Gedolim and Slogans
Daas Torah and Army II
In the previous post, Daas Torah and Army, I noted that expertise on knowing the Torah approach to contemporary army service relates to several things:
An awareness of Jewish history - from Biblical times to recent times;
A knowledge of Torah sources relating to this topic;
A skilled analysis of the sources;
Intellectual honesty to enable one to understand what the Torah says, rather than forcing it to conform with a particular approach;
The ability to form a comprehensive and consistent approach which will work in a practical application;
Understanding how aspects of life and society in Israel may affect the topic;
Possessing the full spectrum of Jewish values, including respect for the role of Torah and mitzvos, and care for the Jewish People.
In this post, I’ll give an example.
Back during the ban on my books when the topic of Chazal’s knowledge of science was raging, plenty of Charedi Gedolim were brandishing the phrase “Sod Hashem Liyreyav,” “God’s secrets are for those Who fear him.” This was used to mean that Chazal had Divinely-sourced insights into the natural world. As Rav Elyashiv’s grandfather had written, such Divine-based insight lay behind every single statement of the Chazal, and thus it is unthinkable and heretical to say that they got something wrong.
One day I decided to look into exactly what the sources and parameters of Sod Hashem Liyreyav actually are. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I was apparently the first person to ever do such a thing! Everyone else was brandishing the phrase without ever actually studying its application in Chazal.
And to my fascination, I discovered that the Gemara almost never invokes this concept. It mentions it only on three occasions, and even in those three cases, not as a definitive interpretation of events but rather only as one possible explanation as to how something was known. In most cases in the Gemara where scientific information was needed, it was conspicuously not obtained via sod Hashem liyreyav, even though this sometimes means that the Sages were forced to admit error. (For full discussion, see my chapter on this in Rationalism vs. Mysticism.) And meanwhile the vast majority of the Rishonim were of the view that the Sages did indeed occasionally err in science and thus certainly did not take sod Hashem liyreyav as an absolute principle.
How is it possible that these Gedolei Torah were using this concept without any regard to how the Gemara does and does not use it? The answer is that they had a predetermined position that Chazal could not possibly be wrong, and latched on to this concept without thinking about it too carefully because it seemed to support their approach.
The exact same thing is true here. The charedi Gedolim are the product of a society which for various historical reasons developed an antagonism to army service. Accordingly, they interpret everything in Torah in such a way as to match this ideological agenda.
Thus, they will brandish phrases like Torah magna u’matzla, “Torah protects and saves,” to mean that learning Torah replaces army service. This is without any regard to an actual analysis of what this phrase means in its original context, or of the parameters of when it is employed in rabbinic Judaism and in modern charedi society. Exactly as with Sod Hashem Liyreyav, they have a predetermined approach and latch on to a saying in the Gemara which seems to support it even though it does no such thing (and in fact proves the opposite).
The Charedi Gedolim are not experts in the Torah approach to the army. And nobody should abdicate to them their own responsibility to make decisions on this topic.
To be continued. A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index
No, it's not. This is exactly the point that I demonstrated in the previous post.
I wish you would acknowledge the givens that drive the differences. You obviously cannot disagree with Christians about what does or does not count as “good works,” for example because you disagree with their whole religion. You’d have to say “If I were to accept your given, I would argue ABC.” L’havdil, there are major givens that distinguish you from charedim that you don’t acknowledge as such. The have a wall up against the modern world. That’s your only gripe with them. Everything else stems from this. They don’t know modern science or industry or academic approaches to knowledge of any type and they believe these corrupt (for a very long time, they were 100% right about that as an historical fact). With that heavily-reinforced wall as a given, of course they are going to approach Torah differently and end up not only with different results but entirely different methodology. I understand it’s not as simple as this but this is what drives their society. None of your arguments mean anything to them because everything about you is driven by modern values that they reject out of hand. You have one simple thing to say to them, and that’s it: Channeling Reagan, you should declare, “Charedim! Tear down that wall!”