The Haredi World lost a luminary. May the merit of learning Torah bring a Speedy Redemption!
...roshei tavos of Rav Elyashiv's Name: יוסף שלום בן אברהם חיה מושה is:
משיח בא\אב
"Moshiach Comes / Moshiach Av
"Chazal teach us that when a tzaddik passes from this world, he is immediately replaced by another tzaddik. "
The Ramchal says, "One Malchus does not impose upon another."
May This Be The Merit Of Geulah, And May Death Be Swallowed Up Forever!
JPost.com:
Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the leading rabbi of the Ashkenazi haredi community, died Wednesday afternoon in Jerusalem at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center at the age of 102. He was one of the leading forces behind the formation of the haredi political parties.
He had suffered from congestive heart failure and been hospitalized several times in recent years.
He had been in the cardiac intensive care unit of the Jesselson Heart Center under the supervision of cardiology branch head Prof. Dan Tzivoni and his personal physician.
The medical center’s entire 10th floor is dedicated to cardiac care, from diagnosis and treatment to prevention and rehabilitation. Thus the large foyer managed to accommodate the rabbi’s family members who came to pray for him, consult with the medical staff and “stand guard.” But police were needed to keep out curious onlookers and nonrelatives, who reached the main fourth-floor lobby.
Only months ago, Elyashiv – who lived in a very modest apartment in Mea She’arim – underwent the insertion of a supportive stent in his aorta because of a leak.
During previous hospitalizations, surgery to implant a ventricular support device to strengthen the pumping of his own heart was ruled out because of the patient’s age and condition.
Elyashiv, an only child, was born in Siauliai (Shavel in Yiddish), Lithuania, came to Mandatory Palestine in 1922 when he was 12 years old. He lost his wife, Sheina Chaya, (a daughter of the famed Rabbi Aryeh Levin) in 1994, as well as five of their 12 children; his surviving “children” are in their 70s and even older.
Elyashiv controlled the “Lithuanian” Degel Hatorah political party that, which together with the hassidic Agudat Yisrael party, make up the United Torah Judaism faction in the Knesset. Additionally, Elyashiv, as the leading figure in Lithuanian haredi Jewry, had huge influence over the outlook and stance of the community toward contemporary issues within Israeli society.
He was widely seen as having continued along the same conservative path that was laid out by Degel Hatorah founder Rabbi Elazar Shach, who split from Agudat Yisrael in the late 1980s.
Shach, who died in 2001 at age 103, came to lead the Lithuanian, or nonhassidic, haredi world and opposed haredi integration within Israeli society, such as service in the army and integration in the workforce.
Previously, some have compared Rabbi Shach to former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak, and Rabbi Elyashiv to Barak's successor Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch.
Elyashiv, on the other hand, having less charisma and dynamism than Shach, had sought to preserve the established order and has opposed what some refer to as the “new haredim,” those from a small but growing community who serve in the IDF and have joined the mainstream labor force.
In December, Elyashiv spoke out against the integration of haredim into mainstream society, saying that “haredi educational institutions must be under the control of the rabbis...and must exclude all paths that lead to national service, secular studies or the army, even if they have a special programs for haredim. Such a programs put haredim under the control and culture of secular Jews.”
There are two leading haredi figures who may succeed Elyashiv as the spiritual and political leader of the Lithuanian community: Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman, who lives in Bnei Brak and heads the Ponovitz Yeshiva kollel; and Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, who lives in Jerusalem, heads the Maalot Hatorah yeshiva and is the son of Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, who was the greatest haredi arbiter of Jewish law before his death in 1995.
Shach, in the years before he died, unofficially designated Elyashiv as his heir apparent, overlooking Shteinman, who is now 97.
Shteinman is seen as slightly more moderate than Elyashiv was, and has supported the Nahal Haredi army battalion set up to enable ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the IDF and preserve their lifestyle. He also does not oppose the increasing trend of haredim joining the army and the general workforce.
Auerbach, however, was closer to Elyashiv and more inclined to his conservative outlook, opposing the “new haredim” and seeking to preserve the old order. He is charismatic and has many devoted followers.
Ner Hashem - Nishmat Adam
Ner Mitzvah Torah Ohr
May the Merit of Rav Elyashiv Zatzal bring Geulah and an Aliyah in Torah!
Amen.
ReplyDeleteRav fish has new stuff on Geulah in av 5772
ReplyDeleteסוד החשמל פרשת מטות מסעי תשע''ב.pdf
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How do I get your link to Rav Fish to work ?
DeleteAll the best,
Ben
It's a blessing that the burden of being designated Gadol Hador goes to one of the relatively younger Gedolim under 75 - 80 tops
ReplyDeleteit's too much of a burden for the most senior Gedolei Yisroel .
A less benign view of R.Elyashiv from the secularist Haaretz paper. But they may have a bit of a point:
ReplyDelete" Haredi Jews are not given to calling up the Guinness Book of Records offices in London and claiming a place in its records. But were they prone to such a tendency, Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, the spiritual leader of "Lithuanian" ultra-Orthodoxy who passed away on Wednesday at the age of 102, may have well been a record-holder. He was one of the few men or women alive with over 1,000 living descendants (all from monogamous relationships), including a handful of great-great-great-grandchildren. Now that he is dead, it is certain that the new record-holder is another Haredi centenarian living in Jerusalem with similar progeny.
Talk of family planning and birth control within the Haredi community is tantamount to heresy - how can anyone view zar'a chaya ve’kayama (literally, living and existing offspring) that do not stop uttering the words of the Torah, as anything but a good thing? The questions of whether all parents are equipped and talented enough to deal with such huge families; the physical and mental toll of constant childbearing and childcare on young mothers who never have a chance to live life for themselves; and the broader economic and social viability of a community that multiplies itself at such a breathtaking pace without preparing its younger members to lead productive lives in an advanced society have not been addressed.
This is Rabbi Elyashiv’s real legacy. He was not the only architect of this society; other rabbis put the foundations in place, and both religious and secular politicians are at fault for having tailor-made Israel’s welfare system to cater for the needs of a Haredi sector whose members do not work or partake in any form of national service, save for studying a stultified version of Torah. But it was Elyashiv – who for 40 years was venerated as Posek Hador, the arbiter of a generation, and had the final word on any issue of halakhic law – who wielded ultimate political power over the most influential section of Haredi Jewry since the mid-1990s. He bears the responsibility for stifling any internal debate on resolving the tensions between an insular and traditional community and the modern Israeli society within which it exists and refusing to come up with solutions to the challenges threatening the sustainability of the Haredi model in the 21st century.
He could have used this unique opportunity to prepare his followers for the inevitable clash with the outside world, but he preferred to stop the clocks and freeze them in time. Any attempt at modernizing the curricula for boys and girls was met with fierce opposition to and denunciation of those who sought to sully “the pure education.” Likewise programs for vocational training for the majority of young men who are not fit to spending a life studying ancient texts were blocked. One of his last public proclamations was against academic courses designed specifically for young Haredi men and women, and it is ironic that his death came at the height of the public debate over Haredi conscription to the Israel Defense Forces.
His legacy is an empty one. Thousands are already defying his orders by joining the special IDF units in which Haredi men both serve and learn valuable skills for civilian life, and the academic streams specially tailored for ultra-Orthodox needs are flourishing despite his prohibitions. His path of paralysis has served to slow down these inevitable developments, damning most of the next Haredi generation to poverty, but despite his dictates, they are beginning to evolved and adapt to modern life. A century from now, Rabbi Elyashiv will not be revered as a Torah giant, but as a reactionary figure by the few who remember him."