This Wednesday, the 3rd of Cheshvan, marked 13 years since the passing of Rabbi Ovadia Yosef z”l (1920-2013). Some 800,000 people, 10% of Israel’s population, attended his funeral in Jerusalem. It was one of the largest gatherings of Jews in history.
His rulings and his vision changed the lives of millions of Jews in Israel and around the world. Here are five examples.
1. UNIFYING SEPHARDIC HALAKHA
After 1948, Jews poured into Israel from Morocco, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Tunisia, Iran, Yemen and Egypt. Each community brought its own rabbis, its own books and its own customs. Many of those customs were stricter than halakha requires. On Pesach, some families covered the table with seven tablecloths. No one dared buy ordinary sugar or oil for Pesach.
Rabbi Ovadia proposed a common ground: the Shulchan Arukh of Rabbi Yosef Caro (1488-1575). Sephardim had long accepted Maran Yosef Caro as their highest authority: “Kibalnu horaot Maran,” “we accepted the rulings of Maran.” Rabbi Ovadia held that those rulings should be followed as written, without piling on extra restrictions.
It was not easy. At 18, as rabbi of the Iraqi synagogue in Jerusalem’s Bet Israel neighborhood, he was already disagreeing in his classes with the rulings of the Ben Ish Chai, the most revered authority among Iraqi Jews. People objected. His teacher, Rabbi Ezra Attie, told him to keep going. Those disagreements were later published in the series Halikhot Olam.
His first book, Chazon Ovadia (1952), on the laws of Pesach, freed people from many restrictions that had no basis in the Shulchan Arukh. He called it “lehachazir atara leyoshna”: restoring the Sephardic crown to its original glory.
2. THE AGUNOT OF YOM KIPPUR
The Yom Kippur War broke out on October 6, 1973. About 2,600 soldiers fell. Close to a thousand of them were married, and in many cases there was no identifiable body. Without proof of death, their wives were agunot. Under halakha, they were still married and could not remarry.
The Chief Rabbi of the IDF, Rabbi Mordechai Piron, asked for help from Rabbi Ovadia, the newly appointed Rishon LeTsion. A special court was formed: Rabbi Piron, his deputy Rabbi Gad Navon, and Rabbi Ovadia at its head. They reviewed every case, one by one. They interviewed soldiers, rebuilt testimony and examined every possible source.
In one case, unidentified remains were found in the Sinai with a wedding ring. Engraved on it were the wife’s name and the date of the wedding. It matched one of the widows. Rabbi Ovadia ruled that this was enough to declare her a widow. By 1976, not a single aguna from that war remained.
Some rabbis criticized him as too lenient. He wrote that on other matters he understood those who try to avoid any doubt. But when it came to an aguna, he followed the path of the great rabbis of the past: use every halakhic and practical tool available to set her free.
3. THE JEWS OF ETHIOPIA
For centuries, the Beta Israel lived isolated in the mountains of Ethiopia, cut off from the rest of the Jewish people. Many doubted they were Jews. Anthropologists had their theories.
In 1973, Rabbi Ovadia, as Chief Rabbi of Israel, ruled that they are Jewish. He relied on two great sixteenth-century rabbis: the Radbaz (Rabbi David ben Zimra of Egypt) and his student, the Maharikash. Both had accepted the tradition of the Ethiopian Jews, who saw themselves as descendants of the tribe of Dan. Rabbi Ovadia wrote that if these two pillars of halakha recognized them, our generation has no right to question it.
And the 500 years since? Rabbi Ovadia answered that the Jews of Ethiopia had guarded their identity zealously for generations.
That ruling opened the door to the Law of Return. Then came Operation Moses (1984) and Operation Solomon (1991). Today more than 100,000 Ethiopian Jews live in Israel.
Rabbi Ovadia defended them in practice too. When a school in Petach Tikva separated its Ethiopian students, he said that whoever refused to accept them should get up and go home himself.
4. TRANSPLANTS AND ORGAN DONATION
Modern medicine raised questions halakha had never faced. Rabbi Ovadia answered three of them.
Corneas. The first question came more than fifty years ago, from Rabbi Ben Tsion Abba Shaul: may the cornea of a deceased person be used to restore sight to the blind? There are two problems. A body may not be desecrated, and it is forbidden to benefit from the dead. Rabbi Ovadia wrote a long responsum. He explained that the cornea is different from other organs. Once transplanted into a living body, the benefit taken from it is not forbidden by the Torah, only by rabbinic decree. He ruled that a person may arrange in advance to donate his corneas to restore sight to the blind.
Kidneys. In 1980 he was asked whether a healthy person may donate a kidney to a sick one. Other great rabbis hesitated. They said the donor was putting himself in danger. Some forbade it. Rabbi Ovadia consulted God-fearing medical specialists. They told him the risk was very small and that 99% of donors go back to a completely normal life. With that information, he ruled that donating a kidney to save another person from certain death is a mitzvah. He closed with a berakha: whoever performs this mitzvah merits HaShem’s fullest protection.
He was the first major posek to say so, and he repeated it in his old age. His son, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, calls it “a great mitzvah.” Today, Orthodox Jews account for about 15% of altruistic kidney donors in the United States.
Brain death. The third question: when does a person die? When the heart stops, or when the brain dies? The answer decides whether a heart, a liver or a lung can be donated. Rabbi Ovadia ruled that the death of the brain, including the cerebral cortex, is death according to halakha. With that, he opened the door to vital organ transplants in the religious world. This courageous ruling has saved thousands of lives.
5. HALAKHA FOR EVERYONE
His major work, Yabia Omer, is a ten-volume collection of responsa. The first volume appeared in 1954 with the approbation of the greatest rabbis in Jerusalem at the time: Rabbi Tsvi Pesach Frank, Rabbi Yitzchak Herzog, Rabbi Shelomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv. Rabbi Ovadia wrote with a prodigious memory. He cited thousands of opinions, from every era, by heart.
But his greatest talent was bringing halakha to ordinary people. He had a weekly program on Kol Israel radio, answering listeners’ questions. That gave rise, in 1977, to his series Yechave Daat: six volumes of short, clear answers. His Motsae Shabbat classes, which I attended for four years, were broadcast around the world. Thousands came to hear him in person. His son, Rabbi Yitzchak Yosef, began collecting his rulings into a practical guide, the Yalkut Yosef, now found in thousands of Sephardic homes.
His principle was simple, and very Sephardic: “Kocha dehetera adif,” the power to permit is greater than the power to forbid. If there is a legitimate way to permit something, in kashrut, in taharat hamishpacha, on Pesach or in civil law, and a Talmudic or rabbinic source supports it, it should be done. The path to keeping the mitzvot should be made as smooth as possible. Because of that, many Jews who felt far from the Torah were able to come back to it.
Rabbi Yosef Bitton
