Yeshivas Ponevezh on Thursday upheld its mesorah of hanging an Israeli flag on the yeshivah’s roof on Yom Ha’atzmaut.
The minhag began after the establishment of the state at the instructions of the Ponevezher Rav, HaGaon HaRav Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, z’tl, to fly the flag on the roof of the yeshivah for eight hours.
Since then, the flag is hung from the yeshivah’s roof every year on Yom Ha’atzmaut from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Apart from the flag, there is no indication of Yom Ha’atzmaut at the yeshivah, with tefillos, shiurim, and sedarim taking place as usual.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
17 Responses
“Apart from the flag there is no indication of Yom Ha’atzmaut at the yeshivah“
What about the faces of the bouchrim after receiving draft orders that will force them out of yeshivah and most likely out of yiddeshkeit? What about the yungerleit who can no longer learn with menuchas henefsh because the Medinah of reshaim won’t let his child attend playgroup? Those are some pretty good indications I would think.
חילל השם נורא וכפירה פומבית בה’ ובתורתו
יום-העצמאות שמח to eveyone
Ariroze- it’s not just yeshiva bochurim. It’s also the faces of miluimnicks who have to leave their families again and watch their parnassah and families suffer beyond their control. It’s also the Hesder boys who have to leave the Beis Medrash again and return to the gehenom of the front lines. It’s also the soldiers who have to return to the place where they saw their fellow soldiers maimed and injured
Charedim aren’t the only ones faced with the fear of war and serving in the armed forces. But that’s what happens when we have genocidal enemies attacking us. We need to make sacrifices for the sake of the Klal, to stand together and not allow them to attack us anymore.
May HaShem protect our soldiers.
So bachurim from the most respected Yeshiva in the world will be lost to Yiddishkeit if they served in the army?
Maybe they should spend some time getting some chizuk in a Hesder Yeshiva!
Ponevezh rav was optimistic about the Zionist path: (from Chanoch Teller) he once was walking past a construction site for a Histadrut (labor) building. He commented that they are using incorrect steel for the foundation. Workers were amazed that (1) Rav knows construction, and (2) that he cares about the Histadrut.
On (1), Rav was involved in construction for his yeshiva. On (2), he said – I am confident that this building will eventually host a yeshiva, so I want the building to be built right.
@marc is it better than the czars army?
I wish all of Klal yisrael well, but it’s not a secret that the IDF is a one way ticket to SHMAD. No one denies that. And this is a different point than the fact that we’re taking people away front heir gemaras. The most precious thing Klal yisrael has. The leftists who are trying to shut down the yeshivas can add their name to the list of hundreds if not thousands of people who tried stopping the learning of Torah hakedosha. From the yivanim Spanish Inquisition and everyone else. These draft orders have absolutely NOTHING to do with a need for more boots on the ground, it has to do with the hate of Torah ve’lomdeah.
Ariroze- I honestly believe that you think all of that is true, but unfortunately the reality is not that.
The IDF is not a one way ticket to shmad. Thousands and thousands of Hesder talmidim prove that. Of course there are challenges and there are certainly soldiers who go off the derech. The IDF is trying to meet the demands of the Charedi tzibur to make it more accessible to them, but it’s not perfect. But that is a far cry from shmad.
And there is absolutely a need for more boots on the grounds. There are so many soldiers who need to keep on going back to the front because the amount of soldier available are just not enough. And we’re not just talking about young men straight out of high school and Hesder… that would be bad enough. But husbands and fathers in miluim, who are away from their families for weeks and months at a time. Who’s busineses fail because they just aren’t there.
Don’t delude yourself. If you need to rely on lies to defend the non-service of Charedim, you may need to revisit your position.
Always_Ask_Questions – Beautiful anecdote, but how does that prove he was ‘optimistic about the Zionist path’? Sounds like he was optimistic that everything Zionism was doing then would eventually boomerang around to fulfill Hashem’s plans, not their plans. The Ponevizher Rav was a giant in Emunah and Bitachon, and mimeila in optimism. When Ben Gurion famously boasted (at the ‘Edison Theatre’ around the corner from Meah Shearim…) that within 10 years no one will need Tefillin anymore, the Rav said to start preparing Tefillin for the children of Nahalol and Ein Harod (the most virulently atheistic Moshav and Kibbutz respectively. Nahalol was the birthplace and childhood home of Yitchak Rabin.) It took more than 10 years, but there are descendants of those children who daven every day with Tefillin. I know at least half a dozen former Kibbutzniks who wear Rabbeinu Tam tefillin every day also… As for the ‘Edison Theatre’, it was eventually closed for lack of demand for a movie theater in that neighborhood. The property was then purchased by a Chassidish real estate developer, who razed the old building, and built a new apartment complex purchased mainly by Satmar and Toldos Aharon Chassidim…
With all due respect me simcha613
And with respect to all the hesder boys.
If you think that Hesder yeshivas have the same chinch system as the right wing charedi culture and our gedolie hador; r chaim, r Ahron leib, r gershon, etc. and the gedolim in America as well. Then your head is in a cloud. ….. and to your other point.
