Civil marriage?
"The right of two people to sign a 'marital partnership' and receive rights as a couple" • Religious favors? "I embrace and love them" • A persecuting law? "I met Rabin five days before he was assassinated, and the meeting was conducted with dignity" • Rabbi Eliezer Melamed In the rabbis of religious Zionism, in a first interview
"The traditional public needs to lead the debate on matters of religion and state."
Rabbi Eliezer teaches
Photography:
Jonathan Saul
Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a tough interviewer, is being interviewed for the first time.
Strange, because his voice seems to be carried everywhere.
One of the most prominent and important rabbis in religious Zionism speaks to his large audience through writing: for 18 years he has been publishing a weekly, very popular, halakhic and current affairs column in the newspaper "Besheva";
Nearly one million copies of his twenty books have been sold and star in homes (making him the best-selling author in Israel);
And his new book is landing on the shelves these days.
It is difficult to interview a writer who is aware of every word and weighs it carefully, and beyond that: he has no need for interviews.
Quite a few mark Melamed (59), rabbi of Har Bracha, as a candidate to serve as the chief rabbi of Israel.
According to Google, he is the one who was interrogated after the assassination of Rabin in the case of "persecuting law", confronted Ehud Barak regarding the refusal of an order to evacuate settlements, and is known for determined positions, without fear of political correctness - but when you dive into his writings The directions.
We are sitting in his office in Har Bracha, on Mount Gerizim in Samaria, with his wife Inbal next to him.
Har Bracha is his kingdom, where he established a thriving community, educational institutions and a seder yeshiva.
Claims about the centralized management of the settlement have arisen in the past on the part of families who have left.
The place is run with enviable economic efficiency: an internal construction company builds the houses of the settlement to a uniform standard and at low costs.
Education payments are on an equal footing for every person due to restrictions and supervision imposed by the Yishuv leadership.
His books are self-published by the yeshiva and are an additional source of income for the yeshiva.
Melamed's biography draws an interesting duplication: he is the eldest son of the head of the Beit Yesh High School, Rabbi Zalman Melamed, and of the director of the Channel 7 website, Shulamit Melamed, one of the pioneers of settlement in Samaria.
However, his maternal grandfather, Prof. Yosef Velek, was one of the founders of the religious leftist movement Oz VeShalom, and his uncle, Zeev Velek, was a member of the Dimension movement.
Melamed went through the Zionist-Torah track of "Yeshiva for Young People" and "Merkaz Harav";
In his youth, he established the first branch of Bnei Akiva that was gender-segregated (despite opposition from the movement), and later the Torah youth movement "Ariel".
He married Inbal Katz, a daughter of Kibbutz Hukok, the daughter of the painter Tuvia Katz, who, after her parents' conversion, was educated in the stronghold of religious feminism "Pelech".
The couple teaches 13 children, 9 of them married, and 31 grandchildren.
Despite his firm stance on the affairs of the Land of Israel, he teaches rather moderately on questions of religion and state.
Recently, Melamed led a discourse group at the Israel Democracy Institute alongside Prof. Yedidya Stern on the issue of equality.
When the Chief Rabbinical Council intended to deprive Rabbi Shlomo Riskin of the right to serve as rabbi of the Efrat community due to his liberal positions, especially on matters of conversion, Melamed did not hesitate to sharply attack the council.
"Temples of Heaven." IDF fighters // Photo: Yehuda Ben Itach
He encourages his yeshiva graduates to study a profession and advance in academia, alongside extensive Torah study on Shabbat.
Two of his daughters hold doctorates (one for economics, the other for history).
The professional and economic progress of his students is part of a worldview that holds that one should learn a profession that "contributes to the settlement of the world" as a sacred value: "It is important that people have a good and respectable livelihood.
The 'kollel' is intended to train teachers and rabbis.
The rest have to learn a profession and work.
"They will not be dependent on unique funds, donations, charities or the employer, so that if they demand that the employee do something immoral, he can resign without fear of his future."
"Respect for man, and marriage"
Melamed's positions on religion and state have led to attacks from the ultra-Orthodox stream and the Har Hamor yeshiva. The non-Orthodox.
