Sephardic Chief Rabbi describes secular resistance to traditional Judaism as coming from “jealousy…which becomes hatred.”
By World Israel News Staff
Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef said that secular Jews’ brains are dumbed down due to the consumption of a non-Kosher diet, among other critical remarks aimed at Jews who are not religiously observant.
“A person who eats non-kosher food, his brain gets stupid, he can’t understand things, doesn’t get it. As soon as he starts keeping kosher, you can start to influence him,” Yosef said, in a clip of a sermon he gave last week that was recently published to his official social media channels.
Referring to the clashes in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur, in which militantly secular activists physically and verbally harassed Jewish worshippers engaged in Orthodox prayer, Yosef said that the resistance to public displays of traditional Judaism stemmed from envy.
Secular Jews who are anti-religion are “jealous of [Haredi Jews], it’s all jealousy… It all comes from jealousy and becomes hatred,” the rabbi said.
Israel’s top Sephardic rabbi also noted what he said was a lack of values and purpose in the secular sphere.
“I am in the rabbinical court, receiving cases and seeing what’s happening in the secular community. [Non-religious Jews are] suffering. They don’t find fulfillment in life. Everything is done for worldly desires,” he continued.
“It’s unbelievable, but we need to bring them closer. What some organizations are thankfully doing — bringing them closer and returning them to [religious observance],” he added.
Yosef’s comments come on the heels of increasing tensions between religious and secular Jews, which recently came to a head on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar. In unprecedented scenes, secular demonstrators violently disrupted prayers.
Ultra-Orthodox MK Moshe Gafni recently said that the clashes proved that Israel is currently embroiled in a “religious war,” aimed at stripping traditional Judaism from the public sphere.
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