OLD ANTIQUE HEBREW LETTER רבי שלמה גורן הרב הצבא RABBI SHLOMO GOREN

Description

OLD ANTIQUE HEBREW LETTER
Shlomo Goren
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rabbi
Shlomo Goren
Shlomo Goren as a young Israeli officer and rabbi heading the
Military Rabbinate
of the
IDF
Personal details
Born
3 February 1917
Zambrów
, Poland
Died
29 October 1994 (age 77)
Nationality
Israeli
Spouse
Tzfia Cohen
Occupation
Chief Rabbi
of the
Military Rabbinate
of the
IDF
, third
Ashkenazi
Chief Rabbi of Israel
Shlomo Goren
(
Hebrew
:
שלמה גורן
‎) (February 3, 1917 – October 29, 1994), was an
Orthodox
Religious Zionist
rabbi
in
Israel
, a
Talmudic
scholar and foremost
authority
on
Jewish law
. He founded and served as the first head of the
Military Rabbinate
of the
Israel Defense Forces
and subsequently as the third
Ashkenazi
Chief Rabbi of Israel
from 1973 to 1983, after which he established a
yeshiva
in
Jerusalem
, which he headed until his death.
He served in the
Israel Defense Forces
during three wars, wrote several award-winning books on
Jewish law
[
citation needed
]
, and was appointed Chief Rabbi of
Tel Aviv
in 1968.
Contents
[
hide
]
1
Childhood
2
Military career
3
Controversy
3.1
Activism
4
Vegetarianism
5
Awards
6
Family
7
Quotes
8
Writings; books
9
Bibliography
10
See also
11
References
12
External links
Childhood
[
edit
]
Goren's original family name was
Gorenchik
. He was born in
Zambrów
, Poland and
immigrated
with his family to the
British Mandate of Palestine
in 1925.
Goren was raised in
Kfar Hasidim
, a village of religious Jews near
Haifa
that his father co-founded. He began studying at the
Hebron yeshiva
in Jerusalem at age 12, where he was identified as a
prodigy
. His first book was published when he was 17 years old.
[1]
Military career
[
edit
]
Goren on left, saluting, at the grave of
Uri Ilan
(1955)
Goren's career was characterized by a commitment to the Religious Zionist values of his youth. He volunteered for the
Haganah
in 1936, and served as a chaplain for the
Jerusalem
area during the
1948 Arab-Israeli War
, during which he tested for and qualified as an IDF
paratrooper
. Goren was a Chaplain of the Carmeli Brigade during the war. Immediately after the Israeli War of Independence, he engaged, often at great personal risk, in the collecting of the bodies and giving proper burial to soldiers whose remains had been left in the field. He strongly opposed the idea of separate religious and secular units and worked for the integration of all soldiers in united army units. He was the most prominent halakhist involved in rulings for religious soldiers regarding their army service. Goren was eventually promoted to the rank of
Brigadier-General
.
Following the establishment of the state of Israel, Goren was appointed
Chief Rabbi
of the
Military Rabbinate
of the
IDF
with the rank of
Major-General
, a position he held until 1968. Rabbi Goren used the opportunity to help establish and organize the military chaplaincy's framework, streamlining processes to get soldiers accommodations for
kosher
food and prayer services. Goren personally wrote a new
prayerbook
to accommodate the different prayer styles used by various ethnic groups serving in the army.
[
citation needed
]
Goren also served in the 1956
Suez Crisis
and the 1967
Six Day War
, where he was promoted to a full
General
. Goren was on hand during the capture of
East Jerusalem
on 7 June 1967, where he gave a prayer of thanksgiving broadcast live to the entire country. Shortly afterwards Goren, blowing a
shofar
and carrying a
Torah scroll
, held the first Jewish prayer session at the
Western Wall
since 1948. The event was one of the defining moments of the war, and several photographs of Goren, surrounded by soldiers in prayer, have since become famous around the world and particularly in Israel. The most famous photograph shows Goren blowing the Shofar against the background of the Western Wall.
[2]
Controversy
[
edit
]
Goren attracted many admirers through his passion for Religious Zionism and his combining Zionist activism with a commitment to
Judaism
and
Jewish scholarship
. However, his uncompromising personality later resulted in him becoming a polarizing and controversial figure in Israeli politics.
