Ovadia Yosef Quotes
There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, all of this because of too little Torah study.
Ovadia Yosef, Rabbi, Talmudic Scholar, and Expert in Halakha—Jewish Law, Israeli Chief Sephardic Rabbi, Spiritual Leader of the Shas Party, Explanation of natural disasters, September 6, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Torah is the first 5 books of the Old Testament. Shammai’s school was a contemporary (and competitor) of that of Hillel. Most Rabbinic thought to this day has historically been based in the school of Hillel. Shammai was more strict and rigorous. There is no known surviving picture of Shammai. The graphic is a photograph of his tomb.
This quotation has been used to illustrate a number of points. First is illustrates the fundamentalist Islamic view, not terribly different from a fundamentalist Christian view, that God punishes man for his sins be producing natural disasters. Second that the foreign policy of America is sinful per se. However, what is interesting is that Sallah is an Israeli citizen who not only heads a movement opposed to Israel but like any other Israeli citizen has a freedom of the press the is unknown in any Islamic country. Sallah and his Muslim coreligionists living in Israel, together with the Muslims living in the hated West, are the only Muslims in the world who have total freedom of speech, thought, expression and conscience.
See {619709}. Ever since the Jews were ejected from their nation by the Romans, there have been some Jews and non-Jews who believed that the refusal of other nations to allow Jews citizenship inhibited their assimilation and was God’s way of maintaining the Jews as a distinct people so that they may fulfill Biblical prophesy and return to the Land of Israel. Stiles was a leading historian of his day and specialized in ancient Biblical history. Most people however, and most Jews, do not hold with this theory.
During the American Revolution many patriot clerics argued against the monarchy by claiming that God has given Kings to the Ancient Jews—who had a type of Republic—as a punishment. Therefore monarchy is to be avoided.
The Torah comprises the first 5 books of the Bible (Old Testament). The Arab countries of the Middle East are not alone in having to content with ultra-religious clerics who want to control the government and use it to impose religious law on the entire population. Israel also has the problem. In the Arab countries to deny being religion is to put yourself in danger including risking your life. So no one really knows what proportion of the population supports the religious imposition from the government. In Israel, however, this is easily determined by polls. The majority of Israelis are secular Jews. Of the religious Jews, the majority of them believe in extensive separation between the state and the religion. But there is a minority of ultra-orthodox which would have Israel to be a Theocracy. They are a minority but they are politically very strong. They receive large financial support from extremely wealthy Americans, have religious political parties, are extremely passionate advocates, and are willing to devote huge amounts of time to make Israel a more religious state and ideally a theocracy. Ironically, there is a great religious and philosophical similarity between the extremist Jews of Israel and the extremists Muslims in many of the Arab nations. They both want a theocracy. The only difference is which religion should the Theocracy represent.
The reference to sex with Niddot refers to having sex with a menstruating woman which the ultra-Orthodox see as a serious sin. Few modern people the world over obey this biblical injunction. The Israeli Supreme court has constantly invalidated laws and government regulations that require other Jews and non-Jews in Israel to obey all the Sabbath laws of the Bible. That in the view of Ovadia is “desecrating” the Sabbath.
The ancient Jews valued resarch and studying in their own right but the greatest of these are when they lead to action.
Ovadia Yosef was an Iraqi-born Talmudic scholar, a posek, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983, and a founder and long-time spiritual leader of Israel's ultra-Orthodox Shas party. Yosef's responsa were highly regarded within Haredi circles, particularly among Mizrahi communities, among whom he was regarded as "the most important living halakhic authority".
