The question was how to respond to a common challenge presented by charedim: If artists and athletes get an exemption from IDF service, shouldn’t the same apply to yeshiva students? Isn’t Torah scholarship at least as important as acting or singing or running?!

Rav Copperman correctly responded that this question is mistaken and misleading in a number of ways. First of all, it’s not as though army service is a conflicting value to Torah; it’s a mitzvah that is part of Torah. And in the kollel he attended, which was a very serious institution, you had to have served in the IDF to join! This is similar to the point that I discussed in my post last week, “Who should be learning instead of serving?” Army service makes you into a better Jew.

(I would personally like to add that Rav Copperman himself served in the IDF, and this did not stop him from spending six years in yeshivah, eight years in kollel, and completing semicha as Rabbi (Yoreh Yoreh) and Dayan (Yadin Yadin), after which he continued to become a shul rabbi, a Dayan on a Beis Din, the head of a semicha program, and a yeshiva rebbe.)

Second, says Rav Copperman, even if there were hypothetically some people for whom army service would prevent them from becoming great Torah leaders, and should have the same exemption as artists and athletes, we are talking about a small number of individuals. And that’s just not what the current debate is about. The charedi rabbinic and political leadership is wholly against charedi enlistment across the board - not just all yeshiva students, including mediocre ones, but all charedim, period, even if they are not learning in yeshivah at all.

I would like to elaborate upon this. There are countless young aspiring singers, musicians, and athletes who want the IDF to recognize them with the official status of “Outstanding Artist” or “Outstanding Athlete.” And the overwhelming majority do not receive it! The IDF maintains incredibly tight annual quotas of just a few dozen spots, precisely in order to protect the integrity of the military draft and prevent mass evasion. In fact, to protect the scarce quotas for classical and performative arts, the IDF completely abolished the “Active Artist” classification for fashion models.

With athletes, a tiny number of spots are reserved, almost exclusively for athletes who are ranked among the top percentiles nationally, or have placed highly in European/World championships, such that they will be competing in Olympic sports or top-tier international structures. With artists, there are likewise strict quotas, awarded to exceptional artists with an extensive portfolio of professional activity. Candidates must also pass rigorous live auditions conducted by a panel of military and external professional judges.

(And the reason why these people receive an exemption is that not that the state values artistic and atheletic excellence. Lots of things are valuable, but don’t get you an army exemption. It’s that it actively helps the country, because such people will be performing and competing internationally, and thereby strengthening Israel politically and economically.)

If the charedi leadership and community would agree to enlist everyone except a few dozen (or even a few hundred, and perhaps even a few thousand) select students who are evaluated according to strict criteria, just like artists and athletes are a limited number of select candidates, there would be no disputes. But that’s not what they are demanding.

Yet there’s an even more basic response to be made. Despite there being a very widespread claim that outstanding artists and athletes are exempt from IDF service, it simply isn’t even true!

The few dozen people each year who pass the strict criteria to qualify as outstanding artists and athletes are not exempt from army service. They still have to enlist and undergo training and serve. The difference is that they are given a shorter training, lower-intensity jobs, and more flexible hours to accomodate their professional schedules. Soldiers in the “Outstanding Artist” tier perform roles that directly leverage their creative skills to serve the military’s internal morale and external public relations.

And if any of these artists and athletes refuse to comply, and avoid service, they go to prison! Just like everyone else who dodges the draft. The common charedi complaint about charedim being persecuted and sent to prison “for learning Torah” is simply farcical.

To every charedi person who claims that learning Torah should be treated the same as artistic or athletic performance, the response should be - yes, absolutely, and the state already offers that! A small number of select Torah students can get a shortened training and a lower-intensity job that caters to their skills, just like outstanding artists and athletes.

It’s called the Military Rabbinate.

The hyrax, mentioned in this week’s Daf Yomi, is a strange creature. It’s a small furry animal that resembles a groundhog, and yet is most closely related to the elephant! But for me, the hyrax is even stranger than that. It has had a more profound impact on my life by far than any other creature — religiously, professionally, and personally. I even got married as a result of the hyrax!

The story begins all the way back in 1998, when I was 23 years old and had just embarked a few years earlier on a mission to learn everything about animals and Torah. I received an email from Rabbi Mordechai Becher, who was then at Ohr Somayach Institutions in Jerusalem, and who would subsequently become a good friend and help me start my career in Jewish education. Rabbi Becher wanted me to answer a difficult question that Ohr Somayach’s “Ask-the-Rabbi” service had received concerning the Torah’s list of four animals that possess one kosher sign:

Dear Rabbi… I have still always believed that there is space for Orthodox Judaism… However, even this belief has now been challenged by… the so-called “proof” regarding the four animals which have either a split hoof or chew the cud but not both (and are claimed to be the only such animals in the world)… We agree that the Tanach says the arnevet and shafan “chew the cud.” Generally Jewish sources have translated arnevet and shafan to mean the hare and hyrax respectively. In modern biological terms, neither of these animals “bring up the cud” i.e. they are not ruminants… I don’t know if you will find an answer to the problems… but if you do, we would much appreciate a response.

Shortly afterwards, I was independently approached by Arachim/Manof, which wanted my help with responding to numerous attacks on this topic by anti-religious elements. Not long after this, I received a request from a rabbi at Ner Israel on behalf of the “Ask-the-Rabbi” service at the Project Genesis website, who wanted me to help answer questions on this topic.

At that time, I was at the height of my youthful idealism, naivety and my infatuation with the yeshiva world and its rabbis. I had not yet researched this particular topic in depth, but I eagerly anticipated being able to find answers that would solve how this topic does indeed prove the divinity of the Torah, and I would be able to fly the flag for the Torah world in general and the kiruv world in particular. Little did I realize what I was getting into.

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While Israel’s progress in recruiting charedi yeshiva students for the war has been much poorer than the government promised, other countries are being surprisingly successful. News broke today that a 20-year-old American yeshiva bachur learning in Mir was arrested on the charge of spying for Iran.

Now, it must be acknowledged that this is not only a charedi phenomenon. Over the past few years, dozens of Israelis been arrested for spying for Iran, and they weren’t all charedi (though I’m pretty sure none of them were dati-leumi). Some people don’t particularly care about national loyalty/security and/or succumb to the temptation of the money that the Iranians are offering.

Still, this is not the first charedi person to be arrested. And while charedim are on social media less and thus it’s more difficult to reach them, there would also appear to be several reasons why it may be easier for Iran to recruit charedim.

First is that they are more likely to be naive about falling into a trap. Second is that they are generally more desperate for money - as Chazal said, “Any Torah that is not accompanied by work, will end in neglect [of Torah] and will lead to sin,” and “One who fails to teach his son how to earn a living has taught him to steal.” And third is that charedim are progressively becoming ever more disloyal to the State.

Unlike two generations ago, when charedi leaders understood the blessings that the State brought and were grateful for it, today’s leadership has no such historical awareness. R. Dov Landau blamed the State for all the Arab attacks on Jews, implying that it would be better had the State not come into existence. Already a decade ago the charedi leadership were describing state officials as Amalek, and it’s only gotten worse. Anti-Zionist rhetoric that was formerly only found with Neturei Karta is now common among mainstream charedim. In such an environment, it’s naturally even easier to recruit spies. You don’t have to charedi to be treasonous to Israel, but it helps.

