Rav Aviner was asked about the status of people who "harass" the Rabbanut and work to its demise. Rav Aviner's response was that it is very serious, and he quoted Rav Shapira who said such people have the din of a rodef.
While personally I am [relatively] confident Rav Aviner was employing hyperbole in his answer and did not actually mean such people should be killed, as is the common understanding people get when the term rodef is used, I do think it behooves our leaders, both rabbinic and otherwise, to tone down the level of speech.
The term rodef is highly charged nowadays and we need to take extra care to not give people an excuse to act, especially in the name of the Torah, in a violent manner.
And really? Is a person really a rodef every time he does something you don't like? Have we not overused the rodef title by a lot?
And nothing to do specifically with Rav Aviner, as I have wondered about this in the past, if you use the term and call someone a "rodef" when he isn't one, using hyperbole or whatever, does that person then become a nirdaf and the speaker become the rodef?
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