A panel of three High Court of Justice judges on Tuesday rejected a petition by the self-described prophet Dov Sobol for an injunction against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz. Justice Yael Willner (who is a traditional Jew and was appointed by Ayelet Shaked, so she must know a thing or two about prophecy in our day) wrote the opinion (it was very short):
“The essence of the petition is the request of the petitioner, who defines himself as ‘a man of God, a prophet like Moses and the Messiah unto the world,’ that we instruct the respondents to enact the Basic Law: The Torah, as well as invite him to present to the Knesset and the government messages and signs he received from the Creator of the universe. This, among other things, in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
“An examination of the petition in great detail reveals that it does not reveal any grounds for judicial intervention. Therefore, the petition is denied.”
Dov Sobol resides in Herzliya and this is not his first attempt to enlist the Supreme Court in disseminating his prophecy to the world. Back in 2009, a High Court panel rejected his petition to instruct the Knesset to make adding punctuation to the Torah texts illegal. Sobol submitted that petition in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and requested that the court forgive his filing fees. The court responded that, much like the petition itself, the request for a free ride in the name of God was outside the purview of the court’s authority.
In 2015, Sobol asked the High Court to compel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to read his book, so that he may “save the world from its future troubles and to bring world peace.” The justices, admitting they had not read the book in question, ruled: “We examined the petition, but had no choice but to refuse.”
In 2017, the court rejected another petition by God’s messenger, ruling that “the petitioner, who signed his petition, ‘A prophet like Moses, Messiah to the world,’ relates that he is acting in the name of the Creator of the universe and bears messages from Him, and that it is vital to hold an inquiry into them before this court in order that the court share with him the weighty responsibility for the fate of the world that rests on his shoulders. The petition shows no cause for judicial intervention.”
One is tempted to believe that had Netanyahu been made to read Sobol’s prophetic book in 2015, he would have been better prepared for the pandemic in 2020. Or not.