Shlomo Goren

As the famous joke goes, that the first Rav of the Medina, the first Rav Rashi, was a Kayin, the second was a Levi, the third was a Yisrael, and the fourth was a Matar Mamzerim.

Afterwards, they generally tried to get people who weren't so big, Rabbi Goren was a tremendous, phenomenal tamachacham.

The one afterwards was also very big, from Kana Shapiro.

He was a tamachacham, a very big tamachacham.

And so he, this Bachar, didn't have anything to do after the rest of the day.

He went to the, he went to the, to the beach.

Uh, Rabbi Goren had the Shulchan Aruch with it, the kiss of Shulchan Aruch, and he finished the whole thing.

And he was such a masmed.

Let me give you an example.

Um, Shlomo Goren, Rav Shlomo Goren, you know what I'm talking about? So, Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the first chief rabbi of the army.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

You know, I've shared this story many times before, that Mota Gur, who was the commander of the paratroopers at the time, he ordered a, an Israeli flag to be put up on the Dome of the Rock.

And Sh- Rav Shlomo Goren, who was the rabbi of the IDF, immediately started plans to build a synagogue on the Temple Mount and start prayers.

And that was all quashed, uh, because they, they didn't want it, right? They, they-- It was, it was easier to just give it away, you know? Moshe Dayan said, "No, we can't do this.

We're gonna light the Middle East on fire.

There were exceptions, of course.

Rabbi Shlomo Goren was not yet Israel's Ashkenazi chief rabbi when he blew the shofar at the Western Wall in June of 1967.

After he was appointed to the position in 1972, he advocated for opening parts of the Temple Mount to Jewish worship.

Though the Chief Rabbinate Council declined to change the status quo, Rabbi Goren didn't give up on the cause.

For every rabbi or thinker I mention, there are a dozen more who shaped the story and didn't make the cut, not because they don't matter, but because I had to make brutal choices in this episode.

Take Rabbi Shlomo Goren, for example.

He shows up later blowing the shofar at the Western Wall in 1967, and again for his writings on the Temple Mount.

But he was also the IDF's first chief rabbi, and one of the great Halakhic, meaning Jewish legal, minds of the movement.

Many were secular.

Some probably would've said they didn't believe in God at all.

And yet, with their hands pressed against the ancient stones, they wept, hugged the wall close, and kissed its face as the army's chief rabbi, Shlomo Goren, blew the shofar, the ram's horn, the instrument you hear on Rosh Hashanah, that is said to open the gates of prayer.

Its blast split the sky with the force of revelation, of redemption.

For every rabbi or thinker I mention, there are a dozen more who shaped the story and didn't make the cut, not because they don't matter, but because I had to make brutal choices in this episode.

Take Rabbi Shlomo Goren, for example.

He shows up later blowing the shofar at the Western Wall in 1967, and again for his writings on the Temple Mount.

But he was also the IDF's first chief rabbi and one of the great Halakhic, meaning Jewish legal, minds of the movement.

Many were secular.

Some probably would have said they didn't believe in God at all.

And yet, with their hands pressed against the ancient stones, they wept, hugged the wall close, and kissed its face as the army's chief rabbi, Shlomo Goren, blew the shofar, the ram's horn, the instrument you hear on Rosh Hashanah, that is said to open the gates of prayer.

Its blast split the sky with the force of revelation, of redemption.