The fabulous Kiddush Hashem that took place was indescribable and its ripples were felt from one end of the world to the other. It was accompanied by a marvelous feeling of "His heart was exalted in the ways of Hashem" which gripped every single Jew throughout the globe in the wake of the rare and historic Prayer Rally that took place this past Sunday at the gateway to Yerushalayim. Indeed, there has been nothing comparable throughout the generations, ever since the Churban Beis Hamikdash. This heart-shaking event in which 800,000 men, women and children participated, together with hundreds of thousands more spectators who watched this event throughout the world and those who were left stranded en route, was a fascinating stand-up supporting occasion for the honor of Torah and its scholars, lending an exalted sensation of privileged participation in this Kiddush Hashem throughout the entire world.
According to reports, over 400,000 cell phones were counted by the phone services in the cell areas of the gathering. The Jerusalem police chief Yossi Conforti told MK Rabbi Gafni towards the end of the asifah, "If you made the blessing of Chacham Harazim for seeing 600,000 people, it was not a brochoh levatoloh," according to a report in Mercaz HaInyanim. Yated Ne'eman believes that 800,000 participated.
Throughout the Diaspora, people excitedly followed the historic rally, decided upon by HaRav Aharon Leib Shteinman, in view of the degradation of Torah scholars in Eretz Yisroel by a Jewish government which has had no parallel, by labeling our bnei yeshiva who uphold the entire Jewish world through their Torah study and protect our Holy Land thereby, as criminals, with the threat of throwing them into prison.
In the face of this shocking chillul Hashem, the Rosh Yeshiva called for a mass prayer rally which would serve to counteract those actions with a Kiddush Hashem throughout the world. This was unanimously decided upon at a historic meeting of the three rabbinical councils of Israeli Jewry, the Moetzos Gedolei veChachmei HaTorah, which took place the previous week in Bnei Brak. Collectively and emphatically they all decided that "all yeshiva students and kollel members shall not submit to the army call-up under any circumstances whatsoever, and should not surrender to any enticement or [threat of] punishment, nor cooperate with army programs of any sort in any manner whatsoever."
Undoubtedly, the mass historic rally relayed a very clear- cut message to the heads of government, primarily to the persecutors of the Torah world: Prime Minister Netanyahu, Treasury Minister Lapid and the heads of the Habayit Hayehudi party, that there will be no way or form whereby yeshiva students will be inducted to the army even if they are threatened by criminal sanctions and imprisonment behind bars.