Anyway, although this is a very tragic and serious matter, it’s also an opportunity for some great humor to take off the edge during this dark period. It occurred to me that this story creates potential for lots of movie spin-offs, along the lines of James Bond, except that he’s yeshivish and he’s the bad guy. Some friends helped me put together a list of potential films in the series:

• Dr Nu

• From Lakewood With Love

• Geltfinger

• Shtenderball (or: Thunderbracha)

• You Only Lein Twice

• Sheitels Are Forever (or: Diamonds Are Finagled)

• Never Say A Neder Again

• On His Mashgiach’s Secret Service

• Live and Let Shteig

• The Man With The Golden Chosson Watch

• The Spy Who Learned With Me (featuring the song “Nobody Davvens Better”)

• Moonprayer (or: KiddushLevanaRaker)

• For Your Eidim Only

• A View To A Kvetch

• Licence to Evade

• GoldenOy

• The Rebbe Never Dies

• The Deferment Is Not Enough

• Shteig Another Day

• Shtieble Royale

• Quantum of Slichos

• Shreifall (or: Kanievskyfall)

• Rav Yitzchok Elchonon S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

• No Time To Davven

…and then there’s all the similar series, like The Brisk Identity and Mishnah: Impossible. The possibilities are endless!

(On a slightly more serious note - if you are flying to Israel from the US and can bring a Noah’s Ark, not life-size, please be in touch)

We are living amidst the crisis of a severe IDF manpower shortage and a resultant crushing burden on the reservists. Meanwhile, there is a rapidly growing charedi community, in which over 90% of the population - which includes close to 100,000 young men - do not serve. Of this group, there are those who are in yeshiva learning Torah, and there are those who are working or enjoying a carefree life.

Almost everyone agrees that something drastic needs to be done. The exception is of course the charedi community itself, which refuses to endorse any enlistment whatsoever, along with some people who are driven by a desire for support from the charedi political representatives. Otherwise, there is broad agreement that at least the many young charedi men who are not learning in yeshiva - which is tens of thousands - should enlist. (The previous generation of charedi leadership itself took this position.)

What about the spiritual risks? As Rav Eliezer Melamed writes, “Even though many justifiably criticize commanders, the secular atmosphere, and military policies, this does not negate the mitzvah to enlist in the army. Despite all criticisms, without the IDF, our enemies would rise to destroy us.” Since we all need there to be a large army, then even difficulties and challenges do not allow us to dump all the responsibility on others and thereby increase their burden.

But what about those charedim who actually are learning seriously in yeshiva? Should they be conscripted? I’m not talking here about what might be worthwhile compromising on for the sake of practical reasons such as political cooperation (though even in such a case, one must also take into account the serious long-term economic danger of encouraging a way of life in which large numbers of people avoid army service and are financially subsidized to do so.) I’m talking about whether it is something innately desirable from a Jewish perspective.

The government believes so; it is currently trying to pass its “Basic Law: Torah Study” which claims that learning Torah is a contribution to the nation. There are many people who are under the impression that traditional Judaism mandates that there be a group of people learning Torah instead of serving in the army.

But in fact, there is not a single traditional source saying any such thing. (There are a handful of sources that are presented to that effect, but all of them, without exception, fall apart upon closer examination.) There is no tradition that any of the Tribes of Israel were exempt from military service for defensive wars; there is no traditional belief that learning Torah protects others in times of war; there is no traditional concept that learning Torah or praying is ever a replacement for worldly endeavor.

There was an exemption for 400 yeshiva students when the State was founded. But that was in order to rebuild the yeshiva world after the losses of Europe. Today, you could draft every single charedi young man and there would still be more Torah study (including full-time Torah study) going on than ever before in the history of the Jewish People.

Certainly in the Religious Zionist community, the vast majority of rabbis are of the view that it is a great mitzvah to serve in the IDF and an obligation to help protect the nation. As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein put it, it is the most relevant expression of gemilat chassadim, which is a foundation of Judaism. They say that a yeshiva student should be all the more passionate about fulfilling such an important mitzvah, and that taking on such a responsibility enhances his growth as a Jew. That’s why hesder yeshiva students tend to take on the most difficult army roles, in combat positions.

And what if charedi young men avoid serving and instead learn Torah, are they thereby at least contributing in some way? No, because such Torah does not bring any merit to the nation. It’s like learning Torah when it’s time for shul, or on Tisha B’Av when it’s time to mourn, or on erev Shabbat when your wife is desperate for help. The primary purpose of Torah study, as the Sages and the Rishonim made clear, is to educate and motivate one to live life properly as a Jew, with all its obligations. Torah study which negates these obligations has no value, and is in fact a desecration of Torah.

Should any yeshiva students at all be exempt from army service? It is commonly said that it’s appropriate to exempt a few thousand elite students. Rav Melamed writes that “when the war effort does not necessitate drafting all Torah students, it is appropriate to defer the enlistment of outstanding students destined to become great rabbis and educators.” However, there are two very important caveats that Rav Melamed stresses.

First is that the exemption is not for students who will be learning in kollel forever, as is the expectation in the charedi world. It’s for those who are on a track to become leaders and educators - who will be contributing to society with their Torah.

Second is that, for the same reason, such a deferral is only for students whose approach to Torah is consistent with the traditional concept of Torah involving societal obligations. As Rav Melamed writes, “It is important to note that this contribution of Torah students can take place on the condition that the students treat with great respect the mitzvot of the soldiers who stand guard over our nation and our country, because only Torah learning stemming from this position can contribute to uplifting the spirit and heroism of Klal Yisrael. On the other hand, Torah study that denies the sanctity of the mitzvot of the soldiers is fundamentally unfounded, similar to the study of one who does not believe in the mitzvot of Shabbat.”

In other words, the “Torah” of people who are fundamentally disconnected from the real nature of what Torah is all about - living the Torah, with responsibilities to the entire nation - is not a Torah that helps the nation in any way and is not traditional Judaism. This point was powerfully made by Rabbi Elchanan Nir. With words that should be read again and again, he writes as follows:

“…In its charedi version, the Torah was deprived of being an elixir of life. It has lost its connection to its surroundings, to the wide avenues of the nation, to the reality to which it is supposed to turn and influence it from its spirit. It is not for nothing that the Sages said, “Whoever says he has nothing but Torah – he does not even have Torah“ (Yevamot 109b). There can be no true Torah with those who are not involved in life itself. From being a Torah of life, which provides an answer and light to its surroundings, a Torah has instead developed that does not deal with reality, that does not have responsibility and simple humanity, lending a shoulder to collapsing agriculture or a partnership with the soldiers who fight for it… Suddenly, many in the national-religious public are internalizing the truth: This Torah that our charedi brothers boast about is not the Torah we are studying. In our community, we don’t believe in a Torah that absolves one of responsibility and of sharing the burden with one’s friend, a Torah that is not a Torah of life.”

A rabbi who makes clear that he does not care about the plight of reservists is not the kind of rabbi that is an honor or asset to the Jewish People. We might not be able to force universal enlistment, and we might be forced to allow for some people to engage in such “Torah” study, but we should never fund it, and we should certainly not think that this has any connection to authentic Judaism or is any form of contribution to the nation.

“Rabbi Eleazar said: What was the blessing that Moses first blessed upon the Torah? Blessed are You, God our Lord, King of the Universe, Who chose this Torah, and sanctified it, and desired those who fulfill it. He did not say ‘those who toil in it,’ and he did not say ‘those who contemplate it,’ but rather ‘those who fulfill it’ - those who fulfill the words of the Torah.” (Midrash Rabba, Devarim 11:6)

I just saw a newspaper point out how shocking are the gaps in the perception of reality between charedim and non-charedim. One community is enduring immense hardship as they engage in a war to protect their lives, whereas the other community is enjoying a good life as usual and is not even remotely aware of the enormous harm being suffered by the other group.

