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HaRav Gavriel Yosef Levy shlita on the War Against Yeshivas in Eretz Yisroel
by Rav A. Cohen
In recent months, HaRav Gavriel Yosef Levi, Rosh Yeshiva of Be'er HaTorah, begins his message to the public, we are being subjected to budget cuts and various financial decrees where it is very clear to all that we are in the midst of an open war which does not stand up to the dictates of logic, even according to their reasoning and laws. These are in addition to the sword of the army mobilization being flaunted above the heads of our holy yeshiva students. The question facing us is how to handle this dangerous war which has faced our Torah public in recent generations.
Let us reflect: Yaakov Ovinu went off to study Torah before he set out for Choron, but before he actually came to Lavan's house, which was so totally different from his father's home, the home of a wicked man amidst the residents of a wicked city, he realized that he must prepare himself so as not to be influenced by them. The dozens of years which he had already devoted to Torah study were not sufficient but required greater preparation under stringent circumstances, and he therefore ensconced himself in the yeshivos of Shem and Ever.
When he was about to arrive at Charan, which was a great distance from Eretz Yisroel, he reminded himself that he had passed by the site where his ancestors has prayed without stopping and thereupon, decided to retrace his steps.
This seems strange. He had spent fourteen years in Yeshivas Shem v'Ever, in Yerushalaim, during which he could have gone many times to pray at Har Hamoriya where his ancestors had already prayed.
I believe that I heard the following from the Avi Ezri that during the period in which Yaakov was in yeshiva, he prayed only there, and only after he left, after fourteen years, did it dawn upon him that he should have prayed elsewhere. We can learn from this that so long as there is a state of emergency which demands spiritual strengths, beyond the usual efforts, each and every one should entrench himself in a beis medrash, being engrossed only in study, with no connection whatsoever to the world beyond that of Torah, not even 'visiting the site where his fathers had prayed.'
We understand that there is no one in our generation on the level of Yaakov Ovinu requiring that he hide away in a yeshiva for 14 years without sleeping in a bed or leaving the tent of Torah. But the circumstances obligate us that at least during the pivotal years of study in yeshiva, we must bury ourselves within the walls and environs of the yeshiva. This is our bastion, these are our protective walls, the only secure place where a yeshiva bochur can remain, safe from the evils of the outside world.
We should really acknowledge these things on our own. The very dangers and temptations lurking outside on their very threshold should arouse Torah students to what was the practice of their counterparts of the past, to remain permanently between those walls, immersed in avodas Hashem, in study and character improvement.
We were not able to arouse ourselves thus on our own but were forced through outside circumstances, harsh decrees. We believed that we could handle the situation on our own and continue on but the decrees only intensified, just as is written in the Torah, "if you walk with Me [believing that] it is only coincidence, I will continue to chastise you increasingly."
The decrees were designed to awaken us to repent, and if we ignore that reminder, it will only intensify. It seems that the decree of the draft is become worse and worse. The decree regarding the child-care institutions is a blow to the livelihood of Torah scholars. It highlights the hatred of the boors towards Torah scholars which finds expression though different laws and strange libels which restrain religious practice in general, and affect the Torah-true public in particular.
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