Lior: Police ambushed me like KGB
Rabbi slams his arrest while author of book that led to it begins writing sequel on halacha in Gaza
Rabbi Dov Lior said Tuesday that police had "ambushed" him a day earlier "like the Bolsheviks, like the KGB".
He added that he had been shocked by his arrest, on charges of incitement. "I don't know how they knew I was planning on traveling to Jerusalem," he told a few dozen students who attended a Torah lesson at his office in Kiryat Arba.
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"They are looking for an excuse for persecution," the rabbi added. "All I did was agree with a book written by an important rabbi. I did not break the law, I just expressed an opinion."
The rabbi also advised his students not to change their opinion of the state. "Attitude towards the state has nothing to do with people's private decisions," he said.
Meanwhile the head of the Od Yosef Chai Yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzchak Shapira, said he is planning on publishing a sequel to the book endorsed by Lior, "The King's Torah".
The second book clarifies how the State of Israel should be handling the situation in Gaza according to the halacha.
He addressed the issues of religion and war, saying, "We hope we can manage to present how the practical conduct should be according to the King's Torah, such as the way the issues in Gaza are being handled today."
In his book, "The King's Torah", Shapira wrote, "When we approach a goy who has broken seven mitzvahs and we kill him because we care about carrying out seven mitzvahs – there is nothing forbidden about it."
Shapira adds that "in any event where a goy is endangering the life of Israel – it is permissible to kill him, even if he is a righteous gentile and he's not at fault for the situation."
'Torah needs no consent'
During an assembly held in the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem Monday, Rabbi Lior addressed his endorsement of the book.
"To accuse rabbis, who wrote something on Torah research, of inciting to violence and racism is a feature of a barbaric world," he said.
"Torah does not need consent," Lior noted. "We see there are attacks on scholars, things being concocted to smear their names. Divine intervention will eventually rescue them. We have wonderful youth, this will spur the young generation to ascend the tiers of the Torah."
"The development of Torah literature continues, and those writing books do not need the consent of anyone who tells them whether they can be published or not. What do scholars have to do with violence?"
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