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NEWS
"We Act for the Good of Klal Yisroel, not Just Ourselves"
By Yechiel Sever
In a meeting of the Knesset Finance Committee, organized by MK Chairman Rabbi Moshe Gafni, with the heads of Shuvu and philanthropic representatives from abroad, the former stated that the outreach organizations are performing a sacred effort in drawing Jewish children distant from Torah and mitzvah-observance closer to Judaism.
Rabbi Gafni added that Shuvu is a chareidi organization that feels a responsibility towards its wayward brethren and toils for the sake of Jewry, and that this attitude has always been the path and policy of our Torah leadership past and present.
"The guiding principle of Torah Jewry is the policy of HaRav Shach. We are not concerned only with ourselves but with the Klal Yisroel in its entirety. In his public addresses, the late HaRav Shach did not speak about Rechov Rabbi Akiva in Bnei Brak but of Rechov Allenby in Tel Aviv and the kibbutzim. The late HaRav Eliashiv also embraced this principle, as does HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman since this is our uppermost concern."
Addressing the group of benefactors, Rabbi Gafni said, "If anyone were to say that the chareidi representatives in the government control the budget, let them be corrected that this is altogether false and cannot possibly be true. Were it not for donations coming mainly from the U.S. and Europe to support the Torah world, we would perish. Even were I to become the Prime Minister, I would be unable to support and maintain the Torah world. When Prime Minister Begin and his Finance Minister Erlich offered to extend full 100% support of yeshivos, HaRav Shach refused, saying that were they to assume full maintenance of the yeshivos, when a succeeding government came along with a different policy, the yeshivos would have no financial base and would founder, and not know how to manage at all. He also said that it is unrealistic to expect the government to be the only body supporting the Torah world. Rather, the public must be the ones maintaining Torah, while, nonetheless, we must continue to demand our full rights of government support. Notwithstanding, the Torah world must be based on the support of the Jewish community here and throughout the world."
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