Rabbi Ovadia Yosef passed away nine years ago.
His spirit and influence - visible and hidden - continue to hover over Israeli society as if he is still alive with us today.
Thousands of people, all over the Jewish world, pray every day from a siddur whose wording was determined according to it (while changing, if not completely canceling, the traditions of other denominations);
Thousands of people think in his teachings, and many others consider themselves his disciples.
Even the political system, led by the Shas party, does not forget the revered leader. It was enough to walk around the streets of Israel during the last election campaign to once again see his portrait peeking out from all sides, on the propaganda products of the Shas party, which even established his name as an inseparable part of a ballot her vote.
Dozens of books and articles were written about the rabbi during his lifetime, and the flow has been increasing over the past decade.
Among them, research biographies and monographs (such as those of Rabbi Benny Lau and Nassim Leon), journalistic ones (such as the books of Zvi Elosh and Yossi Elitov, Nitzan Chen and Anshil Pepper, Yair Ettinger) and alongside them a whole industry of dozens of books "in praise of Rabbi Ovadia", biography books for adults, For youth and children - who wish, each in his own way and style, to crack the riddle of the rise of the poor boy who was born in Baghdad and lived in poverty in Jerusalem, to the top of the rabbinical elite, to describe his special character, and to explain to the reader his halachic, religious, social and political teachings.
In the face of all this abundance, Itamar Edelstein has burdened Shachem with a difficult task, and he fulfills it with dignity.
His new book, written in collaboration with the rabbi's daughter, Rivka Chikotai, is eloquent, very readable, light, and written "at eye level".
Alongside the description of his public, Torah and political face, the book seeks to describe "Rabbi Ovadia the man", in a robe and slippers.
their own room
In the statement of intentions at the beginning of the book, to tell the "untold story", a particularly difficult challenge is embodied.
In view of everything that has been written to date, it is very difficult to renew significant details in the Rabbi's history and his work.
Aware of this, Edelstein chose to expand in the small hands, and through all those tiny human anecdotes to add color and interest to the familiar picture.
This desire is not always satisfied, and despite the focus on Beit Yosef, some of the chapters expand on the description of the rabbi's public actions, which took place and were published in the public domain.
But even here, the small stories about the great man illuminate the rabbi's special character even when he is inside his mother's house, away from the spotlight.
Thus, for example, the description of his meeting with his wife Margalit, the mother of his 11 children and a faithful and devoted companion for decades;
This is the case in the description of the Silan's preparation for the funeral on the eve of Pesach or Shabbat in his home after the rabbi's death (when he rejected the attempt of one of his associates to push the women of the family to the balcony, insisting that they sit in the center of the house).
The book does a good job of describing the influence of the background from which Rabbi Ovadia came, as a member of a family with little means and no pedigree, on the continuation of his path.
Even when he was at the height of his power and influence, he met frequently with the world's leading scholars, the rabbi remained a people's person, available to everyone, able to communicate even with the common man, in a simple and popular language, full of humor and colorful expressions, sometimes cheap and blunt, for the good and the better.
Or in the beautiful language of the book: "A man who could have stayed in Jerusalem above, but saw his mission no less in Jerusalem below."
The general public, not the rabbinic and political elite, was and remains the source of the rabbi's strength and life and the target of his actions.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, 1969 // Photo: COHEN FRITZ
Along with the five famous sons, each of whom later occupied a distinguished position in the rabbinical and religious world, the rabbi's six daughters are also illuminated here in a precious light, who to a certain extent - with the exception of the eldest daughter, the bride of Peres Israel, Adina Bar Shalom, have remained in the shadows until today, and were "presence-absences" In most of the books published to date about the Rabbi's life.
As mentioned, between major actions whose purpose is to bring hearts together and battles for the preservation of the Eastern tradition and "the Shabbat crowning its age", the book seeks to expose Rabbi Ovadia the Ish.