The newspaper was HaModia. The community being described as enduring immense hardship as they engage in a war to protect their lives was the charedi community, and the community being described as blithely enjoying a good life and unaware of the terrible suffering of the first group was the non-charedi rest of the population. I kid you not.

It beggars belief. Do they really not know about how over a thousand IDF soldiers have been killed over the last three years, over 22,000 have been injured, dozens have committed suicide, and hundreds of thousands more have suffered immense and sometimes catastrophic harm to their careers, their businesses, their marriages, their family lives, their mental and physical health? How on earth can they describe the non-charedi community as blithely enjoying a good life and being ignorant of the great suffering being endured by the charedim who are battling for their lives?!

And it’s not just an aberration in HaModia. Two weeks ago, Mishpacha magazine ran various stories about the immense suffering being experienced by charedim as they endure all kinds of terribly government decrees - i.e. the same laws that apply to the entire rest of the population. This past week, Mishpacha’s owner Eli Paley published an editorial filled with various lies that I shall rebut in a different post, and opened by talking about how “the chareidi community in Israel has come under relentless assault.” Silly me, I thought it was Israel that has come under relentless assault, by Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and Iran and Palestinian terrorists, and the non-charedim who have been doing all the difficult work of protecting us, with the charedim refusing to help.

And you can’t just write off these insane claims (as some charedi apologists do) as merely being the “media,” and not reflective of the The Gedolim. Because none other than R. Dov Landau himself demonstrates the same attitude, as quoted in the Yated last week:

“A Yid cannot remain indifferent to the pain of another Yid.” Unless it’s non-charedim collapsing under the burden of endless reserve duty. Then they can completely ignore it. They force the reservists to serve for even longer and they make no effort to help theirs and their families situation in any way. R. Landau himself even instructed charedim not to visit wounded soldiers or attend funerals. If there was ever an extreme case of Yidden being indifferent to the pain of other Yidden, it’s the charedi leadership and community being indifferent to the suffering of others during three years of war.

So are they clueless or callous? I think that it’s a combination; they are callously preferring cluelessness. In other words, they are certainly aware that there has been a war going on for nearly three years and hundreds of thousands of people called up to reserve duty. But they make a choice not to think about it too much, not to find out more about it, and certainly not to address it. They prefer to remain indifferent to the pain of other Yidden, because it’s far more comfortable for them not to have to take on any responsibilities, and because ultimately they don’t consider the rest of us to be Yidden - certainly not part of the same socio-religious community.

Meanwhile, in contrast, here is what was given out to each guest at a wedding I attended last night, in which the groom and his brothers all studied in yeshiva and all serve in the IDF:

Under the chuppah, there was a tefillah for the IDF, and reference to all the pain and suffering of the last few years - the real pain of the non-charedi community, not the reduction of special funding in the charedi community. The mesader kiddushin, Rav Doron Peretz, spoke about why we reference national suffering at a time of the greatest joy: because building a bayis ne’man b’Yisrael means being ne’eman l’Yisrael, being loyal to the national experience and history of the Jewish People.

That’s what Yidden do.

When Trump was elected, some people thought he would act as the best president for Israel ever, some thought that he would act as the worst. I’m not sure how many people thought he would do both, within the span of just a few weeks. After kowtowing to Iran and Qatar, he’s now kowtowing to Erdogan! The whiplash is jarring. Trump is empowering Turkey and being a turkey.

This week also saw the charedi community ramp up their war with the rest of Israel, shutting down much of the country in protest against even minimal enforcement of the draft. The Gedolim™ are touring North America, raising hundreds of millions of dollars to perpetuate the growth of the charedi freeloading lifestyle. Mishpacha magazine is printing sob stories and editorials about the terrible persecution of charedim. UTJ leader Goldknopf claimed that the charedi community is fighting against becoming the “slaves” of the country. Meanwhile, about a hundred thousand overwhelmingly non-charedi men are still away from their jobs and families in reserve duty, joining the 150,000 overwhelmingly non-charedi men in regular service, out of a non-charedi population that overwhelmingly funds the charedi lifestyle. If there’s one group enslaved to another, it’s not the charedim to the rest of the Israel.

Ah well. Yesterday was my 51st birthday. I’m from a Mancunian family in which birthdays are meaningless, so I celebrated by staying at work and having a tuna sandwich for dinner, following which I enjoyed giving a two-hour shiur in our Hall of Kosher Classification about turkeys and other creatures relevant to next week’s Daf Yomi. (The video will be available next week at www.BiblicalNaturalHistory.org/daf, where you can already purchase or download my new book on the topic.)

My wife, on the other hand, is from a California family which rates birthdays as being only very slightly less significant than the Revelation at Sinai. If you are similarly inclined to believe that birthdays are important, and you’d like to do something in honor of mine, then allow me to suggest two meaningful causes for which I would appreciate donations!

First is of course my own life-project, the Biblical Museum of Natural History, where we inspire and educate over 50,000 people annually from the full spectrum of society about Torah, nature and Israel. This includes showing secular Israelis that Jewish heritage is not just Yom Kippur but also lions and chameleons, and showing the most extreme charedim that learning about the natural sciences can enhance their understanding of Torah. We also host many challenged groups for a very therapeutic experience - this week it included a group of injured IDF veterans and a group of special-needs children. You can donate at this link.

If helping the poor is more your thing, then I recommend Lemaan Achai, an organization which instead of perpetuating dependency like Keren Olam HaTorah, helps people become financially independent. They just launched a CauseMatch campaign which you can donate to at this link.

Thank you, and Shabbat Shalom!

The car demonstration, in which over a thousand vehicles headed out from 19 cities around Israel and drove slowly to converge to a military prison, was actually coordinated with the police. The arrangement was that they would drive at 30mph in the right-hand line, allowing traffic to pass on the left.

Of course that’s not what actually happened. Many of the chareidi protestors stopped their vehicles, got out, and stopped traffic entirely. Much of the country was brought to a standstill, and endless thousands of people were severely inconvenienced, or worse. One pregnant woman collided with a car in front that had suddenly stopped due to the protest convoy and was seriously injured.

This event was not merely the extremist Peleg faction. R. Moshe Hillel Hirsch, the Lithuanian “Gadol HaDor,” backed it. And Yitzchak Goldknopf, leader of UTJ, led one of the convoys, driving slowly in a government car with a flashing siren (which is supposed to only be used in case of emergency). The Prime Minister, of course, had nothing to say.

In Jerusalem, rioting charedim caused over 120 million dollars in damage to the Light Rail. That’s the proceeds of an entire Keren Olam HaTorah tour of the USA, except that they won’t be giving the money to repair the damage.

Meanwhile, here’s a lovely poster from one of the cars in the protest:

“We will not enlist in the enemy army.” I’m fine with charedim rating the state as the enemy, as long as this cuts both ways - the state should not fund its enemies.

One leading rabbinic figure (I forget who) said he hasn’t been able to sleep at night due to the charedim who were put in prison for draft-dodging. If only he had lost some sleep over the thousands of soldiers who were killed and injured rather than spending a few nights in a safe cell, maybe he would understand why people want the universal draft to be applied universally.

A lot of charedi apologists were saying that if the Kaplanists (those who protested the judicial reform) had the right to shut down roads, surely charedim do too! To which I would personally answer that the Kaplanists also fulfilled their responsibilities to serve in the IDF and support their families. If you’re not interested in emulating the responsibilities of the Kaplanists, it’s a chutzpah to demand their rights.

