הרב שלמה גורן

Rav Shlomo Goren (21 Shevat 5678/1918–24 Cheshvan 5755/1994) was the founder and first head of the chief military rabbinate of Israel and later the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, a posek and author who built the halachic framework for a Jewish army and state. Born in Zambrów, Poland, to the Goronczik family, he came to Eretz Yisrael in 1925 with his parents, who were among the founders of Kfar Chasidim near Haifa. Sent to Yerushalayim as a boy, he learned in Talmud Torah Etz Chaim, where he was marked as an iluy, and at twelve became the youngest bachur ever accepted to the Chevron Yeshiva. At seventeen he received semichah and published his first sefer, Nezer HaKodesh, chiddushim on the Rambam’s Hilchot Pesulei HaMukdashin.

At twenty-one he published Shaarei Taharah on masechet Mikvaot, gathering the sugyot of the Bavli and Yerushalmi that bear on its mishnayot — a masechta with no gemara of its own — and arranging them as a kind of gemara upon it; Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer, his rebbe, gave the work a warm haskamah. In 1945 he married Tzefia, daughter of Rav David Cohen, the Rav HaNazir, of the closest talmidim of Rav Kook.

With the founding of the state, Rav Herzog and Rav Maimon pressed him to accept the post of chief rav of the new army, and he built its rabbanut from nothing: kashrut in every military kitchen — including the separation of milk and meat that stands in the army to this day — the framework of Shabbat in army life, and a uniform siddur for soldiers of every edah. He labored to bring the fallen of Gush Etzion, and hundreds of others left beyond the lines, to kever Yisrael on Har Herzl, and he freed many agunot of fallen soldiers, among them the wives of those lost with the submarine Dakar and the destroyer Eilat. In the Six-Day War of 5727/1967 he entered the Old City with the forces, shofar and sefer Torah in hand, and led the first tefillah at the Kotel HaMaaravi in nineteen years. In 5721/1961 he was awarded the Israel Prize for Torah literature.

He was chosen as rav of Tel Aviv–Yafo and took up the post in 5731/1971, and in 5733/1972 was elected Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, serving until 5743/1983; his many sefarim and teshuvot deal above all with hilchot medinah — halacha as it meets a modern army and state. After leaving the Chief Rabbinate he founded the Idra Yeshiva beside the Kotel HaMaaravi, and stood at its head until he was niftar on 24 Cheshvan 5755/1994.