A Dose of Unreality
The charedi perspective on the end of the draft exemption
How big is the gulf that separates charedim from the rest of Israel? Consider the following poster:
The poor mother cannot sleep at night, out of fear that her son will be drafted. Oy!!!
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of mothers around the country cannot sleep for other, more serious reasons.
Then there’s Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, one of the leaders of the Litvishe charedi world. In a speech in which he equated not receiving free money for yeshivos with “cancelling the right to learn Torah,” he also declared as follows:
“We need mesiras nefesh!”
Mesiras nefesh?!
Mesiras nefesh has a real meaning. And it’s not shteiging over a Gemara. Or even sitting in prison for refusing to enlist. It means actual, y’know, mesiras nefesh. Like what our precious young men are doing in Gaza.
I did come across one rabbi in the charedi world who has his values straight. The “Ashlag Rebbe” of Telz-stone declared that the state should fund 2000 yeshiva students to train for Torah roles, and the rest should be in some sort of combined Torah/army framework, perhaps on the northern and southern borders, after which they can go back to full-time learning. Kudos to him!
Alas, he does not appear to be a particularly influential person. The mainstream approach seems to be viewing this as a “war on Torah” and insisting that no charedi young man, whether or not he is seriously learning in yeshiva, can ever be drafted.
Let’s hope that something changes. Otherwise, our enemies will be rubbing their hands in glee.
Although perhaps it's better not to post it here, Times of Israel has just put up two blogposts:
1. Rabbi Dovid Kornreich, a long-time opponent of Rabbi Slifkin, against drafting Charedi yeshiva students (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/one-haredi-mans-view-on-drafting-yeshiva-boys/)
2. Rabbi Yizchak Aharon Korff, who says that there is no justification for a blanket exemption for Torah learners (https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/idf-army-service-is-a-halachic-obligation/)
As Hirsch's comment touches on this, something should be made clear about the terminology:
Whenever you see a "chok giyus" being mentioned, it is always a euphemism. Namely, charedim (and everyone else in Israel, including women and Arabs) are *already* obligated to serve by law. All of the exemptions are ad-hoc. The Supreme Court has ruled, not too wildly (and this is coming from someone who thinks the Supreme Court- actually Bagatz, which is not the same thing- rules way too wildly, way too often), that that legal situation is unacceptable, and have demanded a law be passed- a law *exempting* charedim, essentially. Theoretically, the government could pass a law saying "charedim are exempt" and the Court would be happy. Well, not that extreme, but you get the basic idea.
The *last* people who want such a law passed, though, are the charedim. Because no law passed will say that. Rather, it will probably define "Torah learning," limit exemptions, impose punishments, and so on. And the last thing the charedim want is to have their exemption *defined*, because it would be easy to find those who don't match the exemption and start drafting them, among other "problems" for them.
I'm oversimplifying, but that's essentially it. And so they kick the can down the road over and over again, until they can't any more.