Modern Zealots and the Covenant of Peace

Can the same be said for the self-styled kanaim of our times? Has HaKadosh Baruch Hu announced a bris shalom with them? Or do they possess some kind of magical formula that can cleanse their hearts of the stains left by their violence? What about the zealot in Bnei Brak who decided to fight for tznius by hurling a burnt-out light bulb plucked from a nearby garbage bin at a pair of women who stood talking on the street? One of the women was not dressed in accordance with the laws of modesty; the other was a chareidi woman with a baby carriage in tow. The shattered glass fell on the baby who was certainly innocent of wrongdoing. Was this zealous tznius-fighter’s heart free of impure motives of anger or other bad midos? Yet he saw himself as a Pinchas fighting G-dly battles.

The first time I wrote about the light bulb incident which I had heard about from an eye-witness on the street I was rewarded with a barrage of angry phone calls from people who couldn’t forgive me for robbing that man of his zealot’s halo and promised to settle accounts with me.

During my tenure at Yated Neeman where I served as founding editor and continued several years after I once asked Rav Shach ztz”l what approach to take in writing about the demonstrations that were taking place in Yerushalayim every Shabbos on Bar Ilan Street and on the Ramot road which typically featured stone-throwing at passing cars. Rav Shach’s answer to me quoted from memory was “It’s quite possible that the real mechallelei Shabbos here are the demonstrators. First of all throwing stones is absolutely assur in and of itself in addition to the risk of killing someone. But aside from the stone-throwing they’re causing Shabbos desecration through the demonstrations. Instead they could vote in the municipal elections and shift the balance of power in the local government. With a religious majority a lot of this chillul Shabbos could be prevented. But they won’t listen to us…”

While I was speaking with Rav Shach I took the opportunity to tell him about a Yerushalmi Jew who was living in Ezras Torah which borders on the Ramot road the scene of those weekly demonstrations. One Shabbos when the atmosphere was heating up a sudden intuition made him cross the road and stand among the non-religious Jews who were looking on from the opposite side. Noticing one particular car that had just been hit by a large stone he memorized its license-plate number. On Sunday morning he called the licensing bureau and asked for the name and address of the car’s owner. He received the information and headed straight for the man’s house in Ramot. He knocked on the door and the child who came to open it called out to his father “Abba! There’s some religious guy at the door.”