Page 32 - HaMizrachi Tisha B'av 5782 USA

Rabbi Dr. Aaron
Rakeffet-
A Sacred Obligation to
Rothkoff

Help the Charedim Enter the World

(ARTWORK: ILAN BLOCK)

The following is an excerpt from HaMizrachi magazine’s interview
with Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff in March 2022.

ur relationship with the Charedim are afraid to come out into in dignity! We, our Religious Zionist
Charedi world in Israel is the big world. community, have to set an example
challenging, and army service Rav Shach knew Rav Soloveitchik for the Charedi community. We have
Ois the touchstone issue. was a gaon in Torah learning. He was to show them that one can come out
According to halachah, no Jew in the a bigger gaon than Rav Shach – there’s of the ghetto and embrace the world of
world, no one in Teaneck or Lakewood, no two ways about it! But he believed today and remain a gaon, a tzaddik and
is exempt from the army; every Jew that while the Rav could live in two a chassid – there is no contradiction!
must come and fight. It’s a milchemet worlds, the rest of us can’t do it. They Who preserved the Torah? Who
mitzvah, an obligatory mitzvah to look at a guy like me and say “all right, brought it over from Europe? It was
fight to defend our people. But here he was able to do it. But we’re afraid.” the Charedi community. Think of what
you have religious people refusing The Charedim are afraid to join the we owe the Mir Yeshiva in Shanghai!
to serve. It’s ironic; if anyone should world! Instead of being negative and critical
be exempt from the army it should But the amazing thing is that in Israel, of the Charedi world, we have a sacred
be those who are Shabbat violators. the dynamic has changed; it’s no longer obligation to help them.
ְ
ְ
ֹותי ֵב ְל ב ׁש ָי ְו ך ֵל ֵי ב ָב ֵּל ַה ך ַר ְו א ֵרָּי ַה ׁשי ִא ָה י ִמ, about synthesizing the two worlds of I knew Rav Aharon Kotler and Rav
ֹ
“What man is there that is fearful and the holy and the secular, because the Shneur Kotler quite well. I stand by
faint-hearted? Let him go and return two worlds are now one! In Israel, my belief that if Rav Aharon had come
to his home” (Devarim 20:8). The pasuk, if you’re a lawyer, a doctor, or if you to Israel he would have become a big
of course, is talking about those who work for the sanitation department Religious Zionist, like the rest of Rav
are sinners, who lack yirat shamayim – whatever you do outside of the beit Isser Zalman Meltzer’s family. Rav
(fear of Heaven). It’s the religious Jews midrash is a fulfillment of the biblical Yehuda Meltzer founded HaDarom,
who must serve in the army! mitzvah of yishuv Eretz Yisrael, of settling the first Hesder Yeshiva!
the Land! You’re in the army, in the
The Charedim look at the world and Foreign Ministry – whatever you do Change can happen over time. 120
they see what happened to those of is a mitzvah! years ago, Chabad was no different
us who left the ghetto. Millions upon It can’t go on this way. One father can than Satmar. Today, Chabad is in all
millions of Jews are no longer with us, support three children. But when three the headlines, all over the world, doing
totally assimilated and intermarried. children have their own children, and incredible things. Change can happen
Look what’s happening in America – you end up with 30 grandchildren in the Charedi world as well. We just
millions of Reform and Conservative and great-grandchildren who want have to be there to help them.
A member of
the Mizrachi and unaffiliated Jews are being lost. to sit and learn, who is going to Rabbi Dr. Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff is
Speakers Bureau If Chabad or Aish don’t pick them up, support them? And who wants to be a Professor of Rabbinic Literature at Yeshiva
mizrachi.org/ they’ll be lost to our people forever. schnorrer? Read what my Rebbe wrote University’s Caroline and Joseph S. Gruss
speakers It’s a spiritual holocaust. And so the in Halachic Man – Jews have to live Institute in Jerusalem.

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