The organizers of today’s anarchy considered it to be a great success. I even saw it described as a “Kiddush Hashem”! I wouldn’t agree to that, but neverthless, as far as I’m concerned, this terrible thing is actually a good thing. The charedim are making it increasingly clear to people that they are not some holy community providing spiritual strength to Israel, but rather a freeloading dangerous anarchist sect that, left unchecked, will hollow out the country until it collapses. Hopefully enough people will gain clarity to vote accordingly.

Eileh va-rechev, v’eileh va-sussim, v’anachnu beShem Hashem Elokeinu nazkir!

“These [rely on] chariots, and these on horses, but we call in the Name of the Lord our God!” (Tehillim 20:8)

This verse is endlessly invoked by charedim to (attempt to) justify why their Torah study and prayer is more valuable to Israel’s security than fighting with guns and tanks and planes. “In antiquity our enemies relied on chariots (rechavim), today the Zionists rely on tanks (merkavim), but we know that such physical efforts are meaningless - our weapon is Torah!”

Of course, the verse itself is saying no such thing; throughout Tanach, Jews fought as soldiers, and there is no mention of learning Torah as any kind of substitute. While the Torah warns against amassing horses due to their origins in Egypt and the subsequent risk that it would lead people back there, King David nevertheless had a small cavalry numbering a hundred strong, and King Solomon massively expanded it to 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses that were strategically positioned around the land. The aforementioned verse in Tehillim is simply saying that we do not rely on the size of our forces, and we are not intimidated by a larger force on the other side, because God can help us overcome the odds. But learning or praying never replaces worldly effort, contrary to the charedi claim.

Battle-horses are also mentioned in Mishlei: “The horse is prepared for the day of battle; but victory comes from God” (Proverbs 21:31). As I discussed in my post “Prepare Your Horses,” Rabbeinu Bechaye explains this verse to mean that “everybody must do whatever is in his power by using natural means to achieve his success, and leave whatever is beyond that in the Hands of Heaven. A miracle occurs only when all natural means have proven to be inadequate to produce the desired result. Man was created to exist in the framework of the laws of nature, and therefore he needs to do whatever actions and arrangements are ordinarily required to achieve his desired aims. This is just as if a person wants to go to war against his enemies, he should equip himself with weapons and horses and chariots for the day of war, for if he does not do so, he will be delivered into the hands of his enemies.” Thus, the charedi idea that learning Torah replaces horses and chariots has no basis in traditional Judaism.

Yet what I find most fascinating is not the warped theology, but rather the hypocrisy.

Tomorrow, the charedim are planning the next stage of their war against the legal requirement for them to enlist. And this time, they’re using rechavim, which in Modern Hebrew refers to the modern equivalent of chariots: cars.

Their plan is to drive a thousand cars from 19 different cities around Israel towards one of the prisons where a charedi draft-dodger is being held. And they will drive them very slowly, so as to cause maximum disruption to the rest of Israel.

Leaving the Beis HaMidrash, fighting in the streets, using massive forces of vehicles - they might as well just enlist, they’re nine-tenths of the way there already.

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You don’t even need to read any studies or know any of the precise details about the economy to realize that charedim drain from it rather than contributing. It’s perfectly obvious that if you have a society in which the vast majority of men are learning in yeshiva through their twenties and thirties and often beyond, and those who end up working do not have a secular education and generally end up as rebbes or similarly low-paying jobs (or in black-market jobs where taxes are not paid), and in which the women work for less hours (because of the children) and generally in lower-paying jobs, then it will be a society that drains from the economy rather than contributing to it. (And that’s of course why they are so desperate to be in the government and willing to support pretty much any policy, as long as they get their massive financial handouts which they so desperately need.)

But what do charedim themselves have to say about this? I’d always assumed that their answer would be something along the lines of it being in everyone’s best spiritual interests to support them, and that Hashem will prevent the charedi sector from crashing the economy. Yet it turns out I was wrong. According to a survey, only about 8% of charedim take that view.

So what do the majority believe? Prepare to be shocked.

A staggering 87% of Charedim believe that the charedi sector contributes to the economy at least as much as everyone else!

And nearly half of these people believe that it contributes even more than everyone else!

And this nonsensical belief appears right at the top. R. Aharon Feldman, of the Council of Torah Sages, the source of scholarship and genius and wisdom, publicly declared that charedim are not being supported by the State, since they pay taxes just like everyone else!

How do they arrive at this absurd belief? Apparently it’s because they think that because they have large families, they buy more stuff, and thus they pay more VAT than others. Of course what this does not take into account is that (A) because household income is significantly lower, per capita expenditure is heavily reduced, resulting in less aggregate VAT paid, and (B) VAT itself only makes up around a quarter of government revenue - most of it comes from income tax (which charedim pay much less of), corporate tax (which charedim are much less involved with), and national insurance (which charedim pay less of and yeshiva/kollel students get a discount on).

The good news is that since all this is a matter of simple facts, it should be possible to educate people about it (although of course many people are resistant even to simple facts if they are uncomfortable for them, and choose to believe dishonest propaganda instead).

Perhaps if charedi society were aware of the tremendous financial burden that they place on the rest of Israel, they might start to understand both why others resent their lifestyle, and how their lifestyle threatens the country. A publicity campaign with posters and leaflets could do it. The question is whether someone will take the initiative to do so. Meanwhile, sharing this post with others would be a good place to start!

Last Friday I wrote a summary of a crazy and awful week in which the government of Israel, after bribing Arab MKs for their cooperation, threw the IDF soldiers and reservists under a bus for the sake of political power. This week, the US President and Vice-President, encouraged by a bribe from Qatar, threw all Israel (and 80 million Iranians) under a bus for the sake of political power. It seems tragically providential and poetic.

Then last night, four precious soldiers gave their lives in Lebanon, leaving widows and orphans, and several others were wounded. Meanwhile, today’s Mishpacha magazine bemoans the terrible suffering and “persecution” that charedim are undergoing as a result of their blanket refusal to help relieve the burden on the reservists. Cry me a river.

It’s all so depressing. But I don’t want to wrap up the week on that note. Here’s a graduation photo from today of the baby sister of one of my son’s friends in yeshiva/IDF.

Here’s the text of her graduation certificate in close-up:

And here it is in translation:

To our student who is so dear to us!

As the year comes to an end, and after another year in which the people of Israel were in a state of war for an extended period, and during which you and your family were forced (again...) to bravely deal with the difficult reality of a family member serving in the security forces, we would like to express our deep appreciation to you and your family for your steadfastness, for being part of the fighting force, and for maintaining resilience and good spirits throughout this period.

We greatly appreciate and thank you on behalf of the entire People of Israel!

There are good people in all this. May Hashem reward them.

Rav Asher Weiss is a charedi “Gadol” who is very popular in the Dati-Leumi world, because he actually interacts with them. He gives shiurim in hesder yeshivot, and talks very respectfully about dati soldiers to (certain) charedi audiences, describing how they deserves to be honored (although the value of his specific message can be debated). He is genuinely trying to move the needle in the charedi world.

Accordingly, many people were surprised and dismayed to learn that R. Weiss joined the anti-Zionist Gedolim™ on the anti-Zionist Keren Olam HaTorah tour, to fundraise for the long-term full-time learning of charedim, whose refusal to help relieve the crushing burden of the war has resulted in the Attorney-General and the courts reducing the special financial benefits that charedim formerly received.

