Yehuda Amital

Yehuda Amital (

The concept of a Hesder Yeshiva is attributed to Amital. After writing an essay about the religious and moral aspects of military service, he envisaged a program for combining army service and Torah study.^[1]

In 1991, the

After the Six-Day War, he became the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, which he headed for 40 years.

Amital died on July 9 (27 Tammuz), 2010, and was laid to rest in the Har HaMenuchot cemetery in Jerusalem, where thousands attended his funeral.^[9]

Political career

In 1988, Amital founded the left-leaning religious

At the age of 80, Amital asked the management of Yeshivat Har Etzion to select his successors. The yeshiva chose rabbis Yaakov Medan and Baruch Gigi.^[12] On January 4, 2006, Medan and Gigi were officially invested as co-roshei yeshiva, alongside Amital and Aharon Lichtenstein.^[13]

On September 25, 2008, Amital announced that on the last day of Tishrei, 5769 (October 28, 2008) he would retire and Mosheh Lichtenstein, the son of Aharon Lichtenstein, would become the fourth Rosh Yeshiva.^{[citation needed]}

Relationship with Elazar Shach

Rabbi Elazar Shach had been a student of Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer in Europe and he eventually married Rav Meltzer's niece. Rav Amital married Rav Meltzer's granddaughter.^[14]

The two developed a very close relationship.^[15] When they were both teachers at Yeshivat HaDarom in Rehovot, Rav Amital and Rav Shach were known to argue constantly about Zionism, the fledgling State of Israel, and the necessity of drafting yeshiva students into the army. Despite an age gap of almost 25 years, the cousins-by-marriage would bounce ideas and bum cigarettes off of one another as they debated the pressing issues of the day.^[16]

Eventually, they went their separate ways. Rav Shach became the head of the renowned Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and the firebrand ideological and political leader of the Lithuanian charedi community. Rav Amital went on to establish Yeshivat Har Etzion, a flagship religious-Zionist institution, in Alon Shevut, and later co-founded the dovish religious-Zionist Meimad party. Years later, the two happened to meet somewhere, whereupon Rav Shach embraced Rav Amital and said: “Reb Yehuda, Reb Yehuda! We’re so far apart now that we don’t even argue!”^[16]

When Rav Shach passed away, Rav Amital told the following story. He said that a

• Jewish Values in a Changing World
  ISBN 0-88125-881-4
• Commitment and Complexity: Jewish Wisdom in an Age of Upheaval
  ISBN 1-60280-030-8
• When God is Near: On the High Holidays ISBN 9781592644377
• A World Built, Destroyed and Rebuilt, Rabbi Yehudah Amital's Confrontation with the Memory of the Holocaust
  ISBN 0-88125-864-4
• By Faith Alone: The Story of Rabbi Yehuda Amital
  ISBN 1-59264-192-X
• והארץ נתן לבני אדם - A
  Sichot he gave at Yeshivat Har Etzion
  , Tevunot Publishing, 2004.