[
citation needed
]
Goren spent most of his term as Chief Rabbi of Israel attempting to reconcile Jewish religious teachings with modern problems of the state, including advancements in technological progress and various high-profile conversion cases. Goren often clashed with his more conservative rabbinical colleagues.
[3]
One example of Goren's desire to adapt
Halakha
to changing realities in science was his controversial stance on
Kiddush Levana
, the monthly blessing over the new moon. A prayer customarily added after the blessing contains the words "just as I dance before you and am unable to touch you." Goren said that since the
Americans landed on the moon in 1969
, this line should be changed to reflect that it is in fact possible to touch the moon.
[
citation needed
]
Activism
[
edit
]
Goren was also well known for his controversial positions concerning Jewish sovereignty over the
Temple Mount
. On 15 August 1967, shortly after the
Six-Day War
, Goren led a group of fifty Jews onto the
Temple Mount
, where, fighting off protesting Muslim guards and Israeli police, they defiantly held a prayer service.
[4]
Goren continued to pray for many years in the Makhkame building overlooking the Temple Mount where he conducted yearly High Holiday services. His call for the establishment of a synagogue on the Temple Mount has subsequently been reiterated by his brother-in-law the Chief Rabbi of Haifa,
She'ar Yashuv Cohen
.
[
citation needed
]
Goren was sharply criticized by the
Israeli Defense Ministry
, who, noting Goren's senior rank, called his behavior inappropriate. The episode led the Chief Rabbis of the time to restate the accepted laws of Judaism that
no Jews were allowed on the mount due to issues of ritual impurity
. The secular authorities welcomed this ruling as it preserved the
status quo
with the
Waqf
, the Islamic authority. Disagreeing with his colleagues, Goren continually maintained that Jews were not only permitted, but commanded, to ascend and pray on the mount.
The actual question of Goren's radicalism remains controversial. One widely-repeated story about Goren claims that shortly after the Israeli capture of the Temple Mount, the rabbi either argued that Israel should destroy the
al Aqsa Mosque
and
Dome of the Rock
, or simply said that it would have been a "good thing" if they had been accidentally destroyed.
[5]
The charge, made by General
Narkiss
, an eyewitness, in an interview with
Haaretz
[6]
that Rabbi Goren calling for the destruction of the mosques has been used to claim there is a Jewish extremism comparable to Islamic extremism. Goren's close assistant Rabbi Menachem Ha-Cohen who was with Rabbi Goren throughout that historic day denied ever hearing Goren make such a remark. Goren himself personally denied this charge several times.
[7]
However Goren did make a speech later that year to a military convention, recorded and later broadcast on Israel's army radio
[8]
in which he said of the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque that: ‘Certainly we should have blown it up. It is a tragedy that we did not do so.’
[9]
Another possibly apocryphal story claims that Goren accidentally entered
Hebron
and the
Cave of the Patriarchs
on 8 June 1967, before the IDF had captured the city, and was greeted with
white flags
.
[10]
The city was taken by forces under Colonel Amitai, the Jerusalem area commander, by the evening of 7 June against only scattered light resistance.
[11]
Goren repeatedly advocated or supported building a
Third Temple
on the Temple Mount from the 1960s onward, and was associated with various messianic projects involving the site. In the summer of 1983, Goren and several other rabbis joined Rabbi
Yehuda Getz
, who worked for the Religious Affairs Ministry at the
Western Wall
, in touring a chamber underneath the mount that Getz had illegally excavated, where the two claimed to have seen the
Ark of the Covenant
. The tunnel was shortly discovered and resulted in a massive brawl between young Jews and Arabs in the area. The tunnel was quickly sealed with concrete by Israeli police.
[12]
The sealed entrance can be seen from the
Western Wall Tunnel
, which opened to the public in 1996.
Goren also made headlines after his term as Chief Rabbi had expired. He was deeply opposed to the
Oslo Accords
and in 1993 declared that it was
halakhically
forbidden to dismantle any settlements in the Biblical land of Israel, and encouraged any soldiers ordered to do so to refuse. In 1994 he announced that Halakha made it a "duty" for Jews to kill
Yasser Arafat
. Goren, who was a strong supporter of alliances between
Evangelical Christians
and Israel, also denounced meetings between Israel and the
Holy See
, calling it "blasphemy beyond expression."
[13]
Goren has spoken out against Jewish terrorism. In 1981 he and Rabbi
Ovadia Yosef
officially condemned a shooting attack on the Temple Mount by an American immigrant which resulted in the death of one Muslim and the wounding of several others. In a joint statement released by the Chief Rabbis, they declared that "We and the entire Jewish people attack and deplore the criminal act of murder in every possible way. Through this abominable act [Alan] Goodman has removed himself from the Jewish people...".
[14]
Goren was also a manager of
Kollel
, where he met and educated Rabbi
Joel Landau
. Landau helped him in managing the Kollel.
[15]
Vegetarianism
[
edit
]
Goren was a strict
vegetarian
after he visited a slaughterhouse in
Canada
to perform an inspection of
kashrut
.
[
citation needed
]
Awards
[
edit
]
In 1961, Goren was awarded the
Israel Prize
in Rabbinical literature.
[16]
Family
[
edit
]
Goren was married to Tzfia Cohen, the daughter of prominent
Religious Zionist
Rabbi
David Cohen
, the
Nazir of Jerusalem
, and the sister of Rabbi
She'ar Yashuv Cohen
, former deputy-mayor of Jerusalem and later Chief Rabbi of
Haifa
. Both Goren's father-in-law and brother-in-law were also prominent rabbinical vegetarians.
[
citation needed
]
Rabbi Goren and Tzfia Goren had three children: Tchiya Shapiro – a judge in the Tel Aviv court; Drorit Tamari – a psychologist; and Abraham (Rami) Goren – a lawyer.
Quotes
[
edit
]
“Human life is undoubtedly a supreme value in Judaism, as expressed both in the Halacha and the prophetic ethic. This refers not only to Jews, but to all men created in the image of God.”
[17]
"It is clear that according to Halacha (Jewish religious law), a soldier who receives an order that runs contrary to Torah law should uphold the Halacha, and not the secular order. And since settling the land is a commandment, and uprooting the settlements is breaking the commandment, the soldier should not carry out an order to uproot settlements. This government does not lean on a majority of Jewish support, but rather on Arab votes. According to the Halacha it does not have the authority of a majority, and therefore government directives to uproot the settlements do not have the authority of the majority of the people."
[18]
(
NRP
newspaper
Hatzofeh
, 19 December 1993.)
Writings; books
[
edit
]
Nezer Hakodesh
– commentary on Maimonides's laws of deficiencies of sacrifices
Sha'arey Tahara
– "Gates of Purity", collection of ancient sources as a commentary on Mishna tractate on ritual purification
Meshiv Milchama
(three volumes) – halachic answers on war topics
Har Habayit
– the laws of the Temple Mount
Kovetz Piskey Hilchot Tzava
– collection of laws connected with the military
Torat Hamoadim
– essay on Jewish festivals
Moadey Israel
- Jewish festivals
Psak Hadin B'inyan Ha'ach Veha'achot
– the verdict in the matter of the brother and sister
Torat Hashabat Vehamoed
- on the Sabbath and festivals
Torat Hamikra
– on the Holy Scriptures
Torat Hamedina
- on the State
Torat HaPilosophia
– on philosophy and Judaism
Torat HaRefua
– on medicine and halacha
Commentary for Yerushalmi (Jerusalem Talmud) Berachot
HaYerushalmi VeHaGra
– on the commentary of the Vilna Gaon on the Jerusalem Talmud
BeOz VeTaatzumot
- With Might and Strength - Autobiography - Edited by Avi Rat (2013) - Muskal - Yedioth Ahronoth and Chemed Books, Tel Aviv, Israel
Bibliography
[
edit
]
The Crown of Holiness
, an interpretation and commentary on
Maimonides'
Mishneh Torah
, 1934.
Sha’rei Taharah
, a study on the laws of
niddah
, 1940.
Ha-Yerushalmi ha-Meforash
, commentary on the
Jerusalem Talmud
, 1961. Recipient of the
Israel Prize
for Jewish Scholarship.
See also
[
edit
]
List of Israel Prize recipients
Jewish vegetarianism
References
[
edit
]
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