Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin met on Thursday afternoon with leading ultra-
Orthodox figure Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman to discuss a possible compromise for
the replacement of the Tal Law regulating haredi enlistment in the
army.
The Tal Law, which provided the legal framework for haredi men to
indefinitely defer military service, was ruled illegal by the High Court of
Justice in February.
There are currently approximately 60,000 full-time
yeshiva students who are of army service age but who have gained exemptions
under the terms of the Tal Law.
During Thursday’s meeting, which took
place at Shteinman’s home in Bnei Brak and was also attended by MKs Moshe Gafni
and Uri Maklev, both of UTJ, Rivlin opined that the coming months would be a
test for both the broader public and the haredi community “to reach an agreement
and an understanding.”
“To solve problems like the Tal Law requires a
leadership that can take the reins, in order to prevent people from fanning the
controversy for political gain. There are not two peoples within the Jewish
nation, we are one people living in one country,” Rivlin said.
“What we
have here are two essential requirements: the study of Torah which is a basic
principle of our Jewish existence, as well as the need to ensure our security.
We need to find a solution which the correct balance to these two
needs.”
According to a statement from Rivlin’s office, Shteinman listened
attentively to what Rivlin had to say. In reference to Holocaust Memorial Day,
Shteinman also noted the “terrible destruction” wrought during the Holocaust on
the Torah world.
Shteinman has to a certain extent taken up the mantle of
leadership of the non-hassidic Lithuanian stream of haredi Judaism since Rabbi
Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, its widely acknowledged leader, was hospitalized back in
February.
Following the High Court’s decision to annul the Tal Law, also
in February, Shteinman convened an emergency meeting of leading haredi
rabbinical and political figures to discuss the matter at his Bnei Brak
home.
Said Shteinman at the time, “Throughout the history of the Jewish
people, we survived because of our fulfillment of the Torah and on this we must
give up our lives. Without Torah study, there is no existence for the nation of
Israel.”
At the end of Thursday’s meeting with Rivlin, Shteinman gave the
Knesset speaker a blessing and expressed his hope that Rivlin would continue his
good works for the sake of the Jewish people.
In an interview with the
hassidic Hamevaser newspaper published just before Passover, Shteinman said, “We
should be more concerned about the attempt to injure the status of those
studying in yeshiva then the Iranian threat.”
“It pains the heart that
specifically at this time, we are hearing that there are people who are being
enticed by all sorts of blandishments that the IDF and other organizations are
offering designed to get yeshiva students to leave Torah study and exchange
eternal life for temporal life and a bit of materialism,” he said. “It is only
in the merit of Torah study that our enemies do not succeed in harming
us.”
However, Shteinman did support the establishment of the IDF’s Netzah
Yehuda haredi battalion in 1999, and sent a representative to sit on the
committee that originally drafted the Tal Law, which also sought to encourage
increased haredi enlistment through various means and was, at the time, opposed
by most of the haredi establishment.
The Tal Law will expire on August 1.
If new legislation is not passed by then, the 60,000 full-time yeshiva students
who are currently deferring their service under the terms of the Tal Law will be
legally obligated to enlist in the IDF.
A statement from Rivlin’s office
said that in recent weeks he has also met with the leader of the Belz Hassidim
Rabbi Yissachar Dov Rokeach and Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the most respected Sephardi
arbiter of Jewish law, to discuss the matter.
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