Rabbi Nissan Kaplan says ‘kill ministers’ statement was only a joke

Times of Israel   [Not just Rabbi Herschel Schacter has foot in mouth problems.].

[file has been removed ]And here is the link to the recording: 

https://mega.co.nz/#!voZlnAoY!G2t4PufKfNnIhGQ2L64RpPODtkec53pXFxFfMUWFKNk

Fast forward to 36:50 to hear what he has to say.

A popular rabbi at a prominent ultra-Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem issued a retraction over the weekend after reports surfaced Thursday that he had called for the killing of government ministers

Rabbi Nissan Kaplan of the Mir Yeshiva, one of the largest and most prestigious yeshivas in the world, told a class of students in a March lecture that ultra-Orthodox leader Rabbi Aharon Leib Steinman viewed the Israeli government as Amalek (the Biblical enemy of Israel whom the Jews are commanded to destroy), and sanctioned killing those who called for yeshiva students to enlist in the IDF.[...]

“You have to take a sword and to kill them,” Kaplan was recorded saying in the lecture, claiming to quote Steinman. “So why are we not doing it? Because, he said, I don’t know yet who is the [suitable replacement] general who could run the war. But if I would know who’s the general, we’d go out with knives. This is what Rav Steinman said. There’s a war against religion.” [...]

The rabbi, who originally hails from the US, told the Jewish Chronicle Online over the weekend that he had “never meant such a thing” and said that the story about his child was “a joke.” [...]