Cross-Currents by Rav Yitzchok Adlerstein
Whoever the “Letters” editor of Hamodia may be, I prefer to think
that he/she is more clever than obtuse. It is the only way I could
understand the reaction to a reader other than wimpy silliness.
The reader took offense at some reference in the paper’s coverage of
the passing of Ariel Sharon. Apparently, the article’s author lost all
of his religious bearings, and made reference to the former Prime
Minister as z”l – of blessed memory.
What could this author have been thinking? We know that Sharon made no pretense of halachic observance. If he was not frum, there should be no reason why we should find any berachah
in his remembrance at all! Therefore, the reader took Hamodia to task:
“Even though the writer attempts to describe him as a very proud Jew, it
seems to be quite irrelevant when the proud one is actually not
practicing what he’s proud of. Hamodia, being an orthodox paper with
Torah values should of (sic) not honoured an unorthodox person with this
title.”
The reader has a point. When Sharon ignored orders and led his troops
across the Suez Canal within striking distance of Cairo, thereby
singlehandedly turning the course of the Yom Kippur War back in favor of
Israel, he could not have been acting as a proud Jew. Chances are, he
was just in the mood for some treif pizza, and Cairo seemed like a good place to pick it up.
When he saved the life of a young soldier whom others had given up as
too seriously wounded to warrant further care, there could not have
been any Jewish pride in that. Probably, he wasn’t thinking at all,
which we know to be the way all non-observant Jews live their silly and
useless lives. (The soldier later became a rav and a leader of
the settler movement. It may have been R. Yoel ben Nun, who took strong
issue with Sharon in later years, but remained grateful to him for
saving his life. Our audience can corroborate or correct this.) ....
As for me, I will continue to find blessing in the memory of even the poshei Yisrael of a previous generation who devoted their lives to creating the Jewish State.
Technically, I think that the "T" in ZT"L is somewhat superfluous, as the Mishna in Yoma states Zecher Tzaddik Livracha. Meaning that when we say zichrono livracha on someone, it automatically means that he was an upstanding Jew. I assume that Ariel Sharon's Jewish pride will earn him some reward in the next world, but I don't know how someone could consider a mechalel Shabbos ochel neveilos utereifos as an upstanding Jew to accord him with even the "zichrono livracha." Sorry.
ReplyDeletePerhaps when you have saved as many Jewish lives as Sharon did in his heyday you can sit in judgement of him.
DeleteAll I could muster to comment on this article is UGH! I will continue to remember the poshei yisrael of the previous generation that successfully shmad 3/4 of the yidden in Eretz Yisroel sr"y. The only reason they made a state was to destroy klal yisroel and make them kchol hagoyim bais yisroel c''v. And this state that they gave us has raised the wrath of the whole world against us Yidden and you remember them l'tova? For what?
ReplyDelete"successfully shmad 3/4 of the yidden in Eretz Yisroel" - really? The shmad you are referring to tookplace in Europe, where the Reform, enlightenment, communism and other secularist movements began. Or perhaps you have an Orwellian use of the word shmad, where you consider the Holocaust to have been the highest spiritual point of israel since the Hurban, and the return of Jews o Eretz Yisroel as being the lowest.
DeleteEddie, maybe you forgot about the hundreds of thousands of Moroccan and Yemenite immigrants.
Deletenat- considering that there were altogether only hundreds of thousands of immigrants from those countries, mainly Morroco. They have become larger by natural growth, but 50-60 years ago there were not millions of these Sephardic jews. Nor, were Sephardic Jews all super-frum before the state of Israel. They were like they are now, mixed communities. I know, since I am one of them, and I know what the communities were like in the old country.
DeleteThe descendants of these Sephardi Jews are more traditional than the Ashkenazi Israelis. Also, you can take an evolutionary look at it. the Morrocan Jews in france, or sephardi jews in Europe , America - are perhaps less traditional than their cousins in Israel. So if anything, Israel has been good for the Olim.
Now there were some cases of Yemenite children going missing. That is not necessarily a religious shmad, but just a general form of oppression, and carried out by Ashkenazim like Peres and Golda Meir, who learned in the secular yeshivas of the Europe that their haredi cousins perverted into the new Jerusalem. however, there is another possibility.
