Here is the drasha that caused the stir. Rav Ovadia Yosef has an accent that is very hard to understand, but I can follow a lot of it. The "controversial" starts at around minute 51 in the video (it is altogether an hour and 13 minutes long), and he talks about it for a couple of minutes.
BTW, for those who are explaining his words to be referring back to biblical times (i.e. soldiers then who were irreligious would die, not nowadays) are wrong because he is clearly talking about nowadays, and he even sighs and makes it clear how it disturbs him that that is the situation and how he wishes everyone would do tshuva and pray and keep mitzvos, etc (in the 53rd minute)...
Some are talking about his hatred for the secular, and the like. I do not hear that in his speech. He is not talking fire and brimstone and giving rebuke. I hear how it disturbs him and he wishes it to be a better situation. I just do not understand what he is saying because of the questions I have that I posted yesterday.
Here is my two cents. Maybe he put a foot in his mouth but I have attended enough strange shiurim by Ashkenazi rabbis to realize that anyone can make mistakes and blurt out things which are not so kosher. One time this famous ashkenazi Rav came to our seminary and he said the shiur is for "white" and "Russian" people only. (Not to mention how angry I got at this guy cause we non-white and non Russian Jews who came to this shiur). He never apologized but the rabbi who invited him did.
ReplyDeleteI mean put his foot in his mouth not "a". Sorry.
ReplyDeleteit can happen to anybody. and probably most of the time they do not even realize they did something wrong. a small shiur is one thing. this is a shiur broadcast all over the world and has raised quite a s**tstorm. He has to be aware of how hurtful his words are, even if at the time it was a mistake and he did not realize.
ReplyDelete"Rav Ovadia Yosef has an accent that is very hard to understand"
ReplyDeleteThat`s what we call hebrew.
Funny, people usually think that the way the jews from europe with that weird idish/germanic accent is hard to understand...
I should say hard for me to understand
ReplyDelete