The Expected "Torah" Drivel
The charedi response to the High Court ruling
In response to yesterday’s High Court ruling that charedim have no exemption from IDF service, the charedi world is responding with the expected drivel. For people who claim to be so passionate about “Torah,” it’s amazing that they have no clarity on the meaning and parameters and history of it.
Minister of Construction and Housing Yitzhak Goldknopf: "The State of Israel was established to be a home for the Jewish people and the Torah is the bedrock of its existence."
Yes, but “Torah” is not 150,000 charedim in yeshiva. Even if of the 66,000 charedi yeshiva students of the correct age, every suitable one (far less than 66,000) would be drafted, there would still be more Torah being learned than at any time in recent history.
MK Israel Eichler: "The High Court is a dictatorial body that seized power from the elected government and the democratic authorities and seeks to impose a religious war on the streets and cause a rift between Jews.”
No, the vast majority of Israel wants army service to be shared, and the rift is created by those who refuse to share the national responsibility and who would rather fight other Jews than fight Hamas and Hezbollah.
MK Israel Eichler, continued: “We will continue to hold on to the tradition of our forefathers, even if dictators who rule as they deem fit are plotting to uproot it all. The High Court ruling is not nine judges against zero. It is nine judges against 3500 years of study from receiving the Torah to this day."
Nobody is plotting to uproot Jewish tradition. Jewish tradition is not to have 150,000 people in yeshiva and kollel, nor to grant a mass exemption from battle in a war for national survival.
Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri: "The Jewish people survived persecutions, pogroms and wars only thanks to the preservation of their unique possessions – the Torah and the mitzvot."
Yes, and we survived those things without tens of thousands of charedim in yeshivah. Nobody is proposing that we will lose the Torah and mitzvot. Just as there is plenty of Torah and mitzvot in Hesder Yeshivot, there will be plenty of Torah and mitzvot in the charedi community.
Minister of Jerusalem and Israel's Tradition Meir Porush: "The High Court ruling inevitably leads to two states here. One, is the country that is being run as it is now. The other country is the one where Torah students will continue to study Torah as they used to in the country that Ben-Gurion declared."
There were a few hundred yeshiva students in the country that Ben-Gurion declared, and many of the great-grandparents of today’s charedim served in the defense forces. Having endless tens of thousands of people in yeshivah, being funded by everyone else, is a recent charedi innovation which is tearing the country apart and dangerously weakening it.
And finally…
How come not one of these people has anything to say about the very reasons for the High Court decision - both the need for more IDF manpower, and the gross injustice of making everyone else sacrifice their Torah learning, their jobs, their family life, their health, and even their lives?
I will answer your question. It's because you and the rest of the country are using logic and being rational. While Orthodox and Chareidi Judism only works via appeal to authority. So you can scream logic all you want. They will scream authority all they want. And no common ground will be found. The only possible way to make willing chareidi change is via their own language of appeal to authority.
Glad I have comfortable shoes, because those lovely gentlemen are likely to riot and disrupt light rail service in J-lem again today.