"A boycott of an entire public is a terrible thing," he says at the beginning of the conversation with him. "Even if in the past there were rabbis who thought it necessary to boycott the Reformers, they must examine whether it is still necessary to use this terrible tool. And material that has no justification today.
"The notion that your righteousness is measured by the degree of boycott of others, which has unfortunately penetrated the national-religious public, is wrong. When Naftali Bennett as Diaspora minister met with representatives of the Reform movement, he was attacked with harsh words. I thought it was wrong, and if I had the opportunity "Despite the arguments between us they are our brothers, and a mitzvah to love brothers."
Religion and state create a lot of tensions in Israeli society.
"I oppose religious coercion. If the majority of the public agrees with something and no one is forced to act contrary to his conscience - it is not coercion. In order to reach an agreed position on the majority, the traditional public must lead the debate on matters of religion and state."
"We struggled, but we kept a balanced line." The late Yitzhak Rabin // Photo: IP
Even on the explosive issue of marriage, Melamed is not afraid to express a surprising position.
"The state should strengthen marriage as the religion of Moses and Israel and on the other hand recognize the right of every two people to sign a legal agreement of 'marital partnership', and give them equal rights to a married couple," says Melamed, "respect for man, along with respect for marriage sacred for generations."
A feminine vision of the prophets
You will soon read here more unconventional references from a Torah judge.
Recently the astonishing teaches on another issue - the tenure of women as rabbis and dayanim.
"There is no impediment to women engaging in any field of Torah," he dropped a bombshell in his column about two weeks ago.
"Includes the roles of spiritual leadership, Torah teaching and Halachic rulings as rabbis and dayanim.
"Although there are difficulties that hinder the realization of the vision in practice: women have less Talmudic experience in the great seminaries, less conditions for diligence in Torah for many years, and there is a fear of conservative religious society against revolutions. But if for generations theoretical and research study in Torah was the property of men. Socials that were customary - today, in a reality where women are opinionated in all areas and strive for it in the Torah as well, this is an ideal that brings us closer to the vision of the prophets.
Women also pay a price for multiple births, at a young age, at the expense of their personal development.
"A mitzvah from the Torah to bring a son and a daughter. Sages added that it is a mitzvah to give birth to four children. Beyond that there is value in every other child, but it is elegant. It is important to emphasize that it is elegant, to avoid stress, that a woman does not think it is a 'birth machine'. "In this mitzvah. In principle, pregnancy should not be postponed in the early stages of marriage, but when pregnancy may impair the man or woman's ability to fulfill their vision in the fields of work and creativity, it is appropriate to consider postponing pregnancy. It is important that each person reaches the highest level of development."
And what about women's service in the military?
"According to Israeli tradition, women did not enlist in the army. There are reasons for this, such as the need to balance those who go to war to maintain the routine in the home front, and to maintain the values of modesty. The ultra-Orthodox forbid it completely. In our opinion, there is no ban on enlistment. "A female soldier who contributes to the security of the state and sanctifies the name of heaven in her actions - performs a mitzvah. How can one not appreciate a religious female soldier who keeps the law within the army?"
"Conversion must not be delayed"
How should a religious community treat LGBT people?
”I respect and love them.
Does not feel any rejection towards them.
Where I grew up, the districts of the central rabbi and the Torah community, there was no reality that homosexuals despised.
There was no such curse.
"He supposedly went in the name of the Torah to eradicate impurity, in an act that he himself was the ancestor of impurity - a malicious murder." The Burnt House in the Duma, 2015 // Photo: IPI
"A religious person who has a homosexual orientation lives in a sense of pain and great experience, and if he remains religious, he is highly valued. I do not know if I could stand his experience. Not everything I have a solution. For two men or two women to get along in the religious community should Lowering the flags and lowering the flames. Same-sex men and women should not publicly announce what they are doing in the bedroom. By the way, many religious people try to avoid the Torah prohibition. On the other hand, the public should not ask them intimate questions, and treat them as friends who have decided to live together. To be beloved members of the religious community. "
He says that he met boys who felt a tendency towards members of the same sex, consulted a psychologist and eventually married women and started beautiful families.
"I do not know if they call it 'conversion therapy'. They received help they were interested in. On the other hand, a couple of boys who grew up in secular families came to me and repented. They asked halakhic questions in all sorts of areas, but before that I asked not to try to persuade them to separate. There is a chance that they will change their tendency. "
Could it be that the contemporary halakhic practice of the law of chastity is excessive?
"Laws of chastity are meant to strengthen the bond between a man and his wife. In addition, there is also a statement, a banner of loyalty to the Torah. Over time it has become overweight. It should be given the real weight: custom and mitzvah from the words of sages, not Dauriyta. Modesty in dress for large and serious mitzvos. It must not exclude a woman from all observant Torah and mitzvos. 25 years ago I wrote that there is an opinion in Halacha that the definition of modesty is the social norms. It is not acceptable to rule this way in Halacha, but it was important for me to emphasize that Delay conversion due to modesty in dress.
"In the ulpana in Har Bracha they will all be accepted. Even if the mother dresses not according to the halakhic boundaries, and even if the student behaves like her after school hours. Inside the ulpana she must make sure to dress according to all the halakhic boundaries. "Education. Participating in a secular public singing competition is not a reason for expulsion."
"Do not speak two languages"
Two historical issues are flashing over our conversation.
Melamed is reluctant to open them but responds with relaxed precision: his interrogation by the police after Rabin's assassination of a letter he sent to 40 personalities and rabbis in religious Zionism, on the question of applying a "persecuting law" to the Rabin government (no indictment was filed);
And the media confrontation with Ehud Barak during his tenure as defense minister.
On the eve of Rabin's assassination, you were secretary of the Yesha Rabbinical Committee. What was in that letter to the rabbis?
"This is a matter of principle: Whoever brings the PLO to control territories in Israel contrary to the position of the Jewish majority and contrary to his promises to the voter. To prosecute him according to the legal-Torah conception? It was emphasized that this is not an individual who will take the law into his own hands, but a state, political question, whether and under what conditions a prime minister can be prosecuted for the consequences of his actions.
"How many times have I felt the need to sharply criticize the rioters in the youth of the hills." Rabbi Melamed // Photo: Jonathan Shaul
"I sent the question to a line of older rabbis as well as to jurists, religious and secular. Is there criminal responsibility for a prime minister for acts that are formally legal, but they break accepted norms and endanger the public most of whom oppose his policies? Is it possible to sue a government for such a thing afterward? The situation in the disengagement, because then the majority of the Jewish public, at least according to the polls, supported the exit from Gush Katif, Oslo did not have a majority.
"After Rabin's assassination, they were looking for a scapegoat. We fought against Oslo but kept a balanced line. As tensions increased, together with the prime minister's military secretary, I initiated meetings of the Yesha Rabbinical Committee with Rabin.
The Likud leaders, Netanyahu and Sharon, criticized us for this.
They claimed he was going to lose the election, and such a meeting would only strengthen him.
The last meeting with Rabin took place five days before the assassination and was conducted with dignity. "
And for the second charge.
In 2009, when the evacuation of demonstrators from the ruins of the Chumash settlement was on the agenda, two soldiers from the Kfir Brigade waved the sign "Samson does not evacuate Chumash" at the inauguration at the Western Wall.
One of the sign's fans was a student of the arrangement at Har Bracha.
The IDF demanded that Rabbi Melamed actually condemn him because during the disengagement period he wrote things about refusing an order. Melamed wrote in his column that it was not wise to wave such a sign at a state ceremony and if the soldiers asked him, he would advise them to refrain from it, but in retrospect he understands them.
Then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak was furious.
When he issued a summons to Melamed, and he did not appear, the Har Bracha yeshiva was removed from the "Hesder" and functioned only as a high yeshiva.
Only after three and a half years, during Ya'alon's time as defense minister, was the settlement route renewed.
"Every ordinance related to security and operation must be carried out, even if it is contrary to a certain mitzvah in the Torah, because mental supervision rejects even Shabbat," Melamed clarifies.
"But orders in a civilian framework that conflict with conscience and the Torah - should be refused. This is my position, I do not know how to say anything else.
"There are those in the beit midrash who will say one thing and outside something else. I do not speak two languages. That is why there is no agreement in my books from ultra-Orthodox rabbis: I am not willing to change the Torah as I understand it. In one of the first books, "He asked me to aggravate a certain matter. Since I could not change, I withdrew my request for consent."
After setting fire to the Dwabsha family home in the Duma and harming the participants in the Pride Parade, Melamed wrote to his readers in the newspaper: "A man supposedly went in the name of Torah and purity to eradicate impurity, by an act that is the worst of all, "And who knows how much more they will suffer from their wounds. They also added sin to crime and wrote, 'Long live the King of the Messiah.'
Even now he clarifies: "On several occasions I felt the need to sharply criticize the rioters in the youth of the hills. Anyone who does not respect the IDF, does not keep the law, despises the 'ordinary' settlers who bloom in the Judea and Samaria mountains, is not righteous.
Some people in this group hold a grudge against me to this day, and some have woken up to repent.
Already 15 years ago, when settlement in Judea and Samaria became institutionalized, I said that from now on it should only be built in regulated places.
If according to the law a certain place is not regulated, and a place can be arranged next to it, it is better. "
"To perfect everything that exists"
We meet on the occasion of the publication of his book "The Jewish Tradition".
A kind of capsule version of Judaism for beginners - Halacha, historical context and principles, in a clear and concise style.
It is suitable for those who are stepping into the field of Judaism for the first time, and also for those who are knowledgeable.
I read the book with pleasure.
It is interesting to note that Melamed's choice precedes the mitzvah between a person and his friend and a person to the place.
"The idea to write the book arose following a conversation with Prof. Meir Bouzaglo. Through it I realized that there is a broad public that loves Judaism but has difficulties, who identifies with the values but is sometimes angry. The traditional reader's position is important. The task was to explain Judaism as it is, without beautifying "To clarify how the great vision is expressed in the laws and customs, and to remove mistakes."
He recounts the dilemmas that arose during the writing.
"Shabbat, for example, is a very severe prohibition. Should it be written in a book intended for the general public what is written in the Torah: 'From its desecrated death'? Prof. Buzaglo told me: It is impossible to hide what is written in the Torah. So I wrote. Doing a kiddush or honoring the Shabbat, even though he does not keep the Shabbat properly, can be added to the minyan and drink the wine he drank from it. "
What is this halacha in your eyes?
"What is the reason for the excellence of Jews, as in the Nobel Prizes? Genetics is not an answer. Neither is the study of the Gemara, and the appeal of any convention it creates - because it is not special to Jews, doubt is the foundation of Western thinking. The reason is that Jews have a culture based on tradition. Of an infinite ideal to fix a world.
"Repairing a world is an attempt to gently perfect everything that exists. To elevate all areas of life. Work, study, family, society, science, art. To bring everything in the world to improvement. In Christianity there is a vision of grace but no reference to everyday details, there is despair of life In Islam there is reference to details, but man is not encouraged to discover the image of God in which to fix a world. In Judaism there is no unimportant field. Everything is important. Prayers, meals, Sabbaths. Thirteen commandments against fourteen limbs. To make a better world. "How to fix a world? How to live according to the great values? Halacha gives practical guidance."
So the ultra-Orthodox are wrong?
"The answer is in their name, ultra-Orthodox. Out of fear for religious observance, they are afraid to leave the incubator, meet other populations, face science. "The more generation. When it lasts several generations, it already changes the Torah, eliminating parts of it like the commandment to settle the land, which is weighed against all the commandments."
And what about the seculars?
"Secularism also has value, as we learned from Rabbi Kook. One should listen to the positive values that exist in secularism. Do not rely on the miracle for example. The Zionist movement acted rationally. It should be. Faith and mitzvah encourage us to settle the whole country, but if rational considerations say it is "It is possible, so not now. We have not yet learned enough about the values of freedom and liberty."