Jewish Religion and Thought
Observant Jews pray for rain from the fall until the spring.
The ceremony in Jerusalem will be broadcast live on YouTube at 6:30 p.m. local time (11:30 a.m. E.T.), Aish HaTorah said.
“We stand strong with Israel,” Rabbi David Eliezrie from California said. Delegation delivers $500,000 in emergency aid.
Most of the men belong to the Litvak religious stream.
Avichai Brodtz, whose wife and three children were abducted and taken to Gaza, and Rabbi of the Western Wall Shmuel Rabinowitz participated.
Rabbi Hershel Schachter, one of the rosh yeshivas (deans) at Yeshiva University, wrote that an exception should be made to say prayers beseeching divine mercy on Shabbat for Israel.
Throughout Jewish history, public fasts have responded to and beseeched God for mercy at times of great pain and uncertainty.
“We are not here to analyze why. It’s not our mission. It’s not our task. It’s not our job,” said Rabbi Yosef Yeshaya Braun, a prominent Chabad rabbi. “Think good, and it will be good.”
Citing Jewish law, United Torah Judaism Knesset member Moshe Gafni called to bar the site to Jews after some 3,000 visited it in the opening days of the Sukkot holiday.
“Tel Aviv must not become a dangerous place for the traditional religious and ultra-Orthodox public,” said Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
Secular Jews “don’t find fulfillment in life,” Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said.
The decision came after secular protesters forcefully prevented Rosh Yehudi, an outreach group, from holding a gender-separate Yom Kippur service.
