The Gedolim Deal With a Crisis

But not the crisis that everyone else is dealing with

The following announcement appeared in the charedi press:

It describes an urgent meeting held with charedi rabbinic leaders (which for the charedi world means the roshei yeshiva). The cause is the “gezeyros,” the threat of decrees to draft charedim into the IDF, along with the cessation of financial support and benefits for those who illegally avoid enlisting, which are designed to “decrease Torah.” The 95-year-old Rabbi Dov Landau, who recently came out of hospital, will be making a very challenging trip to the USA, in order to raise money for the charedi yeshivos and “preserve the guardians of Judaism, the yeshivos and kollelim, crowns of creation.”

I would like to point out just three things.

First is that if this 95 year old “Gadol” has to schlepp to America on a fundraising trip, then nothing more painfully and powerfully illustrates the farce that is charedi bitachon. We see that the greatest Torah scholar (from their perspective) has to do the most difficult physical hishtadlus rather than trust in Hashem. Because all their bitachon was never about genuinely believing that you can rely on Hashem rather than perform hishtadlus (which has no basis in traditional Judaism); it was about having bitachon in other people to do the work instead of you.

Second is the nonsense about “preserving Judaism.” Judaism never had a hundred thousand people in yeshiva and kollel. You could draft 20,000 charedim and relieve the pressure - heck, you could draft all the charedim - and there would still be more Torah study than at any time in history. (And, of course, there are tens of thousands of chareidm who are not even learning in yeshivah and yet who still do not serve, because today’s “Gedolim” are against any charedim serving, whether they learn Torah or not.)

Third is the disgraceful utter obliviousness to the war, and to the demands and hardships that it imposes on the rest of the population. Tens of thousands of reservists were just called up yet again, this time for three and a half months. These are men in their thirties and forties, who have already served for years, leaving their studies and jobs and families, at great cost to their parnasa and family life, as well as risking life and limb. And none of this would have been necessary if at the beginning of the war, even just the non-learning charedim, the endless guys hanging around the malls and parks, would have joined the effort. Yet these “Gedolim” simply do not care. They make out as though the push to draft charedim is about “decreasing Torah” and has nothing to do with the severe manpower shortage in the IDF and the importance of relieving the terrible hardship on hundreds of thousands of families.

These men, who purport to be the “Crown of Creation,” are utterly indifferent to the suffering of the Jewish People. They are not “Gedolim"; they are a chillul Hashem.