R' Yachya Kapach ztl was a fierce critic of the Zohar and Kabbalah. As a revenge for this, the ultra haredi yemenite Jews who dressed very much like Hassidim, murdered his son, R' David Kapach ztl and attempted to murder the grandson spiritually by handing him to the muslims as an orphan to be raised in Islam. Get this clear. the "orthodox" hareidi yemenites murdered a Gadol b'Torah, and were moiser his son, R' Yoseph Kapach ztl to be raised as a Muslim. The crime was to have studied rambam and reject mysticism, as Rambam had done. The same haredi community who perpetrated this, had their own children handed over to the seculars. this is surely midda kneged mida. Just like the French rabbis who burned the books of Rambam suffered when the French burned the Talmud; so the Yemenites who were mosier a jewish child to the muslims suffered when their own children were taken by the chilonim.
I fully believe that the Zionists today would not bat an eyelash to sacrifice the whole American Jewry including you if it meant the continued existence of their Zionist state. If you deny this fact you are a fool. They are only using the American Zionists as useful idiots to further their goals. The Zionists only care about their own political and ideological existence and all the wars they fought were not to save yidden but to save their own skin. I further believe that before Moshiach comes this ultimate truth will bear out for all to see and no one including you will be able to fool themselves any longer that the Zionist movement had anything to do with the Tzad hakedusha.
Deleteeddie, not really clear on what your point is. First of all, I am one of them too. Do you deny that many thousands of immigrants had their children basically wrested away from them and made non religious? I personally was told a story by a relative of an immigrant who was forced, with three hundred others to take mixed showers as a child in the maabarot. And I never said millions, I said hundreds of thousands. I don't really know whom you are defending and why you are choosing to defend them.
DeleteThis is formulated like an article of faith. But it is also faith in the absurd. And one of arrogance and small mindedness.
Deletea) The "Zionists" are not one single group of people, nor do they share a single ideology or set of beliefs or even religious comitment.
b) The Muslim extremists and their mamzer brethren the neo-nazis have used the term "zionist" as an anti-semitic stereotype. It has all the same charateristics as the protocols of the Elders of Zion. Before Haredi anti-zionism was created (by Satan), I am not aware of any Jew, at least religious, who accepted the Protocols as being true. However, since the advent of false religions such as satmar, neturei karta etc, they are now officially buying into the new anti-semitism, as was seen when NK shluchim went to tehran and sat with David Duke and other nazis and holocaust deniers.
3) Every sheker has a small element of truth in it, in order to make it acceptable. It is true that just like any other nation which has armies, security forces etc, so israel has these military forces, and they do on occasion commit murder or assassinations. An example is JFK. Rabin, according to many theories, was actually killed by his own bodyguards, and not by Amir.
4) American Zionists, just like Zionists elsewhere, and non zionists, do tend to move to israel later on in their lives. A good example is the Jews of france, who are now leaving because of anti-semitism. many are moving to Israel, B'H.
5) Rav Kook was very close to the Leshem - who was RYSE's grandfather. He encouraged the Leshem to move to Israel. Even prior to the current Zionist movement, there was a Hibbat Zion movement, and the talmidim of the Gra moved to Israel. Even if Kol HaTor is not a genuine book of the GRA, he certainly was in favour of moving to Israel.
How exactly can the Israeli government sacrifice American Jewry? On the contrary. The assimilation rate of over 50% is causing losses of numbners. Thus Tony (Bernie Schwarz) Curtis had non jewish wives, and his daughters are not halachcially Jewish. same goes with Kirk Douglas etc, and many millions of non-famous Jews. In Israel the inter-marriage rate is obviously lower. And the birthrate is higher.
Your comment about wars - again, there is a kernel of truth to waht you say, but in the bigger picture you are wrong. ctd...
@Normalizer
DeleteThe wars that Israel fought were largely defensive. there was a shmad attempted in 1947/8 when the arab armies tried push the jews into the sea.
In 1956, the Suez campaign was not a defensive war, but a military adventure of the Israelis with the brits and French. so on this i woudl agree.
In 1967, there was a threat of war, and teh confrontation states were surrounding Israel so the war was defensive.
1973 - again some truth to the story. The official history is that Egypt and Syria attacked, and Israel messed up on its intelligence. the aspect where i would agree with you is that the secular Zionists like Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, were actually doing the opposite of what u say. Namely, they sacrificed their own Israelis in order to gain favour with America, and Henry Kissinger. while that is the opposite thesis, it is equally evidence that in the secular Zionist branch, there are reshaim gamurrim, like Moshe Dayan. Dayan - according to some research and eyewitness testimonies, agreed a plan with Kissinger, which would allow Egypt to attack, to give them an incentive to make peace later on. So he sacrificed Israeli lives , to placate Kissinger. The issue is not whether the war could have been avoided, they may still have attacked. But Meir was also an evil person who did not follow torah and did not attack according to Hilchot Rodef.
