The Forbidden Word

It’s anathema in charedi circles

Many years ago the charedi schools in England, where government funding requires basic general education, sought to publish their own English dictionary which wouldn’t include any inappropriate four-letter-words. Someone joked that the forbidden four-letter-word was “work”! But in fact, the word which is perhaps most anathema to charedi society has a whopping 14 letters. It’s “responsibility.”

When a charedi boy grows up, he gets no responsibilities. Sure, he has to learn Torah and keep certain mitzvos bein adam l’Makom, but that’s it. He doesn’t have to contribute to national defense. He doesn’t have to help with any national needs. He doesn’t need to support his wife and children. He doesn’t need to make any decisions or accept any responsibility for his life choices, because he can relax in the knowledge that he has offloaded those to The Gedolim™. He doesn’t even have to wash his dishes.

And this applies even to the community leadership. They don’t concern themselves with any national needs, even as they approach a quarter of the population and make a huge impact on the rest of the country. They don’t make any long-term plan even for the economic viability of their own community (and on rare occasions they even admit it). And when disasters happen, whether with the largest (and totally predictable) civilian disaster in Israel’s history, or various (likewise totally predictable) infant and juvenile deaths, or economic collapse, they can just blame the Zionists or the inscrutable will of God.

Of course, not everyone would agree that charedim shirk responsibility. Following the recruitment of the charedi “call girls,” an article was published by Rivka Ravitz, a prominent member of the charedi community. While acknowledging that this initiative potentially involves breaches of charedi tzniyus standards, she declares herself proud of it, and writes as follows:

“For years, one of the charges levelled against the Haredi community has been that we expect other people to support our Lomdei Torah, our Torah scholars. This campaign has shown that when the need is urgent, the Haredi community can mobilize on an astounding scale. Families who do not necessarily have very much themselves are giving. Girls barely out of school are taking responsibility.”

Now, first of all, let’s be clear here. The charedi community absolutely does not even have remotely close to a fraction of the funding that it needs to be self-supporting, no matter how many poor charedi families contribute, no matter how many trips abroad The Gedolim™ make, and no matter how many girls they brainwash into fundraising for them. They are raising sums in the millions, but the government has been giving them billions.

But, beyond that, the idea of describing girls who fundraise as “taking responsibility” is simply outrageous. Taking responsibility means doing what Chazal said - being economically productive, and raising your children with the education and motivation to be economically self-sufficient. It does not mean desperately trying to fundraise to perpetuate a system that is constantly becoming ever more needy.

Is the abdication of responsibility true of everyone in the charedi world? No, of course not. But that’s why it’s most telling that “responsibility” is the key word in the election campaign for HaTzibur HaCharedi, the group that represents those who recognize the serious problems in the charedi world, are fed up with them, and want to create a radical change. Their very motto is “TakingResponsibility” - because that’s what we all, including charedim most of all, need charedim to do.