Jerusalem – Approximately eighteen months after Rav Ovadia Yosef predicted his release, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has been moved to a military hospital where he remains under house arrest, following a prison term that lasted two and a half years.
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Israeli news site B’chadrei Chareidim, (http://goo.gl/0cdCvE) posted the video from Jan. 14 2012, of R’ Yosef’s words regarding the ousted Egyptian president came in the midst of a weekly Motzei Shabbos shiur, when he surprised listeners by saying, “And I pray, I tell you, I am praying to Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he will save Hosni Mubarak from his enemies and will plant in the hearts of the judges the wisdom, knowledge and understanding, that his sentence will be ended out of gratitude for what he has done, and he will be found innocent.”
R’ Yosef explained his warm feelings towards Mubarak, recounting an incident that took place twenty eight years earlier, when a group of senior engineers was constructing a highway in Egypt that would have gone through a Jewish cemetery.
“Buried there were gedolei olam and if this highway was built these graves would have been destroyed. Immediately I traveled to Israel with R’ Aryeh Deri and we asked for a meeting with President Mubarak. He greeted us as if we were kings and we explained how it would dishonor the dead if the cemetery were to be destroyed. We asked him to change the routing of the road and leave the graves undisturbed.”
Despite the costs involved in making the proposed changes, President Mubarak agreed to the plan in order to preserve the dignity of those interred in the cemetery.
“After we finished, the president asked everyone to leave the room. It was only him and me in the room and he said to me, ‘Adoni, Harav, please bless me, I believe in your blessing.’ I put my hands on his head and blessed him ‘May you have long days in your presidency.’ This was 28 years ago and his reign lasted over 30 years, a very rare occurrence in Egypt, but Baruch Hashem, the blessing was fulfilled.”
R’ Yosef praised Mubarak for bringing honor to Egypt and preventing wars, calling him a man of peace and a friend to Israel.
So maybe Erdogan was right after all.
Rabbi Yossef, being an Egyptian himself (he was actually crowned as a rabbi there at the age of 18!) is very familiar with the situation there on the ground and has always kept a very close relationship with Mubarak. When Mubarak was ousted he was the only one saying out aloud that it’s a big mistake but by now every sane person understands how silly and naive the world was then.
Fascinating!
But if word gets out that Mubarak is “a friend of Israel”, he won’t be winning any “popularity contests” in his own country…
In any case, this is but one example that we should never underestimate the power of a Brochoh from a Godol-B’Yisroel.
Mubarak must be a smart man to have instinctively felt that.
Hopefully Rav Ovadia Yosef will pray to end all afflictions like disease and poverty from afflicting the world. Hopefully those words will be fulfilled.
R’ Yosef praised Mubarak for bringing honor to Egypt and preventing wars, calling him a man of peace and a friend to Israel.
he was brutal to the Egyptians but i guess that does not count
….רצון יראיו יעשה
Yosef has lost contact with reality. Mubarek was a tyrant who murdered or jailed tens of thousands of Egyptians. He is hated by the large percentage of the Egyptian population and his ouster was the basis for the revolution. How does it help EY and all the conspiracy theories blaming EY for the current chaos to have the nominal head of the Shas party and a rav who has a wide-following among Sephardim to make publicly take credit for Mubarek’s release?? Perhaps its time for the rav to stop throwing verbal grenades that will hurt EY and endanger yidden all over the middle east.
I still remember the precise fulfillment of his cursing of Sharon that he should fall asleep and never awaken.
It is amazing to me that the ignorant readers of VIN managed to make these comments, as usual, about themselves, finding fault with other commenters’ postings, and insulting Rav Ovadia Yosef, which is represhensible.
You showoffs, who sit in your basements in your pajamas trying to sound more knowledgeable and important than gedolim and call them names, let alone the disgusting treatment of fellow commenters who are, admittedly, often illiterate and uneducated. but it is with such glee that you all try to show off that you know better or more than others, which you usually don’t.
It is sad that you people sit home and have to tear down others in order to feel better about yourselves. But there are much easier an dbetter ways for you to achieve that goal!
You see!? Our Gadol Ha’Dor speaks and things happen as they say! Ruach Ha’Kodesh is resting upon our Gedolim, B’H’!!! May the end of his tefilah for the Egyptian President be fulfilled! May Hashem grant Rav Ovadia Yossef a a good and healthy year 5774 and a long life!