The Eighty Unmentionable Yeshivos

Shhhhh!!!!

In my letter to Mishpacha regarding Rav Brudny’s accusation, I noted that he was completely negating the existence of over one million Jews in Israel who are shomer Torah u’mitzvos but not charedi. Over the last few weeks, I’ve begun to wonder if perhaps much of American yeshivish Jewry genuinely does not even know that these million Jews exist. And that aside from rabbis and shuls, they have yeshivot and kollels and serious talmidei chachamim.

My friends in Lakewood and Monsey have told me that many American yeshivish Jews indeed do not know about the dati-leumi (national-religious) community in Israel. But they have told me that this is understandable, since the media that they read barely if ever mentions it. And certainly even to the extent that they are aware of it, they do not know much about it; I’m reminded of how one revered American yeshivish rabbi, referring to the yeshiva students who were murdered at Mercaz HaRav, described them as “Modern Orthodox.”

But I think that there’s more to it than that. It seems that either consciously or sub-consciously, the American yeshivish community does not want to know about the dati-leumi community. In particular, they want to avoid knowing about the eighty hesder yeshivot which are a primary source of spiritual strength for that community. The American yeshivish are following the lead of the charedi community in Israel, which is determined to avoid acknowledging these hesder yeshivot.

Why? It’s not because they are embarrassed at the real sacrifices that the hesder yeshiva students have made to protect the Jewish People while charedim have the audacity to boast about their own “mesirus nefesh” and to complain about being victims. Because they lack the self-awareness to be ashamed of that. The reason is that these yeshivot undermine the charedi case.

The contemporary charedi identity, and their current crisis with the court and the rest of the country, revolves around their absolute refusal to serve in the IDF. One of their main arguments is that this is a “war against Torah,” a situation of shmad (spiritual obliteration). They claim that if they were to go to the army, they would end up not being religious.

The eighty hesder yeshivot refute all that. These yeshivot exist with the full backing of the court and the rest of the country, showing that there is no “war against Torah.” And the number of students in these yeshivot who drop out of religion is minuscule, since they are in a constant framework with their yeshiva. The students in hesder spend a year and a half in full-time Torah study, then serve in the IDF for a year and a half as part of a single yeshiva unit, then return to their yeshivot for another two years (or more) of full-time Torah study (during which they are on-call for the IDF if needed). There is no shmad; instead, there is lots and lots of Torah study (even though they wear knitted kippot and T-shirts!). And nobody is stopping charedim staying in yeshivah forever after hesder if they want to.

Even the time that hesder students spent in army service enhances their development as Torah Jews, because their Torah is a Torah of chessed. As Rav Aharon Lichtenstein explains, in The Ideology of Hesder:

…military service is often the fullest manifestation of a far broader value:  g'milut hasadim, the empathetic concern for others and action on their behalf.  This element defined by Hazal as one of the three cardinal foundations of the world, is the basis of Jewish social ethics, and its realization, even at some cost to single-minded development of Torah scholarship, virtually imperative.  The Gemara in Avodah Zarah is pungently clear on this point…  ‘Whoever concerns himself solely with Torah is as one who has no God.’  The midrash equates the renunciation of g'milut hasadim with blasphemy; and the gemara in Rosh Hashanah states that Abbaye outlived Rabbah because he engaged in both Torah and g'milut hasadim whereas Rabbah had largely confined himself to the former.  When, as in contemporary Israel, the greatest single hesed one can perform is helping to defend his fellows' very lives, the implications for yeshiva education should be obvious.

My own oldest son is learning at Yeshivat Hesder Maalot Yaakov, which is located in the very north of the country. Yeshivat Maalot, as it is commonly called, is very serious about fulfilling the role that Rambam ascribes to Shevet Levi - spreading Torah to the nation. They arrange shiurim for many secular residents of the north and they have “adopted” the Bnei Menashe immigrant population. And last week, with the situation in the north worsening, the Rosh Yeshivah, Rav Weitzman shlita, decided that the yeshivah should do something bold to spiritually energize both the yeshiva and the surrounding community. He declared that the entire yeshiva, accompanied by the residents of the town of Maalot, should join together to complete learning the Torah in one week. The entire Torah. Tanach, Mishnah, Talmud Bavli, Talmud Yerushalmi, Midrashei Halacha and Aggadah, even the Zohar. My son told me that the learning energy was insane!

It’s an amazing story (you can watch the video below), and one that was featured in Arutz Sheva and Srugim. But was it reported in the Israeli charedi or American yeshivish media? Of course not, because it would ruin the fake narrative that they are carefully nurturing and from which they are raising millions of dollars. (And you can be sure that they will likewise not report about the new charedi hesder yeshiva which is aspiring to open.) Because once you see that there are eighty yeshivos in which young men spend years learning Torah along with serving in the IDF, then the claims of “Gedolim” and charedi MKs that the High Court (which hasn’t even said that every charedi young man must draft) is out to “destroy Torah” are clearly absurd. And it’s likewise clear that the charedi opposition to army service is not actually about defending Torah and Judaism.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to learn more about the various projects of Yeshivat Hesder Maalot Yaakov and support its efforts, they just set up a new English website. (And there is also a far more extensive Hebrew website.)