Usually, in the week before Rosh HaShana in the charedi world, the conversation is about trembling before the Days of Awe. But this year, it’s been about trembling with shock over tumultuous decisions regarding charedi politicians along with videos of The Gadol HaDor™ revealing the process behind it. While for the rest of us, Daas Torah died almost exactly 22 years ago, or in the past three years, for many of those still in the charedi world it died this week.
The trigger was Tuesday’s deadline to submit a list of candidates for the forthcoming elections. Things have not been looking good from the perspective of charedim; their former freeloading way of life seems to be coming to an end. Now, the reasons for this are obvious - the rest of the country cannot endure such large-scale freeloading, especially following three years of war. But instead of appreciating that, the charedi powers-that-be decided that it would help to be even more opposed to any level of national involvement.
And so, the Council of Torah Sages met and deliberated, invited their current politicians to discuss the matter, and told them that it would be necessary for them to become more confrontational, or else they would need to be replaced by others.
Just kidding! The askanim decided to fire them and replace them with their preferred candidates, the politicians were sent letters announcing their summary dismissal, and The Gedolim™ were used to rubber-stamp it.