In response to the most recent effort to draft yeshiva
students, a High Court decision in response to suits filed by
established enemies of all things religious declaring that
the current arrangements allowing all those whose exclusive
occupation is Torah learning may defer all military service
while they are thus occupied, an extraordinarily broad array
of leading rabbonim issued the following declaration,
including many who are not at all involved with political
issues.
The special proclamation of maranan verabonon, the
gedolei Yisroel, under the heading: "Eis Tzoro hi
leYaakov" reads:
Due to the harsh determinations recently accepted by the High
Court, which undermine, Rachmono litzlan, the
substance of the Torah and the uniqueness of the Jewish
Nation, and due to the talk and threats to cholila
hurt the yeshivos hakedoshos and to blot out Torah
from their students' minds, from the aspect of
lehashkichom Torasecho, we call this period "eis
tzoro leYaakov," and believe that yeshu'as Hashem
comes swiftly, and that we will be spared from this
calamity.
The Creator of the world, in His great mercy and kindness,
has created us in His honor and separated us from those who
go astray. He imparted to us the Torah of truth, and gave
everlasting life in our midst. He made a covenant with us,
promising that Torah will not be forgotten from His seed.
Only haTorah hakedosha protected Am Yisroel,
when it was an itinerant people, persecuted and tortured
by the nations of the world. It is only the Torah
hakedosha which enabled the Jewish Nation to remain
strong in its belief, and to anticipate the full
Geula, quickly in our times.
No devices disposed against you will succeed: there is and
there never will be no power which cholila can
separate Am Yisroel from its source of vitality and to
ordain for it lifestyles contrary to the Holy Torah. We
hereby express our disapproval and pain over the repeated
attempts to undermine the unadulterated halocho which
has been transmitted to us from generation to generation, and
protest the attempts to breach the vineyard and the
uniqueness of the House of Israel.
Kindness from Above has encompassed us. After the great
destruction which Israel suffered during the days of the
terrible Holocaust, after the Torah institutions were
destroyed, and all of the sacred Jewish communities in the
Diaspora laid waste, we have merited the fulfillment of the
verse, `. . . and on Mount Zion there will be a remnant.'
Jews have returned to our sacred land; the yeshivos
hakedoshos, the watchmen of the legacy of Sinai which
served as pegs and cornerstones for the rebuilding of Torah-
loyal Jewry, have been reestablished. These restored
yeshivos kedoshos, which were founded with the sacred
blessings and guidance of gedolei Yisroel and the
mesiras nefesh of the roshei yeshiva are the
substance and core of the Nation, and were and will forever
be the surety of our existence. Heaven forbid that they, or
their students, be undermined in even the slightest
manner.
We hereby reiterate and once more convey our opinion, that
according to the din and the halocho, it is
forbidden to impose any burden, except that of the yoke of
Torah, on students of the yeshivos kedoshos. By the
same token, students of the yeshivos kedoshos included
in the category of Toraso umanuso, are forbidden to
enlist in the army. Therefore, under no circumstances
whatsoever may any change or any sort of compromise in the
existing arrangement be made.
Our eyes, and not those of strangers, have seen the magnitude
of the dangers we faced during the past fifty years of the
existence of the Jewish settlement in Eretz Yisroel, and we
are certain that the merit of the Torah hakedosha and
those who study it with exertion, is what protected us,
enabling us to be saved from all who sought our harm. At such
a time, when the Jewish Nation is pleading for abundant mercy
in the face of the enemies and the ambushers who attack us
from all sides and who continue to seek to harm us,
cholila, at this time, when many hope for deliverance
from their private distress, we plead with our brethren,
bnei Yisroel, the distant and the near:
Brothers, do not cause harm. -- Do not raise a hand,
cholila, against Toras Moshe.
`Do not touch my anointed ones.' Leave the Torah learners
alone.
We turn to the lomdei haTorah as a whole and the
students of the yeshivos hakedoshos in particular,
with a sacred call: `Don't fear and or be anxious.' Hashem
will be with you. Strengthen yourselves in prayer, and by
beseeching the Creator of the universe to cast a pure spirit
from Above, so that the wayward will open their eyes and see
that they erred. Increase Torah's ranks, and recall that we
have no remnant except this Torah. Gird your strength in
courage, and exert yourselves in haTorah hakedosha
with cheishek, hasmodo, kedusho vetohoro. In the merit
of the Torah hakedosha, in the merit of those who
study it wholly, may all Israel be entitled to lives of
grace, kindness chessed, abundance, mercy, deliverance
and consolation. Succor and release will preserve Israel from
all calamities and from all enemies, and may we merit
deliverance and compassion speedily in our times.
Signed on Chanukah, 5759
Yosef Sholom Eliashiv, The Admor of Vishnitz, Aharon Yehuda
Leib Steinman, The Admor of Gur, The Admor of Slonim, The
Admor of Belz, Simcha Zissel Broide, Shmuel Halevi Wosner,
The Admor of Sadigur, Moshe Shmuel Shapira, Boruch Shimon
Schneerson, Michel Yehuda Lefkowitz, The Admor of
Rachmastrivka, Chaim Pinchos Scheinberg, The Admor of
Strikov, Zalman Rotberg, Tzvi Markowitz, The Admor of
Alexander, S.Y. Nissim Karelitz, The Admor of Modhitz,
Avrohom Yaakov Zelaznik, The Admor of Nadborna, Chaim
Kanievsky, Shmuel Auerbach, The Admor of Lelov, The Admor of
Boston, Boruch Rosenberg, Yitzchok Flakser, Yisroel Grossman,
Avrohom Chaim Brim, Binyomin Yehoshua Zilber, Chaim Shaul
Karelitz, Yerachmiel Gershon Edelstein, Fishel Rabinowitz
