MK Yair Lapid's column in "Kikar Hashabat," an ultra-Orthodox news site, in response to a rabbi blaming MK Lapid for recent terror attacks: 

My son Lior sits in a tank opposite the Gaza Strip monitoring the Hamas combatants through his scope.   He is there to defend all of Israel’s citizens. Among them, Rabbi Dov Aharon Zelznik.

My son Lior sits in a tank opposite the Gaza Strip monitoring the Hamas combatants through his scope. He is there to defend all of Israel’s citizens- religious, secular, traditional and Haredi. That is what I taught him from the moment he was born, that we are all Jews. We are all brothers. We are all obligated to protect one another. And so he does. In the searing heat. In his heavy tank crewman’s coveralls. In unnerving proximity to Islamic terror. 

Among others, he protects Rabbi Dov Aharon Zelznik of the “Maaor HaTalmud” Yeshiva, who, this week, as published in “Kikar Hashabat”, stated that the latest wave of terror attacks, in which dozens of innocent Jews were killed, is the result of “the wicked laws passed by the evil (Yair) Lapid”.  

Not Hamas. Not Islamic Jihad. Not Palestinian antisemitism. All of these are not responsible for the deaths of Dafna Meir or Malachi Rosenfeld, of blessed memory. For the deaths of boys and girls, women and the elderly. Innocent and pure Jewish souls whose lives were cut short. The enemy is not to blame. The Palestinians have been vindicated. I am to blame. Me and the IDF. 

I arranged with Kikar Hashabat’s staff to write an article in response to these claims, but the truth is that I don’t know what to write. How can you possibly respond to these type of allegations?  

Should I explain that during the first Intifada 1,117 Jews were killed even though there was no draft law? Should I explain anything at all? How can you possibly debate someone who think that he knows exactly what God intends? Who doesn’t believe ‘the Lord works in mysterious ways’? Who would rather hate his fellow Jew than murderous Hamas operatives. 

I am willing to relinquish my pride, even forgive his call for my blood. But I will not relinquish the IDF’s dignity and pride. Because Rabbi Zelznik hates the entire IDF, including the thousands of Haredi combatants who serve in it. “This cursed and damned army” as he calls it. He then adds: “whoever falls in the army’s web is ensnared by Satan, by evil forces …Soldiers in the IDF are fed evil, hatred towards the Jewish people, hatred towards God and his Torah…”  

I know the IDF well, and not just as the father of a combat soldier. I was a Security Cabinet member. I am still a member of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. I know the reverence with which the IDF treats and respects the Jewish faith. The care that the army takes in respecting the lifestyles of Haredi soldiers. If there are missteps, it is our obligation to fix them. If there are concerns, we must address them. But how can you possibly engage in dialogue with a rabbi, in Israel, who calls the first Jewish army since the Maccabees, “cursed”? 

The first step to engaging in dialogue is recognizing the truth. Let’s not pretend that everything is alright. I do have a dispute with parts of the Haredi community on the questions of the draft and of studying core curriculum (English and math) studies. I have already admitted that for a long time I handled this dispute incorrectly. 

I stand by my principles, but I should have been more mindful of the other party’s pride and dignity. The deeper the dispute, the stronger should be our commitment to mutual respect, sensitivity and to listening to the other side. I firmly believe that we have a mutual responsibility, an obligation to one another which includes military service. Others have a different point of view on this. On this topic, the Talmud teaches us: “Like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces: i.e., just as [the rock] is split ..., so may one biblical verse convey many teachings…’ It is okay to have a different opinion so long as we remember that we are all part of the same essence. From that same rock.

I was accused, more than once, of hating the Haredi community. I urge those accusers to hook me up to a lie detector and ask me that question. They will find that I don’t have a single drop of hatred towards the Haredi community. I said time and time again “How can you call it hate, if I want the exact same thing for Haredi youth as I do for my own sons, who I love more than life itself?” 

We all live here together and will continue to do so. We might argue, we might disagree, but if we take this argument to extremes, to calling for a person’s death, we are condemning ourselves to hell on earth. Because in one aspect Rabbi Zelznik was correct: What really threatens us is not the terrorists - we know how to fight them. What really endangers us is allowing this baseless hatred among brothers to run rampant. 

It is not too late to stop it.