Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, a leading Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox figure and member of the Council of Torah Sages, issued an unusual letter to tens of thousands of yeshiva students and kollel scholars in Israel before leaving overnight for an emergency fundraising trip to the United States. In the letter, presented as a call to urgent action, he links a spiritual response to the community’s political and legal troubles, especially disputes over military conscription and state funding for yeshivas.
Hirsch called on every scholar to adopt from now until after the Tishrei holidays, the “Days of Judgment,” a daily “fast of speech” for the first half-hour of morning study. During that time, he said, there should be no phone use and no casual conversation. “It is very difficult, and because it is difficult and involves self-sacrifice, it will bring great sanctification of God’s name,” he wrote.
He also directly attacked the legal establishment, referring to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and the Supreme Court justices, and said that without special divine help “there will be no possibility of winning against those who are fighting us.” He asked heads of kollels across the country to hold explanatory talks and encourage scholars to join the initiative.
The letter comes after a tense meeting over the weekend with dozens of kollels’ leaders, as preparations continue for the final stage of the “Torah World Fund,” the alternative fundraising framework set up by the ultra-Orthodox after government funding was cut. Institutional leaders thanked Hirsch for efforts to raise hundreds of millions of dollars abroad to keep the institutions afloat and “stand against the decrees.”