Thus, for example, the heart-touching description of the young rabbi, only 27 years old, who arrives in Egypt on the eve of the establishment of the state, with his wife and their two tiny children, to try and put the Jewish community of Cairo on a pedestal, and prevent the leakage of its young sons, following the openness and modernity, which threatened to bring With it cultural assimilation and religious deterioration.
As is his custom, the rabbi did not waste much time, and worked vigorously to open Torah classes and strengthen Torah studies in the local school, along with delivering lessons and sermons in the vernacular, equal to every soul.
The rabbi, taking care of two toddlers, remains alone most of the day, in a foreign place, when she does not speak the local language.
The rabbi who noticed this, asked to restore her soul.
Much to her surprise, one evening he asked her to dress nicely, and the two went out together to the family home of one of his friends, whose balcony bordered the local amphitheater.
When they got there, the rabbi offered his wife a chair on the balcony of the house, and a few minutes later the rabbi was able to enjoy, free of charge, the show that was presented there while the rabbi watched her from the room, where he continued his studies.
This arrangement continued to be used many times and somewhat alleviated the rabbi's feeling of loneliness in Cairo.
A similar, quite amusing story is told in the book about Rivka, the rabbi's daughter (and co-author of the current book), who listens to the radio on Shabbat evening and hums Yehoram Gaon's "Rosa Rosa" for pleasure.
Despite the protests of her brothers who asked to "extinguish this horror immediately", the rabbi, who all his days showed sympathy for poems (and wrote down, in his pearly handwriting, the list of his favorite Umm-Kultom poems, a photograph of which is presented in the book), found great interest in the poem.
So much so, that that evening he sang the last Kaddish in the synagogue to the beautiful sounds of Yoram Gaon's poetry.
Among other anecdotes of "the rabbi in slippers", the book describes the young rabbi who returned home earlier than usual to help his wife, from Aleppo, Syria, in cooking for Shabbat and to learn the "secrets of the Iraqi kitchen", or the trips they used to take on Sundays, which sometimes included boating Rowing on the Nile, accompanied by the booming singing of family members.
In those days, visits to the pyramids and the local zoo were also part of the family menu.
Courage I went
The book does not hide the difficult moments either, the days when there was no food in the cramped two and a half room apartment where a family of eight was crammed, or the death of baby Rachel, the seventh of the family's children, shortly after her birth.
In view of the purpose of the book, to highlight the "untold story", the book also includes interesting biographical tidbits, such as the fact that the rabbi was without a wristwatch until the age of thirty (because "what does it matter", anyway he studies all the time, sitting at home and walking on the road);
the description of the meeting between the rabbi and his future father-in-law, in which he asked to inform him of his decision to marry Margalit;
The "perception" of the girls secretly reading novels in their room and his studying Gemara with them or the description of his meeting with Maccabi Tel Aviv coach Pini Gershon.
In between, the book also reveals tensions and crises that were minimized in other compositions, overt and covert.
Thus, for example, the refusal of the "Forat Yosef" yeshiva to accept into its ranks Rabbi Ovadia who returned to Jerusalem after four years of exile in Egypt.
The days were the days of austerity, and the rabbi was without a livelihood.
Despite this, the yeshiva's owners refused to give the yeshiva's students a job, and he neither forgot nor forgave.
Years later, when he was chief rabbi and first rabbi of Zion, he refused the yeshiva's request to hold a celebratory event for his coronation.
The long-standing tension between Rabbi Ovadia and his associates and Rabbi Yitzhak Nissim and his supporters is also expressed in the book.
Along with the stories and anecdotes, the book emphasizes the rabbi's special ways of ruling, which tend towards the permission, the relief and the inclusion, all of course within the framework of Halacha.
And yet, as in many other essays written about the rabbi, this book also lacks a significant critical dimension and is completely devoid of the signs of "literature of praise."
Here and there there are references and allusions to actions that caused quite a bit of bewilderment, but these are null and void.
Thus, for example, a photograph appears in the book in which the rabbi is seen, all smiling, in the company of the Minister of Finance at the time, Yaakov Naman, but absent from the book are the terrible words of blasphemy and rebuke that the rabbi uttered publicly towards him (like many others), "An evil person, puts on a head tefillin - but He has spiritual cancer in his brain."
