Shlomo Goren

Goren was born in Zambrów, Poland to Abraham and Haya Tzipora Goronczik. The family immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine in 1925. The family was among the founders of Kfar Hasidim, a village of religious Jews near Haifa where Goren grew up.[2]

As a young boy he was sent to Jerusalem to study at the Etz Chaim yeshiva. Later he became the youngest student to enter the prestigious Hebron yeshiva in Jerusalem at age 12, where he was identified as a prodigy. His first book, dealing with Temple sacrifices, was published when he was 17 years old.[3] He received rabbinic ordination at age 17.[2]

Goren studied philosophy, mathematics and classics at the Hebrew University from 1940 until 1944.[2]

Goren on left, saluting, at the grave of Uri Ilan (1955)

Goren's career was characterized by a commitment to the Religious Zionist values of his youth. He volunteered for the Haganah in 1936, and served as a chaplain for the Jerusalem area during the 1948 War of Independence, during which he tested for and qualified as an IDF paratrooper. Goren was a Chaplain of the Carmeli Brigade during the war. Immediately after the War of Independence, he engaged, often at great personal risk, in the collecting of the bodies and giving proper burial to soldiers whose remains had been left in the field. He strongly opposed the idea of separate religious and secular units and worked for the integration of all soldiers in united army units. He was the most prominent halakhist involved in rulings for religious soldiers regarding their army service. Goren was eventually promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General.

Following the establishment of the State of Israel, Goren was appointed Chief Rabbi of the Military Rabbinate of the IDF with the rank of Major-General, a position he held until 1968. Rabbi Goren used the opportunity to help establish and organize the military chaplaincy's framework, streamlining processes to get soldiers accommodations for kosher food and prayer services. Goren personally wrote a new prayerbook to accommodate the different prayer styles used by various ethnic groups serving in the army.

Goren also served in the 1956 Suez Crisis and the 1967 Six-Day War, where he was promoted to a full General. Goren was on hand during the conquest of East Jerusalem on 7 June 1967, where he gave a prayer of thanksgiving broadcast live to the entire country. Shortly afterward Goren, blowing a shofar and carrying a Torah scroll, held the first Jewish prayer session at the Western Wall since 1948. The event was one of the defining moments of the war, and several photographs of Goren, surrounded by soldiers in prayer, have since become famous around the world and particularly in Israel. The most famous photograph shows Goren blowing the shofar against the background of the Western Wall.[4]

A poster signed by prominent rabbis exhorting people to not to rely on Goren's halakhic rulings (1972)

Goren attracted many admirers through his passion for Religious Zionism and his combining Zionist activism with a commitment to Judaism and Jewish scholarship. However, his uncompromising personality later resulted in him becoming a polarizing and controversial figure in Israeli politics. Goren called the vehement attacks on him a "moral and religious scandal."[5]

Halakha

Goren spent most of his term as Chief Rabbi of Israel attempting to reconcile Jewish religious teachings with modern problems of the state, including advancements in technological progress and various high-profile conversion cases. Goren often clashed with his more conservative rabbinical colleagues.[6]

One example of Goren's desire to adapt Halakha to changing realities in science was his controversial stance on Kiddush Levana, the monthly blessing over the new moon. A prayer customarily added after the blessing contains the words "just as I dance before you and am unable to touch you." Goren said that since the Americans landed on the moon in 1969, this line should be changed to reflect that it is, in fact, possible to touch the moon.[7]

Goren visiting a soldier in the Hospital, 1969

Goren was a manager of Kollel, where he met and educated Rabbi Joel Landau. Landau helped him in managing the Kollel.[20]

Following his term as Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, he founded the Idra Yeshiva near the Western Wall, which he headed until his passing.[21]

• Goren's first work was on the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, published at age seventeen.[22]
• Sha'arei Taharah on Tractate Mikva'ot, a study of the laws concerning ritual baths (mikva'ot), published at the age of twenty-one.[22] It received an "enthusiastic approbatio" from Rabbi Isser Zalman Meltzer, who had been his rebbe.[23]
• A number of responsa regarding the application of Jewish Law in a modern army[22]
• With Might and Strength: An Autobiography, an (auto)biography redacted by Avi Rath based on his interviews with Goren (2013 in Hebrew, 2016 in English)

Goren was a strict vegetarian after he visited a slaughterhouse in Canada in 1967 to perform an inspection of kashrut.[24][25]

• In 1961, Goren was awarded the Israel Prize in Rabbinical literature.[26]

Goren was married to Tzfia Cohen, the daughter of prominent Religious Zionist Rabbi David Cohen, the Nazir of Jerusalem, and the sister of Rabbi She'ar Yashuv Cohen, former deputy-mayor of Jerusalem and later Chief Rabbi of Haifa. Both Goren's father-in-law and brother-in-law were also prominent rabbinical vegetarians.[25]

Rabbi Goren and Tzfia Goren had three children: retired justice Tchiya Shapiro;[27] psychologist Drorit Tamari;[1] and Abraham (Rami) Goren, executive vice president of Elbit Imaging.[28]

• "Human life is undoubtedly a supreme value in Judaism, as expressed both in the Halacha and the prophetic ethic. This refers not only to Jews, but to all men created in the image of God."[29]
• "It is clear that according to Halacha (Jewish religious law), a soldier who receives an order that runs contrary to Torah law should uphold the Halacha, and not the secular order. And since settling the land is a commandment, and uprooting the settlements is breaking the commandment, the soldier should not carry out an order to uproot settlements. This government does not lean on a majority of Jewish support, but rather on Arab votes. According to the Halacha it does not have the authority of a majority, and therefore government directives to uproot the settlements do not have the authority of the majority of the people."[30] (NRP newspaper Hatzofeh, 19 December 1993.)

• The Crown of Holiness, an interpretation and commentary on Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, 1934.
• Sha’rei Taharah, a study on the laws of niddah, 1940.
• Ha-Yerushalmi ha-Meforash, commentary on the Jerusalem Talmud, 1961. Recipient of the Israel Prize for Jewish Scholarship.

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• Jewish vegetarianism

• Jewish Ideas Daily: The Warrior Rabbi
• Shlomo Goren
• Jsource Biography
• OU Biography
• Rabbinic Teachings on Vegetarianism, edited by Richard Schwartz, Ph.D., from the Jewish Virtual Library
• Goren Biography from Western Wall Heritage Society Newsletter
• Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, 'Rabbi Goren and the Temple Mount' on Arutz Sheva.
• Gorenberg, Gershom. End of Days : Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. Free Press, 2000. ISBN 0-684-87179-3
• Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet (30 October 1994). "Words on the passing of Shlomo Goren and how Israeli society perceived him, first 35 minutes of lecture on 1994-10-30". YUTorah.org. Retrieved 31 January 2010.