Miracles instead of Effort?

Mishpacha defends the Charedi IDF avoidance

To the Editor, Mishpacha Magazine,

For your feature story about the charedi avoidance of army service, “Pillars Imperiled: We Still Need Miracles,” you chose to interview Rav Yitzchok Berkovits of Aish HaTorah, because his position at the intersection of the yeshiva world and the outreach world give him a unique perspective. While your journalist asked excellent questions, Rav Berkovits’ responses were variously inaccurate and disturbing. I will restrict myself to four points out of many that could be made.

First of all, it is not clear why you rely on a charedi Rosh Yeshivah to explain the position of the dati-leumi world. Why not ask a dati-leumi Rosh Yeshivah, or look up what Rav Aharon Lichtenstein wrote about it? Contrary to Rav Berkovits’ presentation, the reason why Dati-Leumi rabbinic leaders feel that it is important for everyone (or almost everyone) to serve is nothing to do with the importance of yishuv ha-aretz, has nothing to do with whether or not the State has a din of malchus yisrael, and is not contingent on the technical question of whether it is a milchemes mitzvah.

Rather, it is due to the reality that millions of Jews are in danger, and how the Torah’s core values require us to practice chesed and achdus and responsibility, which translates to everyone sharing responsibility for national defense. As Moshe Rabbeinu said, “Shall your brothers come to war, while you remain here?!” - and he didn’t list learning Torah in yeshiva as an alternate option. As important as Torah study is, there are times when there are other obligations that take precedence, whether it is davenning shacharis, building a sukkah, helping your wife, or defending the lives of the Jewish People. When you see someone drowning, you go to help them - you don’t learn Torah instead and rely on its spiritual merit to help them! And in such a case of avoiding one’s obligation, the Torah being learned wouldn’t even have any merit.

Second, when your journalist correctly points out that there is a manpower shortage in the IDF (requiring dati-leumi men to take away even more time from their yeshivos and families and jobs), Rav Berkovits claims that since if war opened up on all fronts then we wouldn’t have enough manpower even if charedim drafted, we should just rely on miracles and not draft charedim.

I do not understand how such a thing could have been stated and published. The absolute normative position in traditional Judaism is ain somchin al ha-nes, one does not rely on miracles. We hope for miracles, we pray for miracles, we might need miracles, but we do not abandon normative hishtadlus. Is Rav Berkovits arguing that all the hesder yeshiva students should not have left to fight and should have stayed in yeshivah instead?! Were their deaths in vain?

Third, Rav Berkovits seems to follow an unfortunately prevalent pattern of using the vague word “Torah” when he is actually referring to something much more specific. Whether charedi or dati-leumi, we can all agree with Rav Berkovits that “it is Torah that has kept our people alive over all the years of galus and persecution” and that “without the Torah, there literally is no future for Klal Yisrael.” But he’s not actually talking about “Torah,” he’s talking about “66,000 charedim age 18-24 out of all the people in yeshivah.”

You can draft all 66,000 who received an exemption and there would still be vastly more people in full-time Torah learning than at any point in recent history. This would include dati-leumi and charedim who are before army service, dati-leumi and charedim who are post army service, and dati-leumi and charedim who are physically incapable of army service, not to mention yeshiva students outside of Israel. The existence of Torah and of the Jewish People does not require all the endlessly growing number of charedim being permanently in yeshivah.

Fourth, Rav Berkovits says that “We’re giving our lives to keep Torah alive for Klal Yisrael.” In fact, not a single charedi yeshiva student has “given his life” to keep Torah alive. On other hand, hundreds of secular and dati-leumi men have given their lives to keep charedim alive. For Rav Berkovits to use such phraseology reveals a disturbing lack of sensitivity and grasp of what’s going on for most of us in Israel. And the thousands of dati-leumi hesder students are not only willling to give their lives to keep charedim alive, they also keep Torah alive for Klal Yisrael - including by learning Torah while they are in Gaza.

And wouldn’t that be the type of Torah, learned by people who actually practice mesirus nefesh, which creates the greatest merit to earn help from Hashem?

Written in pain and anguish,

Rabbi Dr. Natan Slifkin

(Whose oldest son is currently in his first year at yeshivat Hesder, and may have to leave yeshiva earlier and stay away from it for even longer than planned because the charedi community regards his Torah, his spiritual growth, and his life, as being worth less than theirs.)