Now it was Arik Sharon, who turned this war around and helped break the Egyptian back, and did save many lives of Israelis.
But the most controversial is the 1982 war in lebanon - which was Sharon basically hijacking the army and using it as his own tool. The problem is this is not Zionism, but it is a breakdown in government. Begin was also to blame.
But you are conflating 2 separate issues. One is the concept of zionism and a Jewish army. The other is the intelligence and foresight of the leadership - both political and military.
if i can give an example - the Iraq war by Bush and Blair, was a total disaster. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, and the American losses for that war was greater than what was lost on 9/11. Today the country is worse off than it was before. But that doesnt mean that America itself is a bad idea, or that Uk is not a democracy. It means leaders make decisions, and they are not always good decisions. To say that because israeli leaders made bad or corrupt decisions, then israel itself should be disbanded is a ridiculous argument.
While I might agree that I am conflating the two issues I would also argue that you are splitting hairs. You are taking every war and trying to dissect the motives of the Zionist leaders to see if there is a leshma in their actions or not. I believe that even if they are ostensibly doing something that was seemingly beneficial for klal Yisroel their real purpose was self aggrandizement. מֵרְשָׁעִים יֵצֵא רֶשַׁע The benefit of Klal Yisroel is never part of the discussion. Do you really think that the Zionists "care" about what happens to the Jews in America or any other country? Their worshipping of the Americans has nothing to do with caring for American Jews but rather love of its culture.
DeleteThe so called "Jewish Army" cannot protect us. Because if the whole world rises up against Israel they have no chance. The Zionist army is protecting the state while also dousing the flames of hatred. The amount of hate that the Zionists generate (I am not arguing that this hate is justified) is truly frightening and we must now more then ever pray for Hashem's salvation.
Since we were exiled we never ever saved by physical power. We survived solely by the grace of Hashem. Anytime we believe that a so called Jewish army will save us we are koifer in the gezira of Galus and koifer in Moshiach.
Growing up I rooted strongly for the Zionists since its natural to root for your "team". They seemingly representing us and protect us. It was only after I grew up and started reading what our Gedolim said about them and how they turned a blind eye to our brethren suffering in Europe during the war to achieve their goals did I realize that they do not represent me in any way. A great majority of the Gedolim in the previous and current generation opposed them in every way shape or form and believed they were perpetuating a great evil.
Thanks for your reply, but i am not splitting hairs, i am trying to be reasonably balanced and objective rather than jut arguing ideology, as you are. It is clear you have been brainwashed by the yeshivas you have attended or shiurim you have heard.
DeleteYou arguments seem to be totally unreal, and not based on evidence but on what your crazed rebbes have told you.
Let me give you an example: The situation in Syria, and the situation in Gaza. Syria should be a perfect example or sample of what Arabs /muslims will do to Israel and to Jews if they have the power. Look at the starvation, the murder. Syria is like a mini-Auschwitz.
Then look at gaza. they fire missiles, and soot, and fire bombs to kill Jews.
Israel responds in various ways - by shooting back to deter them. By technology, which means engineers and scientists who went to -yes universities, and studied limmudei chol, and then developed defensive systems, such as iron dome, which can knock out a high proportion of incoming missiles. becasue you ahve been brainwashed in your Scientology yeshiva, you think that - secualr studies are evil, becasue someoen like r Dessler or R Shach said so. Apart from the fact that R Shach had a University trained personal doctor for all his ailments, these statements are nonsensical, an they take away several degrees of respect for those who make them. So the defensive systems are all evil, becasue they were designed by Scientists. unfortunately , the Chazon Ish was not able to repeat his miracle of telling a brain surgeon how to operate, on the battlefield.
next, the idea of "benefit" to klal Yisroel is not the exclusive domain of hareidi rebbes.. Their wartime record is proof of this. Since this has been discussed many times here, i will not repeat it. But even their protection of child molesters for example, is not of "benefit" to Israel. I will continune on my next post.
