American Achdus

Achdus without Action

There’s a very strange notion of achdus which seems to be particularly prominent among Americans.

I recently listened to a Headlines podcast from several months ago in which several rabbis were interviewed on the topic of achdus. All of them are wonderful people; I know some of them personally. And all are American middle-of-the-road types - raised in the American yeshivish (or right-wing YU) world, but open-minded and positively disposed towards army service.

Yet I was deeply troubled by the interviews. The entire discussion revolved around defining achdus as being not delegitimizing others for their views, not feeling or expressing hatred towards them, and things along those lines. In other words, achdus is essentially about not doing something, or at most about getting along with people and perhaps speaking words of warmth.

But surely achdus often requires doing things? Surely achdus also sometimes requires such active mitzvot as Lo saamod al dam reyacha (do not stand by as your brother’s blood is spilled), Azov taazov imo (helping even a personal enemy with his luggage), and Nosei b'ol chavero (sharing your friend’s burden) - not just empathetically, but practically, helping someone carry a difficult burden to help alleviate it.

Many years ago, my father spent his last weeks very sick in hospital. The situation required someone being with him around the clock, 24/7, for several weeks. Naturally, all of his children took turns, with all the difficulty involved. It would have been unthinkable for one sibling to refuse to take any shifts, to consequently make everyone else take longer shifts, and to offer to say Tehillim instead (let alone to demand that his siblings pay him for doing so). Such a thing would have meant that that sibling does not have meaningful achdus.

When there are Jews who are protesting against Israel and seeking to effect an arms embargo, even if they profess to have noble intentions for ultimate peace, but their actions cause great harm to us and they don't particularly care about that, do we have meaningful achdus with them?

And when there are Jews who don't care (in any meaningful sense) about all the hardships and sacrifices and injuries and deaths in the dati and secular community, and don't do anything to try to share and alleviate the burden, and instead force dati men to have to spend even longer away from their learning and jobs and wives and children, causing careers to be ruined and family relationships to collapse, do we have meaningful achdus with them, just because they dedicate their davening and learning to us?

To most of us in the dati world, it is obvious that this is not "achdus." If anything, it often seems to be a smokescreen to obfuscate the lack of meaningful achdus. And this is a perversion of fundamental Torah values (far beyond "merely" transgressing the halachos of milchemes mitzvah).

Today, Rabbi Efrem Goldberg, a wonderful rabbi from Boca Raton, shared a podcast in which he interviewed the quasi-charedi speaker and writer Jonathan Rosenblum. In one video clip that Rabbi Goldberg shared on social media, Rosenblum chokes up with emotion as he describes how his grandson in a charedi yeshiva has been fasting twice a week since Octobter 7th.

Many people find this beautiful. Others were disturbed. Personally I think that it’s extraordinary. It's very, very special that the boy does that, especially given his environment. It shows a rare desire to connect to what everyone else is going through. Although he is not in a hesder yeshiva, it could hopefully one day lead to active participation (indeed, Rosenblum himself wants to see greater charedi participation in the army).

But weekly fasting is also atypical and does not represent the charedi community in general. And more the point, the unfortunate truth is that it is not actually a useful alternative to joining the army. It doesn't actually help solve the problem of the IDF manpower shortage. It’s not what the country needs. And if everyone was like that, we'd all be dead.

Rosenblum also mentions that his daughter-in-law cooks food every week for soldiers. Again, that is beautiful. It is also very typical of what happens in the dati community, and perhaps the Anglo charedi community, but it is atypical in the Israeli charedi community. And as a friend of mine pointed out, the issue is not what are the charedim doing for the country but rather what does the country actually need from them. And what it needs is tens of thousands of combat soldiers.

Later, Rosenblum repeats a popular story about how Rav Yitzchak Kolodowsky, son-in-law of Rav Chaim Kanievsky, has been sleeping on a board since Oct. 7 out of solidarity with the hostages. Again, very nice, but it doesn’t actually help solve the nation’s problems.

Yet many people, especially in America, see such stories as some kind of demonstration of how charedim are part of Klal Yisrael and stepped up after Oct 7, along with tefillos and Torah being learned in the merit of the soldiers. They are under the impression that we’re all one big happy loving family, with everyone having different roles. Well-meaning American yeshivish-lite/ RWMO facilitate and fund this enterprise and perpetuate the lifestyle of army avoidance.

And if someone points out that the Israeli charedi lifestyle is not actually helpful and furthermore is creating a crushing burden on everyone else with many devastating effects, they are often accused of being anti-achdus, hating charedim or even hating Torah, or of being unacceptably negative. There are people reading my posts - almost inevitably people in America or people who are not part of the dati community - who can’t understand why I keep writing about this. Meanwhile, people whose kids are in the army understand all too well.

My own son officially became registered as a soldier today, and I was as emotional as Jonathan Rosenblum. But my pride was also mixed with frustration that he will probably be doing combat service for a lot longer than originally anticipated, and spending thirty years doing additional reserve duty, and it’s a sacrifice that could be considerably lessened, and the risks shared, if other people helped share the burden. I don’t want tens of thousands of charedi young men to be learning in yeshiva as a merit for my son - I want them to be helping him with the job of actively protecting the nation, so that he can spend more time being in yeshiva and being safe.

Sometimes I feel like I’m banging my head against the wall. But the problems that the charedi community are creating for the nation keep getting bigger. And many people tell me that my posts are helpful and important. So I have to keep on. Meanwhile, here is a newly English-subtitled version of Rav Tamor Granot’s powerful call to the charedi community: