"It's Against The Torah!"

A remarkable exchange in the Supreme Court

Israel’s High Court convened this morning to hear petitions against the Arrest Freeze Law, which was enacted to prevent the arrest of draft-dodging charedim for approximately six months (since it’s too difficult for the government to achieve its aim of permanently exempting them and paying them). The following remarkable exchange took place between charedi attorney Nosson Rosenblatt and religious Justice David Mintz (English translation follows):

Attorney Rosenblatt: “Is it appropriate that in a Jewish and democratic state to place a person in a dilemma of whether to follow the Torah or the law?!”

Justice Mintz: “Sir, with all due respect, I’m restraining myself. I’m listening to these statements, and I simply can’t believe what I’m hearing. Is there a Torah prohibition against enlisting?!”

Attorney Rosenblatt: “Yes!”

Justice Mintz: “That in itself is apparently a matter of very serious dispute.”

Attorney Rosenblatt: “All the leading Torah sages...”

Justice Mintz: “Not all the leading Torah sages! With all due respect, you are speaking from a sectarian perspective. What is this?!”

Now, I know that you’re expecting me to say that Rosenblatt is obviously and clearly and unequivocally wrong, and Justice Mintz is obviously and clearly and unequivocally right. But actually I’m not going to say that.

What is the “Torah” perspective on anything? What do we mean by the “Torah” perspective? A Sadducee will have one perspective on what the Torah means by “an eye for an eye,” and a Pharisee will have a different perspective, and neither thinks that the other is correctly presenting the Torah perspective, or is even qualified to give a perspective. The same goes for Reform and Orthodox rabbis.

And the same is true even within Orthodoxy. There are Orthodox rabbis who believe that enlisting in the IDF is a mitzvah, an obligation, and there are Orthodox rabbis who believe that it is absolutely forbidden, almost (or perhaps exactly) as severely as idolatry.

(In fact, the same is even true within charedi Orthodoxy, between generations. Twenty years ago when my books were banned, R. Aharon Feldman interpreted R. Elyashiv as saying that understandings of Torah which were perfectly legitimate at certain points in history are heretical theological perversions at other points in history.)

And I’ll go even further in justifying what Attorney Rosenblatt claims. When he says “all the leading Torah sages,” he is correct! - from his perspective. The countless Religious-Zionist rabbis who say otherwise, or even maverick charedi rabbis like Rav Dovid Leibel, simply don’t count as “Torah sages” or even remotely credible people in his eyes. This is not an inconceivable attitude; the same is true in reverse from the perspective of many rabbis in my community (including myself), that both Reform and charedi rabbis are simpy not representing Torah.

But here’s where Attorney Rosenblatt is being inconsistent.

If you want to claim that religious Zionist rabbis are not even rabbis, and serving in the IDF is forbidden by the Torah, then what you’re saying is that modern charedism is a completely different religion from religious Zionism. Which is fine! In fact, I personally fully agree that these are two completely different religions, and I have written as such on several occasions.

But this is not what Rosenblatt is willing to say. Because his opening sentence - upon which rests his main argument - is to appeal to the Jewish nature of the state. Yet if there are two completely different and utterly opposed forms of Judaism, then there is no common ground to appeal to. The Judaism of the State of Israel is most certainly not one in which religious Zionist rabbis are not rabbis and serving in the IDF is against the Torah.

And there’s more. The State of Israel certainly has no reason to fund other, radically different forms of Judaism. It doesn’t need to fund Sadducees, it doesn’t need to fund anti-Zionist J-Street type Judaism, it doesn’t need to fund Neturei Karta, and it doesn’t need to fund charedi Judaism. In fact, it is actually wrong for the State to do so, if they are opposed to supporting its existence!

Charedim need to be consistent. If their interpretation of Judaism means that they are a completely different socio-religious community from the Judaism acknowledged by the State of Israel, then they need to follow that through.

And if they don’t, the rest of us need to hold them to that.