No Sense of Shame
Adding Insult to Injury
It occurred to me that the great frustration and anger towards the charedi community is not just about their refusing to help out with the crushing burden of national defense. It’s also about the attitude that goes along with it.
Several years ago, Rav Aharon Lopiansky wrote that “the robbing of our youths’ formative years as a ben Torah would be a price that we could not pay.” In response, Rabbi Yitzchak Adlerstein responded pithily, “Agreed. But how do we ask other, reluctant Israelis to pay a different price so that we don’t have to pay ours?” Rabbi Adlerstein’s sentiment is what has been fundamentally missing from charedi discourse.
Serving in the army, especially during these difficult times, is not just about a technical mitzva of milchemes mitzvah, lo sa’amod, and so on. As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein pointed out, it’s about basic chessed. It’s basic morality and basic common sense. When people are struggling with something incredibly difficult, you feel bad for them, and you help! You don’t avoid helping and make things even more difficult for them. And if for whatever reason, justified or not, you are not helping, then you feel guilty about it. You try to make it up to them in other ways. You don’t offer platitudes and express smugness that you’ve avoided helping them.
Netziv was of the view that certain tribes were not involved in combat, and that they were involved in Torah and prayer instead. But he says that these people pay higher monetary taxes to support the military! And he states that they are to be available for whatever purposes the nation requires (i.e. some sort of national service). If you’re not doing the difficult task that everyone else is doing, you have to make it up in some other meaningful way.
It’s not just that the charedi community is failing at a basic chesed obligation, although this is certainly the primary issue. The bad feeling is created by their also clearly simply not caring, in any meaningful sense. They don’t make up for their draft-dodging with other acts of chesed (to any significant degree), they don’t help reservists families, they don’t help on farms, they don’t go to hospitals or funerals. The “Gadol haDor” of the Litvish charedi world, Rav Dov Landau, has opposed and condemned charedim doing such things. Rav Aharon Feldman has been explicit about how the charedi goal is to avoid creating a sense of appreciation that might draw them out of their way of life.
There was much back-patting among charedim last week about Rav Landau and Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch calling on the yeshivos to end their vacation a few days early in light of the security situation. But aside from the fact that such trivial things are not any kind of meaningful contribution, he immediately gives the second (and real) reason, that there are “decrees and demonizations” against yeshiva students! It’s not about helping the country, it’s about helping themselves.
And it goes even further. Not only does their approach to life mean that they avoid helping, they actually demand that everyone else pays them for it!
But the final straw, the part that adds insult to injury, is that at no point do they evince any feelings of guilt or indebtedness about any of this. They don’t really care about all the suffering that goes on outside of their community, and they certainly don’t care to know about the extent of it. And they don’t evince any sense of shame that everyone else is making huge sacrifices for them, and they sacrifice nothing for others. They’re not embarrassed to demand their exemption, and to demand financial support for their way of life. MK Yitzchak Goldknopf, the UTJ minister at the forefront of demanding exemptions and financial support, is belligerent, arrogant and smugly assured that he will pull this all off. He insists that they deserve it - because of the political support that they gave to Bibi!
The Gemara says that there are three hallmarks of the Jewish People: They are rachmanim (merciful), bayshanim (shame-faced), and gomlei chasadim (performers of kindness). The charedi community is shirking the chessed that is needed in this crucial hour, they are showing no rachmanus, and they have no shame about it. That’s not very Jewish.
Please forward my posts to people for whom you feel it would be beneficial. A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index
Rabbi Slifkin, my wife had the opportunity to take your advise and give some mild rebuke to some of our neighbors' wives at a get together to say Tehilim over Shabbat.
They literally could not respond. Most of them are overseas-born long time Israelis. Almost all of their descendants, both male and female, do not do any form of national service.
I have not yet had the opportunity my wife had. If I did, I'm not sure I would be qualified enough, in words and emotion, to be of any benefit.
This morning the train station I use every day in Tel Aviv had one exit closed with a sign that because of the security situation they do not have enough manpower to keep all entrances open. The train station on Modi'in closed one of the entrances a few weeks ago.
Similarly, many Yeshivot have had to replace staff, including Ramim with less experienced or less qualified people, as their staff (and students) are risking their lives to protect the country.
In other words, because of the thousands of young people serving in Miluim for months on end, essential services such as trains and Talmud Torah are no longer able to operate at regular capacity.
Yet certain leaders in the Charedi community are still claiming that there is no manpower shortage in the army and no reason to encourage even a small number of Bochrim to serve in the army, or even volunteer for other essential services.