The "Great Ones"

The "Torah Giants" who won't tell you to davven for soldiers

The Council of Great Torah Scholars of Agudas Yisrael of America released a statement last week. They urged the Jewish People to increase their prayers to God, due to a combination of various things that they specified:

• The “terrible, unnatural disasters” that have occurred to Jewish communities in the United States (apparently a reference to the Lakewood murder of two children by their mentally ill mother);

• The passing of various Gedolim;

• The plight of the Jewish People in Eretz Yisrael amidst the war;

• The “decrees” against the holy yeshivos in Eretz Yisrael (to remove funding for those shirking army service).

Note what they didn’t mention: the soldiers of the IDF. I.e., those whose lives are in immediate threat, and of whom 325 have been killed since October 7th, including several just last week.

The message is clear. Elderly rabbis dying of natural causes is something to highlight, young men dying because they being truly moser nefesh for the Jewish People are not something to highlight. The removal of funding for charedi yeshivos is something to highlight, the yeshiva students who wear white kippot and leave yeshiva to die protecting the Jewish people are not something to highlight.

As a friend of mine noted, presumably a lot of thought went into the wording of the statement, both to avoid mentioning the soldiers, and to be sufficiently vague that one could think they were included. I suspect that this is why they didn’t mention the other group whose lives are in immediate danger - the hostages - because this would have brought into focus the refusal to mention the soldiers.

Note that the problem here is not just a lack of hakarat hatov or concern. Presumably the Gedolim believe that focused prayer is more effective than non-focused prayer. So this means that from their perspective, it is better to let harm come to the soldiers than to tell people to davven for them.

Why is it so unthinkable to ask people to davven for those who are being moser nefesh for the Jewish People? Because, as Rav Aharon Feldman explained, it could chas v’shalom lead to people “glorifying” those who are moser nefesh to protect the Jewish People. More generally, it’s against their religion of Charedism, which is based on separating oneself from national concerns rather than identifying with them and taking responsibility.

Nearly twenty years ago, with the Gedolim’s dismissal of modern science and ban on the rationalist approach of Rambam and many other Torah greats, a lot of people realized that the so-called “Gedolim” were severely deficient in both the intellectual and theological realms. Now, a lot of people are realizing that they are also severely deficient in the achdus and moral realm.

If you are interested in revering great Torah scholars, look for the ones who are actually wise, good people that care about the soldiers - even if they are not given any glory or acknowledgement by the so-called "Agudas Yisrael.”