The book devotes a large amount of space to the permission given by the rabbi to rely on the "sale permit" in the year of omission, and an expression of sorrow for those who are strict and strict about buying more expensive vegetables that do not rely on this permit.
Indeed, from a photocopy of a letter attached to the photographs in the book, it appears that the rabbi's cane permit was only said "at the time of need", but surely it is "very appropriate (!) for Torah members and yeshivas and their families" to be strict and avoid relying on the sale permit.
The same is true of his attitude towards the large traditional public who are not particular about the observance of light or severe mitzvot.
The book miraculously highlights the sympathetic attitude of the rabbi at the very beginning of his journey to this public, and his courageous ruling that he allowed the addition of the Shabbat chasm to "appetite" - and not to "enrage" the minyan, or to the Torah, but does not mention the harsh statement of the rabbi at the end of his days according to which "who "He who sends his children to secular schools must not be held accountable. He must not serve as a public messenger. He must be thrown from all the stairs," or his assertion that "anyone who goes to a secular court will get leprosy."
As with other Torah scholars, with Rabbi Ovadia the picture of the Halacha is much more complex than it can be seen at first glance, and this complexity does not receive the place it deserves in this book either.
There are also inaccuracies in the book, such as the number of moorings that were allowed after the Yom Kippur War;
The last name of the third president (Robushov and not Rubinov), or the statement according to which the ruling of Rabbi Soloveitchik from the USA (who, contrary to what is said in the book, was not among the "important judges" but his main strength was in scholarship and thought) is quoted in the Rabbi's writings "many times". Also Roshman of the internal disputes in the rabbi's house between his family members and associates, even during his lifetime and even more so those that emerged after his death, are completely muted.
The book once again emphasizes the centrality of Rabbi Yosef and his influence on Israeli society in the jubilee of recent years.
From a child who grew up in a home of low means, a member of an immigrant family whose father worked for a living as a grocery store owner, with no rabbinical pedigree, Rabbi Yosef became within a few years, thanks to his endless diligence in studying the Torah, his wonderful memory and his adherence to the goal of "returning the crown to its former glory", one of the most fascinating and important figures in the history of Israel Israel and the Jewish world in the last century.
Of particular note is the mention of his halachic courage (which was expressed already in his days of obscurity, in his deviating from the halachic rulings of the "Ben Ish Hai", the revered rabbi of the Bani Babil-Iraq), which served as his compass "the power of the Dathira" - the power of permission.
Where it is possible to ease, Gers preferred Rabbi Yosef, unlike many of his colleagues, to favor the lenient halachic approach over the strict opinion.
This quality, along with his amazing knowledge of the halachic literature for generations, led him to train the Judaism of the Ethiopian immigrants, to ease the case of converts, to solve difficult and difficult problems, and to find a balm for the suffering of the enslaved and oppressed.
The background of his growth may explain his great sensitivity to solving the plight of widows and orphans, and the admiration for which he won - during his life and today - from many people, many of them from a low socio-economic status.
The multitude of photos attached to the book add a charm to it and not one of them also tells an important story.
Thus, for example, the strands of the hair that were abundant and sticking out from under the rabbi's headscarf while she was in Egypt, which would certainly not be accepted in ultra-Orthodox society today, may indicate the path that some of the Jews of the Eastern countries took towards radicalization and aggravation, in contrast to the moderate and inclusive path of Rabbi Ovadia.
Another expression of this, which is emphasized in the book, are the family joys that were shared in a mixed yeshiva of men and women, different from the practice accepted today by ultra-Orthodox Shas, due to the Ashkenazi influence. Adding an index of subjects and names at the end of the book could have added to it, and deserves to be fixed in future editions that will surely see the light of day.
Itamar Edelstein in collaboration with Rivka Yosef Chakotai: Beit Yosef, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef - The Untold Story, Yedioth Books, 230 p.
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