Amid recent enforcement measures by law enforcement authorities and the IDF's Military Police against haredi draft evaders, Rabbi Moshe Sternbuch, the 97-year-old head of the Eidah Haharedit rabbinical court, published two unusually forceful letters.
In the letters, published on Wednesday morning, Rabbi Sternbuch sharply attacks State institutions and compares the authorities to what he describes as the greatest enemy the Jewish people have faced throughout history.
In one letter, sent to a mass protest rally held in Jerusalem, Rabbi Sternbuch described the current enforcement campaign as "severe persecution" and launched a direct attack on the government and the military.
"There is not a day whose curse is not greater than the previous one, and the wicked authorities continue in their evil by seeking to change and corrupt the community of those who fear God," he wrote, referring directly to the 48 yeshiva students currently being held in military prison. "They are imprisoning the precious sons of Zion behind bars, and they are even brutally beating those who go out to protest on their behalf."
In a second, even more strongly-worded letter addressed to thousands of yeshiva students in Israel and abroad, Rabbi Sternbuch directly linked efforts to draft haredim into the military with the biblical commandment to wage war against Amalek, the archetypal enemy of the Jewish people in Jewish tradition..
"When the sword of the wicked has been raised against the halls of Torah and the yeshivas in the Holy Land, out of a desire to uproot us and sever us from Torah study," the rabbi wrote to his followers, "the strength of the persecutors of Torah, who are of the 'erev rav' (mixed multitudes -ed.) and from the side of Amalek, will be weakened."
However, in contrast to the confrontational street demonstrations seen in recent weeks, Rabbi Sternbuch urged a very different response to the state's actions - an internal spiritual struggle.
According to Rabbi Sternbuch, the way to weaken the State's authorities and overturn what he called the "decree of conscription" is not through violence, but by increasing the number of hours devoted to uninterrupted Torah study in yeshivas.