The gedolim, the ones that you yourself go to for advice and berachos, the ones who live and breath sass torah and live their life exactly how they think Hashem wants them to, those holy holy Jews DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU. Are they living a lie as well? Klal yisral in the last almost 6,000 years have preserved solely on heeding the voice of our leaders. Not anyone else! People thought they knew better over and over agin from shushan all the way till the haskala and over and over again they were proven wrong.
We find ourselves in the same crossroads, on one side our gedolim and on the other side what we think is right. HaRav simcha613 – DONT BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY.
Kol tov.
With all due respect me simcha613 And with respect to all the hesder boys. If you think that Hesder yeshivas have the same chinch system as the right wing charedi culture and our gedolie hador; r chaim, r Ahron leib, r gershon, etc. and the gedolim in America as well. Then your head is in a cloud. ….. and to your other point. The gedolim, the ones that you yourself go to for advice and berachos, the ones who live and breath sass torah and live their life exactly how they think Hashem wants them to, those holy holy Jews DO NOT AGREE WITH YOU. Are they living a lie as well? Klal yisral in the last almost 6,000 years have preserved solely on heeding the voice of our leaders. Not anyone else! People thought they knew better over and over agin from shushan all the way till the haskala and over and over again they were proven wrong. We find ourselves in the same crossroads, on one side our gedolim and on the other side what we think is right. HaRav simcha613 – DONT BE ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY. Kol tov
First of all the problem with the army is that its leadership are mainly lefty secularists. This war in Gaza could have been fought and won a long time ago without losing a single soldiers life. All they needed to do is stop sending food,water,fuel,medicine,electricity,internet connection and media outlets. The gazan civilians would have looted the Hamas. With lack of fuel the tunnels would be useless as air vents to breath work on fuel. Keeping all media out would have prevented the worldwide growth of anti semitism in colleges. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words. Instead Israel should have flooded all colleges with videos of October 7 attack on the women and babies. As far as attacking it should have been done only by planes and ships and not room to room fighting which costs thousands of Israeli casualties. But the problem is the lefty leadership in the army and in the Supreme Court and in the media. They don’t allow religious soldiers to move up in rank. They use religious soldiers as useless idiots to do the fighting on front lines while the leadership eat their pork chops and babble to the media. The hands of israeli soldiers are tied all the time especially in Israel. Before they fire on a terrorist they have to shoot into the air a warning shot. The leadership is so obsessed with western democracy that losing soldiers lives is not as important. Why should any right minded person join such an army. In fact thirty per cent of secular Israelis don’t join the army either. Had Ben Gevir been in charge the war would be over in a month. Without food no society can survive. After you starve them you flatten every standing building and deport gazans to Africa and other far away countries willing to take them for money. Then you settle jews in Gaza. It’s that simple. But Democracy rules in Israel and it was Democracy that put Hitler into power of Germany.
Simcha613: 50% of Daati Leumi who enter the IDF as religious, by time they discharge they are Chilonim.
Once full-scale war broke out after the State of Israel declared its existence on May 14, 1948 [CE] Reb Shraga Feivel’s [Mendlowitz] thoughts were never far from Eretz Yisrael.
A group of students saw him outside the Mesivta building one day, talking excitedly with Rabbi Gedaliah Schorr and gesticulating rapidly with the newspaper held in his hand.
“If I were your age,” he [Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz] told the students, “I would take a gun and go to Eretz Yisrael.”
SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the architect of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 338) by Yonoson Rosenblum for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001 CE, based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana, ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965
In a conversation with the Satmar Rav, shortly after
his talk on the U.N. declaration, Reb Shraga Feivel
[Mendlowitz] was subjected to the sharpest criticism
for his “Zionist leanings.”
Later he told his family, “I could have answered him
[the Satmar Rav] Chazal for Chazal, Midrash for Midrash,
but I did not want to incur his wrath,
for he is a great man and a tzaddik.”
He added with a twinkle,
“And besides, he has a fiery temper”…
SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times
of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the architect
of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 335 to 336)
by Yonoson Rosenblum for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001 CE,
based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana,
ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965
“He [Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz] once said that
even though Eretz Yisrael is controlled by non-religious
and anti-religious Jews, one must still admit the good
that HaKadosh Baruch Hu had done, in causing the gates
to the Land to be open once again to Jewish immigration.”
SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of
Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the architect of Torah in America
(chapter 26, page 331, footnote 4, heard from Rabbi Yehoshua Schiff)
by Yonoson Rosenblum for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001,
based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana,
ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965
“In [year]1948 [CE], after the Arabs attacked the newly declared Jewish state and soldiers were falling on the battlefield, several Roshei Yeshivah taunted Reb Shraga Feivel [Mendlowitz] for having recited the blessing [HaTov VeHaMeitiv].
Reb Shraga Feivel turned to Rabbi Aharon Kotler, who agreed with him that the U. N. resolution [to establish a Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael in year 1948 CE] was indeed worthy of the blessing.”
SOURCE: Reb Shraga Feivel: the life and times of Rabbi Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz, the architect of Torah in America (chapter 26, page 331, footnote 3, heard from Rabbi Nesanel Quinn) by Yonoson Rosenblum for Artscroll / Mesorah, year 2001 CE, based on Aharon Sorasky’s Shelucha DeRachmana, ISBNs: 157819797X, 9781578197972, 1578197961, 9781578197965