Are You Sick Of It?
Not as much as they are.
Some people tell me that they’re sick of reading me post about charedim avoiding IDF service. I’m sure that they’re busy with lots of other things. Torah. Life. Work. Family. Getting ready for the Yamim Nora’im and Sukkot. Besides, it’s been a year of discussing these topics. Enough already!
Ha.
Today, the IDF mobilized two reserve brigades for a forthcoming invasion of Lebanon. My son’s hesder yeshiva emptied out. My nephews were called up. They have Torah and life and work and family. They’ve spent much of the year being away from all that. They’d like to get ready for the Yamim Nora’im and Sukkot.
But they don’t have that luxury. Instead, they are heading off for a very difficult situation that is potentially far more dangerous than Gaza.
The charedi community is fine with all this. This is as they feel it should be. They’ll fight to avoid having to share the burden of fighting and leaving yeshivah and work and family and risking life and limb.
This is an unprecedented situation in Jewish history. It’s perhaps the greatest chilul Hashem of all time. It’s incredibly hurtful and harmful. It presents an existential threat to the Jewish People in Israel.
So no, I will not stop posting about it.
A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index
We were invited to a 7 Brachot yesterday and a L'Chaim for a couple that just got engaged tomorrow (2 different families). Both were cancelled as both Chatanim were called up.
The Mishna in Sotah has never been more relevant:
במלחמת מצוה, הכל יוצאין, אפילו חתן מחדרו וכלה מחפתה
Please keep writing. Please. Today many boys/men in my neighborhood were called up again. In the past, our Torani community was willing to tolerate the Charedi lifestyle as a "live and let live" situation. But all that has changed. What I'm hearing from the mothers and fathers in my neighborhood is enormous anger and frustration, and they have started being very vocal about it- which is a sea change. Patience and tolerance are absolutely gone. And people are saying the quiet part out loud now, because they can't hold themselves back anymore.
So say the quiet part out loud here. Make it be known that any Charedi person who chooses not to serve, who chooses to not find a community or Rav that will help move them in a direction of joining Am Yisrael in this historical fight for its survival is committing a grave act of Chilul Hashem. And yes- there will one day soon likely be a time of reckoning before your fellow Jews, before your angry (but dedicated) neighbors, and before God.