@ Ab-Normalizer: "The so called "Jewish Army" cannot protect us. Because if the whole world rises up against Israel they have no chance. The Zionist army is protecting the state while also dousing the flames of hatred. The amount of hate that the Zionists generate (I am not arguing that this hate is justified) is truly frightening and we must now more then ever pray for Hashem's salvation. "
DeleteThe Talmud says that whatever jews do, the goyim will find reason to hate them. It is the satmar who are in denial of Torah, and of history, when they claim that all anti-semitism is because of israel. Have you forgotten the pogroms?
You statements are totally weird. We were never saved by physical power? Oh, so the British Army, and US forces, and the Soviet army who crushed the Nazi regime, destroyed their army, and bombed the hell out of their cities, did not save the remnants of the Jews of Europe, and of course the parts of the world that the Germans didnt yet conquer? You must be totally nuts!
It is true that there were miracles in the time of neviim - but we still had to fight wars. A more ineresting question - is why did the Sadducee-Maccabees defeat the Greeks but the Pharisee Bar Kochba was crushed by the romans? Alas, that is a separate discussion.
the other thing you ignore, is that the victories of the Israeli army have been guided by Hashem. since this is impossible for you to even consider, since it would be heresy to you and your ilk, you make absurd claims that Jewish army cannot defend Jews.
Jewish army is not koifer Moshiach. Moshiach hasnt come yet. hilchot Rodef still apply. if you deny hilchot rodef, then you are a koifer on the torah itself,.
Now, there are several contradicting claims on the Zionists and Europe.
Some gedolim said it is better to die in Europe than to go to israel, or America, eg to study in YU or Tora Vodass. Then Weissmandl claims that the small zionsit entity which was figting the british and the Arabs, could have saved all of the Jew of europe by givng 20,000 trucks to the Germans. Even the great british Empire didnt have 20,000 trucks in the whole of 2Palestine". how would the Yishuv produce these?
Nat - not denying the figures of thousands, But hundreds of thousands is impossible, since there were not that many immigrants - so it would mean they all lost their children. So are all of the sephardim today adopted with rich ashkenazi parents? So obviously your exaggeration is absurd.
DeleteWho Really cares. The dudes dead.
ReplyDeleteThat's almost exactly what Hillary Clinton said about the murdered ambassador in Benghazi.
DeleteAdlerstein is a zionist, so what more do you expect of him? He thinks defending zionist ideologies is a mitzvah that Jews must be thankful for.
ReplyDeleteSharon does not deserve a z"l anymore than Stephen Wise does.
It is time to finally allow Hakodosh Baruch Who to be the supreme judge of the dead and we, the living should spend our time being "Mekadash Shem Shamayim" on this planet...
DeleteZionist, Modern, Charedi, Chassidish, Apikorus, Left or Right wing, Yeshivish, Askan, YU, College-educated frum, Working Yeshivish, all stupid...dumb...insignificant labels.
Is it possible to stop playing the Almighty Judge and allow Hashem and his heavenly court to decide who and what value every individual has?
DeleteZionist, Anti-Zionist, Yeshivish, Modern, Chassidish, YU, Charedi-lite, Netrai Karta, Working Frum, Askan, Hebraist, Left or Right wing, or a Hirshean....are all nonsense labels that mean nothing and are valueless.
Let us spend time being "Mekadesh Shem Shamayim" in our own sphere of life .
I think Ben Torah is pulling our leg.
DeleteSee Softim 1: Veyiftach HaGilodi hoyo gibor chayil... koy omar Yiftach lo lokach yirael es eretz moav ve'eseretz bnei amon ki baalosom mimitsrayim ...He was a General fighting for klall Yisrael and Eretz Yisrael, and always had a sympathetic ear for the datiyim. Saval harbeh yisurim, that is memarek avonosav shel odom, we may say his memory should be a blessing.
ReplyDeleteBT, there were a lot of simialr comments from the Arabs and Palestinians when sharon passed away. Th z'l doesn't really make any difference. I doubt that in Satmar they even afford a z'l for Rav Kook, and in the MO/RZ world they do not not give a T for the Satmar Rebbe.
ReplyDeleteActually Merkaz Harav has all the Satmar Rebbe's seforim.
DeleteHaven't seen one sefer of Satmar at the yeshiva.
DeletePerhaps you are meaning the Mesillas Yeshirim, Chovos Levavos, and other sefarim on Emunah which line the bookcases.
Or the reason the yeshiva would have Satmar seforim is to REFUTE them all as a limud to others.
