On Tuesday morning, the rosh yeshiva HaRav Shaul Alter will cast his ballot for Agudas Yisroel, the gimmel, and then head straight to Ben Gurion Airport. His destination is Tampa, Florida, where the Pnei Menachem institutions will hold their Chavrusa conference this Shabbos.
Kikar HaShabbat has learned that the day will be a tightly packed one, with barely any time between the voting booth and the flight.
At the close of the Shalosh Seudos tisch this past Shabbos, the rosh yeshiva spoke about the upcoming journey and made a heartfelt request of his chassidim. “Daven for me that I succeed in my mission,” he said, “and that I not stumble into pride and arrogance.”
The tisch, attended by the son-in-law of the Strikover Rebbe, also brought sharp words. Rav Shaul addressed last week’s painful incidents, in which force was used against prominent rebbes from Yerushalayim and Bnei Brak, events that drew condemnation across the chareidi world.
He began with a posuk from this week’s parsha, Lech Lecha, describing Yishmael: “yado bakol,” his hand against all. The rosh yeshiva noted the well-known disagreement between the Targum and Rashi. Does the posuk mean that Yishmael’s hand is outstretched to take money from everyone, or that his hand is raised to strike everyone?
Then he turned the lesson toward those who had disgraced the honor of the rebbes.
“There are those who think they must be machmir like both interpretations,” he said. “On one hand, their hand is outstretched to raise money abroad for the protests and demonstrations they organize, and on the other, they are also machmir and seek to use violence. If they only raised funds, fine. But why must they be machmir and use force as well?”
People close to Rav Shaul shared that after the Karlin-Stolin Rebbe was attacked, the rosh yeshiva sent him a personal letter of chizuk.
In it, he cited the words of Chazal in the Sifrei on the posuk “al menas sheyiheyu soklin eschem umechorfin eschem,” on condition that they stone you and revile you. He added, with evident pain: “If only the generation were worthy, we would not need to fulfill this condition in practice. But since the generation is not worthy, we are forced to see these words fulfilled before our eyes.”
