Israel's Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau appealed to IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot to return a popular Sunday morning Torah class at a major IDF base. "It is the obligation of everyone to change the atmosphere of the public debate, and I am certain that if you will instruct to restore the situation to what it was previously and allow the Torah lessons it will be a fitting step to moderate the feelings of many and reduce the flames,” wrote Lau.
In October, General Aharon Haliva, who commands the IDF's Technological and Logistics Directorate, ordered that a weekly Torah class given to IDF soldiers be scrapped without specifying the reason.
The Torah class is called 'Sunday Happiness,' a play on the common phrase 'Sunday Sadness' which IDF soldiers use to describe their despondency upon having to report to base on Sundays. The class was given at Ir HaBahadim (lit. the city of training bases) near Yerucham, at which a large number of IDF soldiers are required to report every Sunday, and it enabled soldiers to utilize the extended downtime they have waiting for buses to learn Torah.