Is Ovadia Yosef senile?
According to numerous reports, Iraqi R. Ovadia Yosef is calling Ashkenazi R. David Stav “a wicked man,” someone “dangerous to Judaism” who had “no fear of God at all.”
Electing R. Stav as Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi rabbi would be “bringing idolatry into the temple,” according to R. Yosef.
His inflammatory and derogatory statements are blamed for an attack on R. Stav by haredi youth as he was leaving a wedding in Jerusalem. (http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10059)
Does R. Yosef know this man personally? One Web site stated that they had never met. So one assumes the Iraqi has been following R. Stav’s activities at Tzohar. One source suggested that R. Ovadia knows nothing about R. Stav but the Iraqi has become a tool of his “advisors.”
The Mizrachi rabbi may have reason for concern. R. Stav says he wants to make not only rabbinate offices more welcoming, but also remodel the Israeli face of the Jewish religion in general. “I am from the world of Torah and Zionism. I am not subordinate to the ultra-Orthodox functionaries or to the politics of the Haredi Torah world,” Stav says.
In a statement, Tzohar called R. Yosef’s remarks a testimony to “the urgent need for change across the rabbinate” and said he should “repent and ask forgiveness.”
“We protest the incitement voiced yesterday by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” Tzohar said. “Israel needs a rabbinate that will connect it to Judaism, and not antagonize.”
Yosef sustained criticism from several rabbis, most of them religious Zionists. Yosef has "crossed every boundary," said Rabbi Haim Drukman.
"Does he think that speaking that way about someone you've never met is ethical? Halachic? Jewish?" said Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron. “Why? Why does Rabbi Ovadia have to curse [Rabbi Stav],” he wrote on Facebook. “Does he think that that this will bring people closer to Torah and to Judaism? Does he think that to speak this about a person he has never met is moral? Halacha? Jewish?”
Meanwhile, religious Zionist Rabbi Benjamin Lau on Monday called for all political leaders "from the president on down" to cease all meetings with Yosef. "It's a humiliation," he said.
The religious Zionist movement, the organization noted, did not need the permission of Torah sages to field candidates and “knows how to manage the religious Zionist tradition for all of Israel.”
Assuming that R. Yosef is responding to information fed him by his advisors, it remains fairly certain that R. Yosef is suffering from senility. His recent pronouncements, both within a religious context and within the political context, leave no question as to his deteriorating mental capacity.
Israel needs another Israel Meir Lau or Yosef Messas, rabbis who guard halacha while keeping it alive and in the current era.
The competition of the Ashkenazi (!) chief rabbinate – in which the Iraqi should have no voice – has turned into לשון ברע … just in time for Rosh Hodesh Av.
R. Yosef and Shas should be ashamed.
