Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel and spiritual leader of the Shas party, has ordered all yeshivot and Talmudei Torah (elementary schools) to cut short their Passover vacation and open their doors next Sunday. (Most yeshivot are open year-round, except for a month off for Passover, three weeks in the summer, three weeks for the High Holidays, and a few days for Chanukah.) \"The whole country is in trouble, and we should go out on trips?!\" Rabbi Yosef said in his weekly sermon in Jerusalem last night. \"This is a call to \'reserve duty\' for all yeshiva students.\"
\"The People of Israel are going through troubling times,\" Rabbi Yosef said. \"Our brothers the House of Israel are in trouble... I call on all the houses of study, all the synagogues, all the Talmudei Torah - all should start studying on Sunday, and not wait until Rosh Chodesh Iyar [a week later]. Everyone should enlist in their own army in their yeshiva... \'Shall your brothers go out to war and you sit here?\'\" He bemoaned the plight of the soldiers going out to war, and explained that Torah study has always protected the Nation of Israel.
\"The People of Israel are going through troubling times,\" Rabbi Yosef said. \"Our brothers the House of Israel are in trouble... I call on all the houses of study, all the synagogues, all the Talmudei Torah - all should start studying on Sunday, and not wait until Rosh Chodesh Iyar [a week later]. Everyone should enlist in their own army in their yeshiva... \'Shall your brothers go out to war and you sit here?\'\" He bemoaned the plight of the soldiers going out to war, and explained that Torah study has always protected the Nation of Israel.