Woe to the Torah and to Israel

It's the 17th of Tamuz all over again

Yesterday, the government passed its “Desecration of Torah” law to pave the way for exempting charedim (even those not learning) from serving, and for them to be financially subsidized to the tune of tens of billions by the serving/working public. It also further advanced a law stating that only non-charedim will continue to be arrested if they evade drafting, whereas charedim will not.

It’s ironic that these events came on the 28th of Tammuz, shortly after the Seventeenth of Tammuz, because they were a repeat of the historical tragedies of that day.

On the 17th of Tammuz, Moses broke the first tablets of the Ten Commandments after witnessing the worship of the Golden Calf. On the 28th of Tammuz, the Torah was ruined after being itself used as an idol in place of the service to God that it requires.

On the 17th of Tammuz, the walls of Jerusalem were breached by the Babylonians (prior to the First Temple’s destruction) and by the Romans (prior to the Second Temple’s destruction). On the 28th of Tammuz, the Chief of Staff of the IDF (picked by Bibi, so clearly not acting out of political motives), warned that the government’s new laws would drastically harm Israel’s security, both in terms of morale and manpower shortage.

On the 17th of Tammuz, the Roman general Apostamos publicly burned a Torah scroll. On the 28th of Tammuz, the charedi and national-religious members of the Government of Israel publicly disgraced the Torah by using it to exempt an entire sector of the population from helping their brethren with a war.

On the 17th of Tammuz, the daily Tamid offerings in the First Temple, which the Midrash says atoned for the nation’s sins, were halted. On the 28th of Tammuz, the charedi and national-religious MKs were not even shamefaced about having harmed the lives and morale of the hundreds of thousands of reservists and their families.

On the 17th of Tammuz, an idol was brazenly placed inside the Holy Temple. On the 28th of Tammuz, the study of Torah was brazenly turned into an idol in the Knesset in Jerusalem at the expense of Torah being a guide to serving God and improving society.

Woe to the Torah and to Israel. We can only hope that instead of this leading to the Third Destruction, we will be able to rectify things in the next election.