MK Eichler (UTJ) spoke about the issue of Lag bOmer/Meron/chilul-shabbos and had something interesting to say.
Eichler doesn't agree with the accusations against the Haredi community for making the police desecrate the shabbos. According to Eichler, the police always desecrate Shabbos, so why suddenly now is it a problem?
Eichler said, "It has happened many times before that Lag bOmer came out on Motzei Shabbos - and what happened then? Every Shabbos you can go out to the street and see police desecrating the Shabbos. Anything to do with police and security is a qestion for the rabbonim to decide what to do on Shabbos. No policeman who wants to keep Shabbos will have to desecrate it. It is demagoguery and hypocrisy at a level we have not seen in a long time.. are there no policemen at the Kotel on Shavuos? Suddenly the police keep Shabbos?"
Interesting how when official State bodies don't keep shabbos he gets upset, but when they want to he dismisses them.
And the issue is not that the police want to keep Shabbos. The police will do whatever they need to do to secure any event, especially an event so massive like the bonfires in Meron. If it requires chilul shabbos, they will be mechalel shabbos. The police aren't demanding the right to keep Shabbos. The public is raising the outcry how the Haredi community, a community that holds Shabbos so dearly and is regularly upset around the country when chilul shabbos happens, can be the cause of chilul shabbos for a celebration that is not a mitzva.
Shavuos at the Kotel is different. It is not such a mass event, with hundreds of thousand sof people. It does not bring thousands of security forces from other cities. Shavuos is a commandment, and Lag bOmer is not - though going to the Kotel is not part of the Shavuos commandments. The only people going to the Kotel are people in Jerusalem, walking - not traveling from around the country.
Again, it is not the police that suddenly want to keep Shabbos. It is the Haredim who are suddenly ok with being the cause of chilul shabbos.
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