Deleteif he had lived in Gush Katif he wouldn't be looking to find nice things to say about this maniac.
ReplyDeleteachov did not have a chelek in olom habah. so despite the good he did shem reshoim yirkav would be appropriate
ReplyDeleteotoh
Reb Chaim Ozer, called Schmidt a secular person who to tried to save lives in holocaust Reb Shmuel .
sharon was never killed but wounded while trying to save jewish life. does that count ?
http://www.ouisrael.org/tidbits/detail/Hope-in-the-Midst-of-Despair-Guest-article-by-Rabbi-Ephraim-Sprecher-D2/
Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz zt”l, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Charedi Mirer Yeshiva in Jerusalem, referred to IDF soldiers, killed in battle, as “Harugei Lod” (the martyrs of Lod), whom the Talmud Bava Batra 10b, states that “No tzaddik can ever reach their level in Olam Haba.”
It's a very good point . in Hilchot Shabbat, rambam says a man who goes fishing on Shabbat, and saves a Jew from drowning by catching him in th net, has not broken shabbat.
Delete" Do you really think that the Zionists "care" about what happens to the Jews in America or any other country?"
ReplyDeleteYes I do. Can you back up any of your claims with real evidence or sources? Why not simply take a moderate position, and say that the Zionists are/were well-meaning but are nonetheless dead wrong?
I would humbly suggest, that all this anti-Zionist talk is irrelevant. In the late 19th century, the Besht and the Vilna Gaon called for Aliyah. Throughout the 19th century, before Herzl, many gedolim called for the development of Eretz Yisrael. Among there were the Chasam Sofer, the Beis HaLevi and the Netziv. There was a time when the majority of Zionist were Orthodox, and most of the remaining were not fervently anti-Torah. The secular Zionists showed up very late, and the radicals even later. So much of the frum world bolted from the Zionist movement and allowed Eretz Yisrael to be developed by people removed from Torah.
The ascendance of a secularist elite in Israel is the result of Orthodox indifference. And even today, most of the Charedi world has not learned their lesson. That's why they sold out Torah Jews in Gaza for a handful of shekels. That's why for the better part of a decade they refused to find a solution to the conscription issue. The old style anti-Torah Zionism is dead. (Though perhaps it's been inherited by the post-Zionists.) Even Yair Lapid saw it necessary to reach out to the Orthodox. There are plenty of secular Zionist with good will who do not want to change the liferstyle of Charedim, all they want is for the Charedi to be productive members of society.
You're fighting a battle from sixty years ago that is irrelevant now. It's also a battle that was lost because much of the Torah world wasn't interested in fighting.
Here is R' Gustman's take on non-religious soldiers http://www.aish.com/h/imd/48961346.html
ReplyDelete"Rav Gustman mobilized his yeshiva: All of his students joined him in performing the mitzvah of burying the dead. At the cemetery, Rav Gustman was agitated: He surveyed the rows of graves of the young men, soldiers who died defending the Land. On the way back from the cemetery, Rav Gustman turned to another passenger in the car and said, "They are all holy." Another passenger questioned the rabbi: "Even the non-religious soldiers?" Rav Gustman replied: "Every single one of them."
I'll take it one step further - Rav Sternbuch told me that a person who is killed because he is a Jew is considered a kadosh.
Deletewhat would happen if trotsky was killed because of his jewish perversion of communism. what would happen if he was killed because he is a jew..
Deletedo you have a source a medrash ?
Now that every Poshut Yid is HaRav HaGaon or HaRav HaTzaddik, the watered down title of Tzaddik is probably appropriate. However, I would prefer Za"L, just like I prefer Reb or Rabbi to HaRHaTZ!
ReplyDeleteMy problem with using such a title for someone who was not Torah observant is this.
ReplyDeleteThe most fundamental teaching for Jews is that our doctrine to follow, for everything in our lives, is the Torah. It is Temimah, complete, containing all that is good and lacking nothing. It is our one and only guide to know good from bad. The Torah has room for every Jew to follow it, regardless of his/her personality, so everyone uses his/her personal strengths to follow The Torah, but not to deviate from it's rules and guidelines, not even a hair - Kechut Hasaaro. The Torah is, therefore, the measuring tool for all good and bad, and to discern and differentiate between Tzadik and Rosho. If someone follows his feelings of being a descent, good or even great person, and does not follow the Torah for this, he can be measured, perhaps, by his own feelings and guidelines as a good person or even as a Tzadik, if he so defines it, but not by the guidelines of The Torah. If we muddle these waters we are left without the Torah. A person might do what he feels is good, but can not, through this, be considered good, by Jewish standards = Torah standards.