Aside from promising that Hashem would give huge sums of money to those who gave him money, R. Weiss made some statements about who he believes to be the real soldiers defending Israel - the Neturei Karta.

No, not that Neturei Karta. While Neturei Karta is widely known as the name of the radical anti-Zionist charedi group, the phrase, which means “guardians of the city,” actually comes from the Talmud Yerushalmi. And the Talmud Yerushalmi explores the very same question: Who are they?

Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi sent Rabbi Chiya, Rabbi Assi, and Rabbi Ammi to appoint scribes and teachers in towns throughout Eretz Yisrael. They came to a certain place where they could find neither a scribe nor a teacher. They said [to the townspeople]: “Bring us the guardians of the city (neturei karta)” They brought them to the town guards. They said to them: “Are these then the guardians of the city? They are the destroyers of the city!” They said to them: “Who then, are the guardians of the city?” They replied, “The scribes and teachers, as Torah states: “Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain on it; unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman keeps vigil in vain’.” (Chagiga 1:7)

This is a favorite for charedi polemicists against army service, who want to claim that it’s the yeshiva students who are actually protecting Israel. And R. Weiss references this. He talks about davening that Hashem should open the hearts and minds of mistaken people (clearly referring to those who think that the IDF manpower crisis and the crushing burden on the reservists should be solved with charedi enlistment), and help them realize who are the real neturei karta - the charedi yeshiva students.

But of course, if that was actually what the Gemara was saying, we would find actual instructions and examples in the Torah and in halacha to that effect, which we don’t. In fact, we don’t find a single statement in Chazal about people learning Torah being exempt from army service and protecting others in war, despite many sources that are distorted to that effect, as R. Moshe Klausner has thoroughly demonstrated.

But what about the Gemara regarding the neturei karta? There’s a double distortion going on.

First of all, the people described as the real neturei karta are not yeshiva students. Rather, they are the “scribes and teachers” - the ones teaching Torah to the masses. In modern terms, that’s people like Rav Eliezer Melamed, not 100,000 yeshiva and kollel students. And they are described this way because by teaching Torah to the masses, they are providing the basic religious identity of the town, without which the town would not earn any Divine protection. It’s not claiming that they replace soldiers in times of war.

Second, the people described as the fake neturei karta, as the destroyers of the city, are not soldiers protecting the city against military threats. The Gemara is talking about events in the lifetime of R. Yehuda HaNasi, when the Romans controlled the land. And the word that it uses is סנטורי. That’s a transliteration of the Latin centurio - centurions! These were Roman guards. As the commentary Pnei Moshe explains, these were people who “would sit and watch people in order to seek pretexts against them and devise schemes to steal and rob them.”

To be honest, I wasn’t so surprised that R. Weiss would claim that it’s yeshiva students who are really protecting Israel, but like most charedim, I doubt that he sincerely believes it. A few years ago I wrote about how what happened when R. Weiss went to speak at the Hesder yeshivah in Sderot. During his talk, a siren suddenly went off, warning of an incoming rocket. Rav Weiss stopped and asked if the room was protected. After apparently being reassured that it was, he said, “We are studying Torah, and this is the best protection possible.” It might have been convincing had that been the first thing that he said, but, tellingly, it wasn't.

Meanwhile, the claim that 100,000 charedim are the real protectors of Israel rather than the IDF was not the only disappointing statement that he made.

Read more

A number of senior rabbis are currently making their way around the USA to raise money for charedim in Israel, on behalf of the anti-Zionist “Keren Olam HaTorah” organization (including, shockingly, R. Asher Weiss). Their message is about the importance of financially supporting the long-term full-time learning of charedim, whose refusal to help relieve the crushing burden of the war has resulted in the Attorney-General and the courts reducing the special financial benefits that charedim formerly received.

I thought it would be worthwhile for the general public to be aware of some of the myriad of ways in which charedim in Israel extract money from the rest of the nation, many unethical, and only some of which have been halted in light of their non-compliance with the draft.

This post will no doubt bring a lot of flak from people who will accuse me of lashon hara, charedi-bashing, antisemitism, etc. Yet such people would have no problem with protesting wrongs that they see committed by others. Indeed, the Gedolim™ of Keren Olam HaTorah are spreading a completely false narrative of there being “persecution of charedim” as part of “a war against Torah,” whereas in fact it’s just a matter of Israel finally somewhat enforcing laws that apply to everyone. And R. Bunim Schreiber, of “We don’t need to have gratitude to the pathetic soldiers just like we don’t need to have gratitude to garbage collectors” infamy, claimed in front of the Lakewood yeshiva that he was refused medical treatment at a hospital because he is charedi.

Furthermore, the charedi MKs recently openly boasted about how they had ingeniously tricked the Opposition into voting for funding that they didn’t actually support. When the representatives of the Gedolim themselves boast about taking financial advantage of the rest of us, I’m certainly not going to hush it up.

So here goes:

Random Welfare Scams

There are endless types of welfare scams. Here’s one I heard from an inside source: A charedi family donated 5000 shekels a month to the local chessed non-profit, thereby receiving tax benefits. The chessed committee then gave them 5000 shekels a month!

To get some idea of how prevalent this sort of thing is, the charedi radio station Kol Berama quoted a case of a chareidi inspector for Bituach Leumi who was concerned about reporting charedi fraud, because rabbonim say that it is permissible and even a mitzvah. The radio reported that she asked a rav who said that it is forbidden and that it’s time (!) to stop stealing from the state, and the radio described this ruling as charig - “unusual” (!!).

Daycare Subsidies

As I wrote in a post on this topic, Israel subsidizes daycare for many families to encourage workforce participation and economic development. Accordingly, it is only granted to couples in which both parents either work or are studying towards gainful employment. If the father isn’t working, there’s no reason for the public to fund daycare so that the wives can work - daddy can do daycare. However, the charedim used their political clout to rate families in which the husband learns in kollel as being eligible, even though they are neither working nor studying towards gainful employment. It thereby entirely undermined the purpose of the subsidies, as well as enabling charedim to be disproportionately large recipients of them compared to their percentage of the population.

Coalition Allocations

The proportion of the government budget set aside for “coalition allocations” has increased enormously in recent years. This is a convenient way for Bibi to do simple exchanges of millions of shekels for political support, in this case to provide money for charedim to pursue a kollel lifestyle. Now, you might argue that this isn’t unethical, it’s just the system. However, I would argue that it’s unethical by Chazal’s own standards. Chazal made many statements about the importance of being self-sufficient, of raising one’s children to be self-sufficient, of working even in lowly forms of employment rather than living off public coffers, and about the impropriety of using Torah for financial benefit. Using political machinations to force people to fund those choosing to learn Torah rather than support themselves is thus unethical.

Fictitious Yeshiva Students

Many of the “yeshiva students” funded by these coalition agreements are not even learning in yeshiva. Recently a news story broke about a yeshiva in Ashkelon which received tens of millions of shekels for its 648 kollel and yeshiva students. However, an inspection found that the relatively small building could accommodate only about 100 people at the most and in fact only had a few dozen. According to testimony obtained by investigators, the scheme operated through people falsely registering as kollel students, who in return allegedly gave part of their stipends back to the association in cash. Journalist Tuvia Yagelnik is quoted as saying: “This is only the tip of the iceberg of a large industry of fictitious reporting about kollel students in the charedi community.”

The Housing Lottery

As I wrote in detail in a post on this topic, Israel has a strange housing lottery which enables the winners to obtain apartments at a steeply subsidized price. Inexplicably, this is also open to people who do not serve the country. And charedi MKs manipulated the lottery to disproportionately increase the number of charedi recipients.

