Silence of the rabbis speaks volumes
The police evacuation of two Jewish families, squatters in Hebron, once again raised serious questions as to the priorities of rabbinical leaders not only in Israel but also in the United States. Two company commanders and 10 soldiers, all from a religious unit, refused a military order to remove the settlers in Hebron because their rabbis told them to disregard the order. Nary a voice was lifted from the religious community challenging the disobedience of these soldiers or the conduct of their rabbinic leaders.
There was similar silence when a curse was issued by a professor of Hebrew literature from Bar-Ilan University against the commanding officer of the Hebron evacuation. 
Hillel Weiss wished for Col. Yehuda Fuchs' death and that his mother be bereaved, his wife be widowed, and his children be orphaned. It is for the courts to decide if Weiss' speech is incitement, and for the university to determine if Weiss' speech was protected by academic freedom. Yet it would seem there ought to have been some rabbis, in addition to the lone voice of Knesset member Rabbi Michael Melchior, who would be willing to condemn Weiss' remarks as a likely violation of Halacha. It is a terrible indictment of rabbinic timidity that less than three weeks after Tisha B'Av, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem most rabbinic leaders were unwilling to condemn an unbridled expression of sinat hinam — unbridled hatred — which the Talmud explains was responsible for the destruction of the Second Temple.
Similarly, Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, one of the highest ranking religious Zionist officers in the Israel Defense Forces, was reported to have been verbally abused, cursed at, and even spat upon after attending services this past Shabbat at the settlement of Elazar, where he was continuing to celebrate the recent marriage of his daughter. He was actively involved in the 2005 Gaza disengagement and more recently in trying to reform the hesder yeshivot from where most of the refusenik soldiers had come. Stern sat through services on Shabbat while the disobedience of the soldiers was publicly praised.
At the same time, rabbis and Orthodox institutions throughout the United States had focused for several weeks on a highly controversial article that appeared in mid-July in The New York Times Magazine. Its author, law professor and Orthodox day school graduate Noah Feldman, challenged the Modern Orthodox response to intermarriage.
While the Times article may energize substantive rabbinic debate, it does not have the potential to create a national disaster for the State of Israel. Such a disaster could occur if soldiers believed it is their right or even obligation to disobey military orders based on the notion that rabbinic instructions supercede military orders.
If Israel is to survive as a free, sovereign democracy, it is essential that the rule of law prevail. When a civilian, freely elected government entrusts authority in the hands of military officers, soldiers must accept the legitimacy of the orders issued by their officers and the concept of a unified chain of command except in extraordinary, exceptional cases. Military orders must never be subjected to a rabbinic interpretation. Rabbis can help soldiers understand how to conduct themselves in the military, but not whether to obey orders. When rabbis assume that power, what ensues is the breakdown of democracy and the creation of anarchy.
Shmuel Rosner, writing in Ha'aretz, condemned the Union of Orthodox Congregations of America for their passivity during these recent events. Rosner does not really make the indictment as strongly as he might. American rabbinical leaders appeared to be unable to bring themselves — at least publicly — to support the legitimacy of the removal of the settlers from Hebron. Their silence clearly suggests their tacit concurrence in the decisions made by the rabbis and the religious soldiers who followed them and disobeyed the orders.
These American rabbis cannot hide behind the notion that they do not want to enter political questions in Israel. What occurred were precisely the religious issues with which all rabbis, presumably, ought very much to be engaged. Many of these same rabbis agreed at their convention last fall that American rabbis ought not to avoid expressing opinions concerning policies of the Israeli government with which they disagree. This made the silence of American rabbis even more conspicuous.
The Olmert government may well not be the most popular government in Israel's 59-year history, but it has the same legal standing and legitimacy as all those that came before it. If rabbinic leaders persist in trying to undermine governmental authority, as some of them did during the Gaza disengagement and continue to do so now, and other rabbis tacitly tolerate and condone such behavior, than Israel may well not need outside forces to tear it apart.
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