Even the Most Forcefully Pro-Voting Rabbis Valued Principled NON-VOTING!

Authored by: העורך Editor

Excerpting from the Steipler’s letters [click the various tabs on the page to navigate], bolding added:

“My humble opinion leans towards the view that it is a great mitzvah to vote for the chareidi list and that this constitutes the saving of religion . . . as for your argument that there are [Torah] prohibitions involved, I have given great consideration as to whether it is worthwhile responding because in truth, it is utterly against my wishes that the members of Neturei Karto, sheyichyu loy’t, should change their opinion. Whilst no prohibition is involved in voting, there is zeal for Hashem’s sake in their refraining from doing so.“

NOTE: I hope to provide the actual original quote soon, but this quote is largely accurate, as I recall. (Adjacent letters contain other reasons for not wanting to disagree with the Badatz, but this doesn’t take away from the above!)

UPDATE: The quote is accurate, but also more interesting in the original. I didn’t manage to bring the screenshot here, see inside page 219, §403.


Of course, needless to add, had the Steipler examined the Manifesto be’iyun, he would have gone even further… Of course. Needless to add.

My Thoughts on Public Execution

Authored by: העורך Editor

Relevant bit from an old article:

And why is “making the execution a blood-thirsty spectacle for the masses” not a hiddur mitzvah of the true Torah’s deterrence strategy: “למען ישמעו ויראו”?! Isn’t it important to preserve some fear: עבוד מיראה ועבוד מאהבה וכולי?!

By the way, although an on-the-books death penalty doesn’t deter murderers, the rate of actual, (preferably public) executions does, in fact, deter murderers (see Dr. Walter Block’s executive summary of a revolutionary, new study of the numbers).