“Kids With Cancer” Kollel Schemes

On more than one occasion, when going through my credit card bills, I’ve found mysterious monthly payments to charities. Once, it turned out to be a charedi kollel that had somehow gotten access to the credit card info of many people. On another occasion, I was on the phone with the charity, and they told me that they collect for children with cancer. I researched their non-profit registration and found out that they indeed profess to do this - along with supporting people in kollel. From what I subsequently heard, apparently there’s a lot of this sort of thing.

Schools That Don’t Teach General Studies

This was a big one - over one billion shekels. In order to receive state funding, schools must teach the state curriculum (which prepares students to enter the workforce and contribute to the economy). Some charedi school networks agreed teach a certain percentage of the curriculum in exchange for a certain percentage of funding. However, they didn’t actually teach any of the curriculum at all. Hence, they stole the funding.

Boycotts and Blackmail

There’s lots of good reasons why many people fly El Al - it’s a Jewish company, it’s very safe, and when there’s a war, there may be no alternative. However, it’s also very expensive. There are several potential reasons for this, some good and some bad, yet perhaps one reason is that MK Goldknopf threatened a boycott which was purportedly about El Al flying over Shabbos, but was solved by El Al making huge “donations” to charities affiliated with Goldknopf’s Gur Hasidic sect.

Fictitious Youth Groups

This one surfaced a few months ago. Over 75% of all registered youth enrolled in Israeli youth movements are in charedi movements, correspondingly receiving millions in funding. However, these movements do not actually exist in real life. There are barely any activities or meetings - often none at all. Just signatures on forms, and instructions to counselors on how to fool inspectors.

No doubt all these are only a fraction of the ways in which charedim extract money from everyone else. I’m leaving the comments section open to all, so that people with further examples can present them. And I plan to write a future post discussing how and why they rationalize it to themselves. Meanwhile, if Keren Olam HaTorah offers me the mitzvah of giving them money, my reply will be, “Thanks, I already gave.”

Personally, I resent the money I have to give (or have been tricked into giving) to support the charedi community. I am furious about how much money my children will have to give from whatever income they can earn between endless rounds of reserve duty due to charedim not serving. And I fear greatly for the future of a country in which such a large and growing sector creates a way of life that relies on draining the economy.

The only way this will change is if enough of the public are aware enough and feel strongly enough about it to ensure that charedim are not in the next government. Please share this post and spread the word.

“Halacha Headlines” is an American yeshivish podcast which overall does a great job in pushing the envelope of discourse and broadening people’s intellectual horizons. The latest episode is titled “Modern Orthodox, Dati Leumi, and Charedi: Are the Differences Halachic or Hashkafic?” Host R. Ari Wasserman interviews R. Yitzchak Breitowitz and Jonathan Rosenblum, speaking for the charedi perspective (although they are both at the very liberal end of the charedi world, with Rosenblum being arguably even post-charedi), and R. Moshe Taragin representing the dati-leumi perspective.

It’s wonderful that they platformed moderate charedi voices and also a dati-leumi voice, and I think that this was a tremendous service to their audience. In fact, since the host was asking about the difference between American yeshivish and charedi, there’s one right there! No Israeli charedi talk show would interview a dati-leumi rav to listen to their perspective and try to understand it.

Now for the comments/ criticisms!

R. Wasserman asks R. Breitowitz and Jonathan Rosenblum to describe the primary characteristic of the dati-leumi world. They got it wrong, which I can’t blame them for, since they are not in that world! Likewise, R. Taragin erred in some of his descriptions of the charedi world, since he isn’t part of it. As someone who has lived in both worlds, allow me to explain.

R. Breitowitz and Rosenblum describe the Dati-Leumi sector as being primarily characterized by its ascribing religious significance to the State. This is a widespread perception by people in the yeshivish/ charedi world, but it is incorrect. That was perhaps something of great significance at the beginning of the state, and immediately after 1967, but it wasn’t so important to Mizrachi rabbinic leaders before the state, and it isn’t really so significant anymore. It plays very little role in the Dati-Leumi choice of lifestyle. And I certainly am not at all confident that the state is reishis tzmichas geulaseinu!

Rather, the primary characteristic of being Dati-Leumi is seeing oneself as part of the nation of Israel, with its concomitant obligations. There’s a war on, the lives of seven million Jews in Israel are under threat, we need a large army to defend ourselves, and thus everyone needs to share responsibility, since we are all brothers, as per Moshe Rabbeinu’s speech to the Bnei Gad and Bnei Reuven. And there’s likewise also an importance in everyone helping to strengthen the economy, for everyone’s benefit, rather than creating a system in which charedim are underemployed and are supported by everyone else without concern as to the effects on the economy and on everyone else.

This also relates to a point made by R. Taragin, about how chessed in the charedi world is primarily about things like g’machim, whereas chessed in the dati-leumi world is on a national scale, involving things like army service, which Rav Lichtenstein described as being most fundamentally about chessed (and see my post at https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/the-charedi-chessed-myth).

Likewise, the primary characteristic of charedi society is not the supremacy of learning Torah. That’s certainly an important characteristic, but not the primary one. After all, chassidic charedim (incidentally, I think a few times in the show there was confusion about the term chassidim versus charedim) do not believe in long-term full-time learning for men. And there’s plenty of people in the charedi community who learn a whole lot less Torah (and are less particular on halacha) than plenty of people in the dati-leumi community.

Rather, the primary characteristic of being charedi is being charedi - seeing oneself as separate from the rest of Am Yisrael. And thus, with very rare exceptions (who usually reflect unusual family backgrounds), they feel no need to serve in the IDF, even as the reservists are collapsing under the strain, or indeed to help out with the suffering of the reservists in any way. Not to do chessed, not to attend funerals, not to visit injured soldiers in hospitals. R. Dov Landau and R. Moshe Hillel Hirsch have been extremely clear about that. Nor do charedi leaders care about how their lifestyle impacts the economy and the lives of people outside the charedi community.

This likewise illustrates R. Taragin’s misunderstanding of the charedi community. He describes how his wife wanted to create a program for charedi girls to help reservist families, but it was opposed because the girls might be exposed to televisions in the homes. I do not believe that this was the main reason, though it may well have been a factor. From the charedi perspective, the lack of interest in attending soldiers’ funerals, or helping the families of reservists, is a feature, not a bug. Doing so would undermine the very separatism that powers charedi identity.

(Incidentally, this is why I strongly disagree with R. Taragin equating the importance of dati’im attending the funeral of the charedi boy run over by a bus during a charedi anti-draft riot with the importance of charedim attending the funerals of soldiers. Soldiers die as part of a huge sacrifice on behalf of everyone in Israel. The boy who run over was part of a protest against making any sacrifices to help others.)

There’s an astonishingly revealing video in which respected charedi political thinker Rivka Ravitz states that the core of being charedi is about being separate from everyone else. She further says that she doesn’t think this changed even after October 7th. She says that maybe at the very beginning there were a small number of charedim on the fringes who wanted to get involved and help, but that largely fizzled out. And, she says, as a charedi mother, she is happy about that!

These things are very hard for American Jews to stomach, and they prefer to live in denial. Because in America, there is an idea of achdus meaning all the Jews being together as part of one unit. But in Israel, everything is totally different. For charedim, the most important thing is to be separate from everyone else. And for the dati-leumi, achdus does not mean singing together and speaking nicely about each other, but rather sharing responsibility.

