Rabbi Moshe Maya, a senior member of the Shas party's Council of Torah Sages, on Saturday evening received in his home a yeshiva student who had just been released from military prison after refusing to enlist in the IDF.
During the meeting, Rabbi Maya revealed his personal involvement following the recent wave of arrests of draft-dodging yeshiva students.
“From the moment they arrested the first boy and put him in prison, I haven’t slept,” he told the young man who came to visit him.
Attempting to lift the student's spirits, he added: “The more you immerse yourself in learning, in the depth of the Talmud, the more you will forget all these troubles and everything you went through there.”
Describing the conditions of his imprisonment, the yeshiva student said, “I slept on a small mattress with bugs, itching all day, twenty boys in one cell.”
Rabbi Maya stressed, “Unfortunately, this is a harsh decree from Above. We must strengthen ourselves in Torah study and plead with G-d to remove this harsh decree. You, the holy yeshiva students, were chosen to sanctify Heaven’s name.”