protect me. But who will protect you? Let’s cancel it’. He said okay and he canceled it.
“I’m not sure, but I think he was at our house once. Then he cut off contact again. When the girls were interested in Immanuel, in Immanuel they were his followers, I received a call from him through the rabbi of Belarus or one of these countries, who is a Salonim follower. He said To me that he is a follower of the Rebbe of Salonim and that he wants to talk to me. I said: ‘Please’. He came to me and said to me: ‘Listen, the Rebbe of Salonim appreciates you and he would very much like you to help solve this problem, and whatever you offer we will accept.’
“I told him: ‘If the Rebbe of Salonim asks, I will of course do it, but I must set the condition that it will be in the opinion of the Supreme Court, there was already a ruling then, that it will not be behind the verdict.’ His messenger told me: ‘There is no problem with that.’ The second request was that it be within the framework of the judgment, because I cannot act contrary to the judgment. To this the Rebbe of Salonim did not agree, and with that he broke off the relationship. I haven’t actually heard from him since.
The full interview is published this week in the magazine ‘Family’.