Again, I think it’s fantastic that Headlines is opening these conversations. But there’s a lot that people still need to learn and accept.

Sunday was the heartbreaking funeral.

Monday saw a prominent charedi radio personality discussing the idea of charedim pseudo-converting to Islam in order to avoid helping with the war.

Tuesday saw the government launch an attempt to rate charedim sitting in their local yeshiva as serving the nation in the same way as soldiers dying in Lebanon.

Wednesday saw “Religious Zionism” sell out religious Zionists, and “Jewish Strength” sell out those who want Jewish strength, by supporting this.

Thursday saw extremist charedim shut the country down as they launch a war against helping with the war.

Oh, and somewhere in the middle of all this was a very quick war against Iran.

Meanwhile, today, my son was finally able to get out of Lebanon. I don’t like driving long distances, but I leapt at the opportunity to drive all the way to the tip of Israel to collect him. On the way, I listened to a Headlines podcast titled “Modern Orthodox, Dati Leumi, and Charedi: Are the Differences Halachic or Hashkafic?” which included some very valuable points, but also some fundamental and frustrating errors that I will be responding to in a post next week.

After such a week, I’m just so happy that my son was able to come home. He missed the shiva for his friend, but he will visit the family on motzai Shabbos, before going back into Lebanon, to protect our nation.

מִי שֶׁבֵּרַךְ אֲבוֹתֵינוּ אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב, הוּא יְבָרֵךְ אֶת חַיָּלֵי צְבָא הַהֲגַנָּה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל וְאַנְשֵׁי כֹּחוֹת הַבִּטָּחוֹן, הָעוֹמְדִים עַל מִשְׁמַר אַרְצֵנוּ וְעָרֵי אֱלֹהֵינוּ, מִגְּבוּל הַלְּבָנוֹן וְעַד מִדְבַּר מִצְרַיִם, וּמִן הַיָּם הַגָּדוֹל עַד לְבוֹא הָעֲרָבָה, בַּיַּבָּשָׁה בָּאֲוִיר וּבַיָּם (ובכל מקום שהם).

יִתֵּן יְיָ אֶת אוֹיְבֵינוּ הַקָּמִים עָלֵינוּ נִגָּפִים לִפְנֵיהֶם. הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא יִשְׁמֹר וְיַצִּיל אֶת חַיָלֵינוּ מִכָּל צָרָה וְצוּקָה, וּמִכָּל נֶגַע וּמַחֲלָה, וְיִשְׁלַח בְּרָכָה וְהַצְלָחָה בְּכָל מַעֲשֵׂה יְדֵיהֶם. יַדְבֵּר שׂוֹנְאֵינוּ תַּחְתֵּיהֶם, וִיעַטְּרֵם בְּכֶתֶר יְשׁוּעָה וּבְעֲטֶרֶת נִצָּחוֹן. וִיקֻיַּם בָּהֶם הַכָּתוּב: כִּי יְיָ אֱלֹהֵיכֶם הַהֹלֵךְ עִמָּכֶם, לְהִלָּחֵם לָכֶם עִם אֹיְבֵיכֶם לְהוֹשִׁיעַ אֶתְכֶם, וְנֹאמַר: אָמֵן.

Shabbat Shalom.

Here’s a video from today’s charedi protests, which shut down the highways and trains over much of the country, harming millions of people and causing intense frustration:

This anarchy, chaos and violence is the result of fifty years of indulging charedim - paying them to not have civic responsibilties.

The coming national elections present us with a choice. We can either face this difficult civil war now and (hopefully) win. Or we can re-elect a government that continues to indulge their way of life, and face national collapse as they approach half the population.

Read more

Today, the government passed its first reading of the disgraceful law to rate charedim learning in yeshiva as contributing to the nation, in order to pave the way for them to be exempt from army service and receive billions of shekels for it. This charedi initiative was supported by virtually the entirety of the Likud and so-called Religious Zionism, along with so-called Otzma Yehudit. Some government MKs accused those who voted against it as being “anti-Torah” or “antisemitic.”

(It turns out that I was overly positive about Smotrich yesterday. All he did was remove the paragraph explicitly drawing equality between yeshiva students and soldiers vis-a-vis all legal and financial benefits. But the law still rates yeshiva students as making a “significant contribution,” and the point of it is to exempt charedim from the army and give them money. Smotrich even punished the sole member of his party who voted against it.)

There is nothing “right-wing” or “religious” or “Zionist” about a government that formally exempts a huge and rapidly growing sector of society from civic obligations, from helping solve an IDF manpower crisis, and from helping relieve the crushing military and economic burden on others, instead cementing and encouraging a way of life that disdains and drains the state.

It’s against Torah. It’s against Zionism. It’s a horrible, horrible blow to the soldiers and reservists and their families. And it weakens the country tremendously, setting it on a clear path to economic and military collapse. That’s presumably why the Arab parties were happy to help the government out and refrained from voting against it.

Feh. My kids are going to be spending half their lives in reserve duty, and the other half trying to hold down a job to pay overly-high taxes, until the country finally collapses. May every MK who voted for this anti-religious, anti-Zionist disgrace rot in hell.

The charedim and their friends in the Likud have stooped to new depths in their efforts to exempt charedim from helping relieve the IDF manpower shortage and resultant crushing burden on the reservists.

The first try, which the Likud put a lot of effort into over the past year, was a “Draft [Exemption] Law.” This was going to set minimal enlistment targets without any serious means of enforcement. And as Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch revealed, there was no intent of actually carrying it out. But even this farce of a law was too much for Rabbi Dov Landau to agree to, as it symbolically represented a consent to some charedim enlisting. He therefore nixed it.

And so now there’s a new legislative plan. It’s to create a new “Basic Law” which circumvents the entire legal issue of exempting charedi yeshiva students - by instead rating them as serving the country by being in yeshiva!

The proposed law states that “Torah study is of foundational importance in the heritage of the Jewish People.” That part is fine, but then it goes on to make considerable baseless extrapolations.

First, it elaborates that the State of Israel should therefore encourage Torah study. This sounds fine by itself, but in light of what comes later in the proposed law, it clearly refers to the encouragement of Torah study by adults, full-time, for a substantial portion of their lives, in place of serving or working or materially helping the nation in any way.

And it further proceeds to argue that this Torah study is considered to be a contribution to the state, on par with army service (and thus those who engage in it have no need to do military service). This also has the consequence, spelled out explicitly in the proposed law, that those who dedicate a significant portion of their lives to Torah study should receive the same financial and legal benefits as soldiers!

Have you ever heard of anything so disgraceful? That an entire society of people doing nothing other than sitting and learning Gemara, in an air-conditioned Beis HaMidrash, going home every night, and raising their children for the same lifestyle, would be considered equal to a society in which so many people are sacrificing so much of their time, health, careers, family lives, and sometimes their very lives?!

Rav Yaakov Medan, in a scathing critique, wrote today that “I do not remember in the history of the State of Israel a law more replete with blasphemy and contempt for and distortion of the Torah than this law.” He also condemns the tremendous damage to national morale that such a law would cause - which I would note has already been caused, to an extent, by the charedim and the government over the last few years.

