Rabbi Ovadia Yosef: To disrespect women is to desecrate God

Shas spiritual leader lashes out against ultra-Orthodox sect whose practices are seen as demeaning to women • Revered rabbi instructs followers to oppose Tzohar Law, which Shas views as a threat to the rabbinate's authority over marriages in Israel.
Yehuda Shlezinger and Israel Hayom Staff

The spiritual leader of the influential ultra-Orthodox Shas party, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, broke his silence on Thursday over the recent media storm surrounding practices by some ultra-Orthodox sects seen as demeaning to women. "They are desecrating the name of God in public," Ovadia said.

In a letter published in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper Yom Leyom on Thursday, Yosef spoke against the members of an extremist religious sect in Beit Shemesh, whose acts of violence toward women and their subsequent riots have been heavily documented by the media in recent weeks. He accused them of "making Israel's Torah stink with deeds that mustn't be done, without considering the consequences of their actions" and declared that "our sages aren't pleased with them."

Yosef added that he could no longer keep quiet in the face of such public humiliation, saying, "This is not the way of our sacred Torah. As our rabbis taught us, it is better for a man to throw himself into the fire than to humiliate someone in public." He added that even repentance on Yom Kippur would not atone for these deeds.

He quoted the sage Maimonides, who said, "Every man must love his wife as he loves himself, and respect her more than he respects himself, and speak to her calmly, respectfully and politely," and, “A woman must respect her husband very carefully, he must be as an important minister in her eyes."

At the conclusion of the letter, Ovadia warned the Israeli public not to use these incidents to attack the religious public as a whole, saying, "Anyone who carries the name Israel must refrain from taking advantage of this difficult time to incite, inflame, and instill contention within our people."

"I ask of my brother, don't hurt, humiliate or disgrace the sanctity of the Torah and of Judaism ... we must respect one another and bring the people closer to God in heaven. Let us all seek truth and peace," he concluded.

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