K-L,
DeleteI heard this idea several years ago, that someone who does good because he feels it is not as great as someone who is commanded to and does good.
But this is not such a logical concept. is it a gemara btw?
And it depends on what the mitzvah is. If it is keeping kashrut, then someone who is vegetarian and only eats veggies, is keeping Kosher, by default, so he is not really keeping a mitzva. Someone who doesnt engage in arayot, because he knows it is immoral, is a great person, even if he is not doing it because he didnt learn so.
End of the day, we are not judges, and we do nto judge what goes on in the next world. I amnot saying Sharon was a a Tzaddik, In many ways he was a rasha, but in some ways he had the zchut to save Israel and Jewish lives.
And even if someone is born into a yeshiva family and keeps the shulchan aruch, has he really excelled in life? Maybe someone born a criminal, and makes a positive change in his life will get a godo reward int eh next life. we do not know. Even the Neviim don't know.
Rambam (Shemona Perakim Chapter 6) says that it is entirely normal that a person should desire to sin. In fact the greater a person is the greater is his desire to sin and the greater is his upset for avoiding sin. Furthermore the degree of reward a person gets for doing a mitzva is directly related to the effort done to accomplish it. Therefore a person shouldn’t say I don’t have a desire to sin even if the Torah hadn’t prohibited it. This is the sifra that a person shouldn’t say I have no desire for meat eaten with milk, or shatnez or incest but rather I have a desire but G-d has prohibited it. However, he notes that this the desire to sin and the need to overcome that desire applies only to religious laws. In contrast that which commonsense tells you is disgusting such as theft and murder – one should not have any desire to sin at all. That’s why he says the Sifra doesn’t say “a person shouldn’t say I can’t kill or steal or lie but should say I can but G-d commanded me not to”. Instead it focuses entirely on religious rituals such as shatnez, meat and milk and eating chazir which are not dictated by commonsense.
DeleteThe Gra in Even Shleima says that a person who is born frum and makes no efforts to improve himself with go to Gehinom while a person who sins his whole life but tries very hard to stop will go to Gan Eden. Everything goes according to the effort.
Eddie,
DeleteYes it is a Gemara mentioned about 5 times in Shas גדול המצווה ועושה יותר ממי שאינו מצווה ועושה
But this discussion is not relevant to my statement. That which you and DT say, that we can't judge others, I am in complete agreement with. See Shmuel 1,16,7 and even Bais din following the rules can't always bring justice as Shemos 23,7 and Rashi there. But this means that we really don't know what is inside someone's heart, because it isn't accurately rerflected in his outward behavior in a way that we can understand. For all we know, the 'Rosho' next door could be a very special person who will have a great Chelek in olam Habo. (Maybe he is a ל"ו צדיק) and the 'Tzadik' might not be what we think. But this is not our job. We must have a standard of right and wrong for us to clearly understand and follow. All we have is the Torah and it's guidelines the way people are able to plainly understand without guesswork. If we say different, then we will make everything so vague that nothing is Ossur or Muttar or Mechuyav, because it's all subjective and all depends on x,y and z, whatever anybody 'feels' that this x,y and z are.. Maybe it's okay to eat Chazir if... So what we must know it simply this. If a person keeps the Torah, then he is a Tzadik, and vice versa.
Just to drive it home with an additional Chiddush, see the Sefer Chasidim on the desciple of Oso Ha'ish who changed Sabbath to Sunday. He writes that this person was a Tzadik, because he infiltrated in order to deter Jews from mistakenly following, but one may call him a Rosho in order that nobody follow him. So here, even when we know clearly of the person's Tzidkus, Kal Vachomer when it seems that the person genuinely transgressed on the Mitzvos, we call him a Rosho.This does not mean we are judging him, it simply means we are judging the actions and maintaining the needed clarity for keeping The torah
Sharon did not "single handedly" turn the tide of the Yom Kippur war, but did so (as you said) with his troops, who were more exposed to bodily injury and death than he was (many of the soldiers were gravely wounded).
ReplyDeleteSame thing in the Sinai Campaign, where it was his soldiers, not him, who were exposed to the greatest risk of death and grievous injury.
I have no opinion as to the the z"l, but it must be noted that his victories were accomplished through the blood of his men.