Prioritizing Charedi Lives
The evolution of Charedi positions on IDF service
The evolution of charedi rabbinic opinions on IDF enlistment is extraordinary. The Chazon Ish sought exemption for a few hundred yeshiva students to rebuild the losses of the Holocaust, but ruled that if there is a military need, yeshiva students must enlist. The charedi rabbinic leaders of the next generation, such as Rav Shach and Rav Shteinman, believed in exempting endless thousands of yeshiva students, but were adamant that every charedi young man who is not learning must enlist, as otherwise it would lead to increased pressure on all charedim to enlist. Yet the current charedi rabbinic leadership is against anyone in the charedi community enlisting, even if they are not learning.
Still, the mainstream charedi rabbinic and political leadership have tentatively approved Likud’s so-called Draft Law. This was an obvious move for them, because it unlocks billions of dollars for their freeloading lifestyle, while doing nothing substantive to solve the IDF manpower shortage that has caused so much hardship for so many people. At most it will result in the enlistment of a very tiny number of charedi dropouts. The vast majority of the 80,000 or so draft-age charedim will receive a legal exemption and lots of money will flow again.
Still, even a token concession to enlisting a few dropouts is too much for the more extreme charedi rabbinic authorities, who issued a formal halachic ruling against it. And their reasoning is fascinating:
These rabbis acknowledge that drafting some of the non-learning charedim will relieve pressure for enlistment on the charedim who are actually learning. But they argue that halachically there is no way to prioritize learners over non-learners, invoking the principle of ain dochim nefesh mipnei nefesh, one may not prioritize one person’s life over that of another.
This is of course the exact opposite of the reasoning employed by Rav Shach and Rav Steinman. But I’m interested in a different aspect: the usage of the principle that one may not prioritize one person’s life over that of another.
How on earth can they invoke the principle that one does not prioritize one life over another?! The charedi community prioritizes the lives of everyone in their community over the lives (literally) of everyone else in the country! Two years of reservists in their thirties, forties and beyond, doing endless rounds of duty, with the huge toll that this takes on their jobs and family lives and marriages and health and sometimes their very lives, all because the charedi community refuses to send anyone to the army. Indeed, it was even a charedi MK who announced that dati young men have to be pulled out of yeshiva early due to the IDF manpower shortage!
So how can they talk about ain dochim nefesh mipnei nefesh? Well, the answer is unfortunately clear. But first, let’s ask another question: Why charedim don’t see themselves as contravening Rambam’s condemnation of a poresh min hatzibbur, someone who observes all the halachot but does not care about the suffering of the community?
The explanation is that from the charedi perspective, they are the tzibbur and it’s everyone else who has separated themselves off. (Of course, there happens to be the tiny matter of our Arab enemies who want to kill us all, and whom we need to fight, but the only war that matters to charedim is the “war on Torah.”) Similarly, non-charedim do not count as “nefesh,” and thus the lives and wellbeing of everyone in the charedi community can be prioritized over that of everyone else in the country without even the slightest twinge of guilt.
This may sound shocking but it’s self-evident. It’s something that we’ve seen before, such as with charedim using the verse “Shall your brothers come to war while you remain here?” to rally people against sharing the burden of military service. But it doesn’t need examples from extremists - it’s the reality of the entire charedi rabbinic and political leadership, which has had absolutely no interest in helping relieve the suffering of the nation due to the war.
Being charedi is fundamentally all about separating themselves off from everyone else with a distinct identity that is self-perceived as the only legitimate path, and they’ve simply taken that to its ultimate conclusion. They have split off into an entirely different people. Relative to charedi lives, non-charedi lives just don’t matter.
Someone's been telling me to stop commenting here, because you're just too rabid to be sensible. You always make excellent points that are 100% justified and then take them one giant step too far into hatred, destructiveness, sinas chinam, divisiveness and generally making a terrible situation worse instead of better. Why do you have to take that last step every time? Why can't you be a voice of reason that can represent the dignity of the Torah instead of the lashing out of the agrieved? To connect it to the animal world, you seem like a king cobra waiting in a bamboo thicket to pounce every time it's prey becomes vulnerable. Is that really the kind of person you are? Almost everything you right sounds like you're a real mensch I could respect and be friends with. But the rest is inexcusable.
I was with you until the last line - "Relative to charedi lives, non-charedi lives just don’t matter."
Did you see b'chadrei charedim after 10/7? The headline was מעי מעי על חלליהם, a line from mourning the churban of Yerushalayim in Nachem, with an outpouring of sincere grief though almost all those who were killed were secular and soldiers.
The rest of your post was right and you've made the missing point before: They believe (yes, maybe convinced themselves they believe but their society is based on this belief) that if everyone was charedi there would be no danger and no need for an army and those crazy Zionists are the cause of this mess so dealing with it is their problem, not ours.
You can be a decent person deserving of respect and believe that, as inanely foolish as it is to anyone with a basic education (which they don't have). When you claim they see other's lives as less than theirs you claim they are evil and not just stupid and callous and indifferent to the burden on people they think caused their own problem (though that's clearly not a good excuse). And then you cause people to see charedi lives as less valuable, and you're as bad as you claim they are.