She'ar Yashuv Cohen - Views On Disengagement From Gaza

Views On Disengagement From Gaza

In an article in Makor Rishon (March 2005), he wrote:

The State of Israel is dear and beloved to me as the first flowering of our redemption . Especially for this reason, I cannot avoid... expressing my clear position that the "State of Israel" is not the supreme value in our lives, in terms of being a goal unto itself. There are more important demands that take priority over this, since surely everyone who seeks to be in the State of Israel aims to protect them and guard them...

Cohen continues with an appeal to then-prime minister Ariel Sharon:

It is asked: Why uproot the settlements? Why can they not exist in a Palestinian state... and continue to observe all the commandments of inhabiting the Holy Land, as our fathers and forefathers did throughout the generations...?

During the evacuation of Gush Katif, Cohen strongly criticized the government of Israel: "Whoever uproots Jewish settlements in the land of Israel and God forbid will even cause destruction of synagogues and uprooting graves, will not be cleansed in this world nor in the afterlife... this is the highest form of evil and cruelty..."

He later added, "I cannot consider an act more cruel and more evil than what the government of Israel did this week in Gush Katif, like this with one hand. The act of demolition of a synagogue is something that is unheard of among nations of the world... There is no sin greater than this."

In an interview with Haaretz newspaper, he said: The religious precept to settle the Land of Israel is one that stands by itself, even in the absence of the State of Israel and Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. We upheld the precept to settle the land even when the Turks and the British ruled the land. Why can we not continue to live there even when the State of Israel withdraws its sovereignty from the soil?

I hear the voices. I dwell among the people. People are finding it difficult to swallow the new reality. When the government of Israel raises its hand to uproot Jewish settlements from the Land of Israel, it loses by its own actions the whole purpose and point of the state's existence. It is impossible to ignore this. The state is an instrument of holiness, not holiness itself, an instrument of a precept, not a precept. Even Rabbi Soloveitchik wrote that he would not lend a hand to unreserved subjugation to the state. That is idolatry. When the state behaves like a state of all of its residents, and not as a Jewish state, the attitude changes. I respect it as I do any other government. The practical significance is that when we recite the prayer for the government, we should pray that it should CONTINUE to be "the first flower of our redemption." Day.