The proposed law represents a fundamental distortion of what Torah is all about. As I discuss in detail in my book Rationalism vs. Mysticism, the Sages were very clear about the goal of Torah study:

“It is not the exposition that is the main point, but rather the actions.” (Mishnah, Avot 1:17)

The Midrash elaborates that the primary goal of Torah study is to fulfill it:

“Rabbi Eleazar said: What was the blessing that Moses first blessed upon the Torah? Blessed are You, God our Lord, King of the Universe, Who chose this Torah, and sanctified it, and desired those who fulfill it. He did not say “those who toil in it,” and he did not say “those who contemplate it,” bur rather “those who fulfill it”—those who fulfill the words of the Torah.” (Midrash Rabba, Devarim 11:6)

But what about Talmud Torah Keneged Kulam, the statement that learning Torah is equivalent to everything else? Rambam explains:

“There is no mitzvah among all the mitzvot which can be weighed against the study of Torah; rather, the study of Torah is equal to all the other mitzvot, because study brings to action, and therefore study always takes precedence to action.” (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Talmud Torah 3:3)

Torah study is the most fundamental mitzvah only inasmuch as it’s the one which teaches you how to fulfill all the others. The goal is not to learn Torah, it’s to live Torah. Meiri notes that this accounts for a rule that would otherwise be inexplicable, that one stops learning Torah to fulfill other mitzvot:

“Should you ask: How could they be more lenient with the study of Torah than with all other mitzvot, in which they said that one who is busy with a mitzvah is exempt from other mitzvot?.... The answer is that study is for nothing other than to bring to action, so how could it remove the obligation to act?!” (Meiri, Commentary to Shabbat 9a)

These sources demonstrate that the problem with the proposed law stems from the initial distortion. Torah study is indeed a supreme value, and something that the nation should fund up to a point, but this is because people need to know how to live as good Jews. People who learn Torah beyond that are not contributing to the nation. This is in the same way as learning to read and write is extremely important, and something that society should fund everyone to learn, but spending years of adulthood improving one’s reading and penmanship is not contributing to the nation.

There are Torah teachers who contribute to the nation - and those who do it in a way that we should support are those who encourage their students to support the nation materially and militarily, i.e. the Dati-Leumi rabbanim. But merely learning Torah only contributes to one’s own knowledge, and is not any form of contribution to anyone else, certainly not in place of other needed contributions and obligations. Those who claim otherwise are invoking a mystical innovation with no serious basis in traditional Judaism, just some quotes taken out of context.

In the proposed law being raised in the Knesset, there are also numerous distortions of the Gemara and of history. It presents references to the centrality of Torah study in Jewish history, without acknowledging that this always referred to a basic level of study by most people, with full-time dedication only by a small elite group who were the teachers of the nation. It never meant tens of thousands of men engaged in full-time Torah study and being supported by others, and nor did it exempt them from other obligations.

Meanwhile, not only were Shas and UTJ advocating for this anti-Zionist disgrace, but Bibi apparently promised to push it through, and some Likud and Otza Yehudit MKs have been vocal in their ideological support for it. One Likud MK declared that “it’s as basic as brit milah.” Fortunately, Smotrich declared that it was a red line for Religious Zionism to declare that yeshiva students are equal to soldiers for legal and financial benefits, and that section of the law was apparently removed. But it seems that it will still say that the State should finance charedim to learn full-time, as a contribution to the state.

If this abomination of a law goes through, then anytime there is any charedi request for any financial or material support, we should tell them that our Torah study is a contribution to them.

You can’t make this stuff up. Well, you can, and actually I myself did make it up, two years ago, as an April Fool’s Day prank. And some people condemned me as being “vile,” stating that no such thing could ever happen. And now, lo and behold, it’s being professedly seriously proposed.

Yaakov Grodko is one of the hosts at Kol Berama, a popular charedi radio station based in Bnei Brak. He discusses how charedim can avoid the pesky Zionists punishing them for refusing to enlist in the IDF. He raises a point that I have heard many charedim state - that it is unfair how they are expected to enlist, when Muslim Arabs are not. And he says that in the charedi community, there are those proposing a novel solution: they can become Muslim!

Of course, this doesn’t mean that they should actually become Muslim. Rather, as he explains, the idea is that they should appear to convert to Islam, but only as a ruse. This is just as many Jews over history outwardly converted to Islam while secretly maintaining their religion.

They’ll recite the Shahadah, “I bear witness that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah, and I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.” They’ll receive an official certificate from the Sharia court confirming the change of faith. And they’ll update their official status in the Israel Population Registry. And that would solve their problems, since Israel is not interested in drafting anti-Israel Muslim Arabs to the IDF.

Personally, I think that this is a terrific idea! But I don’t think that it would play out the way that these charedim think.

It’s true, Muslim Israeli Arabs do not get forcibly drafted to the IDF, and do not get punished for not enlisting. But do you know what else they don’t get?

Money.

Arabs receive a whole lot less money from the State than do Jews, in all kinds of ways. Arab schools tend to receive less funding per student than their Jewish counterparts, and that’s even when they are teaching the core curriculum (which charedim don’t want to do). Arab municipalities receive disproportionately smaller budgets for development, infrastructure, and local services (along with strict urban planning constraints).

And that’s just comparing Arabs to average Israelis. The gap is even bigger when you consider the vast additional sums that charedim receive, in terms of yeshiva funding, daycare subsidies, disproportionately large shares of the housing lotteries, etc.

And, of course, there are many political parties - including all the coalition partners of the charedim today - who insist that they will never sit with Muslims (which is why they receive less money).

Then there’s the foreign funding. Is Keren Olam HaTorah going to raise millions from American yeshivish donors by parading Gedolim wearing keffiyehs raising money for Muslims? I don’t think so!

So go ahead! Convert to Islam for all superficial intents and purposes. If charedim are that determined not to help their brethren during a war, and are willing to forgo all the endless billions of shekels that they currently drain from everyone else, I think that most Israelis would let them off the hook for army service. Inshallah!

It was devastating to receive a call before Shabbos from my son, brokenly telling us that one of his friends stationed with him in Lebanon was killed.

Ohad Yaari was just 21 years old. He was a smiling, happy, kind young man. Once, when he finished a two-hour night shift on guard and was headed towards much-needed sleep, he saw that his replacement was suffering from low morale. So Ohad got some food and sat with his replacement for two hours, to raise his spirits.

Even more tragic was that Ohad was not killed by a Hezbollah drone, as has happened so tragically often in the last few weeks, but instead in an operational accident by another soldier. One also feels terrible for the soldier who did it, and it is important to bear in mind that working with guns in a war zone always involves risks and accidents. Ohad’s father is not even interested in an investigation; he understands that such things happen and is more interested in trying to boost the spirits of everyone in our sons’ group. (And the fact of such tragic accidents is also something worth pointing out to people who claim every Palestinian death as a deliberate killing by a nefarious IDF.)

We have seen so many IDF deaths over the last three years - over a thousand. A few may stand out in our memories, especially if you have a personal connection to them, but the vast majority just become a blur of names and photos. Yet each one is the most terrible tragedy. Chazal say that the loss of a single life is like the loss of an entire world. These young men had their entire futures ahead of them - hopes, dreams, careers, good deeds, wives, children, grandchildren.

Of course, tragic deaths happen all the time, outside of IDF service too. Car accidents, cancer, suicides - my young cousin even died from the flu. And one can say that deaths as part of IDF service, even in operational accidents, are at least much more meaningful. When the Sages stated that the loss of a single life is the loss of an entire world, they also stated that one who saves a single life has saved an entire world. Each death, while the loss of an entire world, is also part of an institution that protects and saves millions of entire worlds. Ohad Yaari was a hero.

But on the other hand, the scale of such deaths, especially over the last three years, is appalling. As is the even larger scale of other forms of suffering relating to army service. The injuries, the PTSD, the broken marriages and collapsed families, the devastated careers.

May we see better times.