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Efraim's avatar

I notice the rudeness of the ultra-orthodox businessmen and the "rabbis" they crowned. Because they state that the only reason there is a prosperous "Orthodox world" in Israel is because of the grace of heaven; Not because of political protection and treating everyone who is not ultra-Orthodox as a woodcutter and their water pumper "Through Hashem's grace upon his nation of Yisrael, the world of Torah has grown and multiplied in the Eretz Hakedosha",

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Moshe Dayan's avatar

There are several problems with this article.

1. You start off by making a comparison to smartphones, saying that just because something is common or useful doesn't make it necessary. The proper conclusion would be that although drafting yeshiva students would be useful to the IDF, it's certainly not essential.

2. According to standard Torah perspective, the Agudah is correct that it is in the merit of the Torah students that the nation survives. You argue that historical numbers of Torah students demonstrate that the sheer numbers today are not essential, but this misses the point, that the government has declared a war against the Torah. If an enemy declares its intentions to destroy your organization that you have painstakingly built up over many decades, there is no comfort in the fact that your organization was much smaller 60 years ago.

3. For argument's sake, suppose the anonymously written poster from 1948 with no rabbinic signatures is real. I can believe it is real, given the emergency in 1948. However, in no way can that emergency be compared to the situation today, and therefore the situations are incomparable.

4. You write "sages" with quotation marks. Show some respect since they are real sages.

5. You complain about "hatefulness" of describing those seeking to equalize the burden of military service as “persecutors of religion.” But there is nothing hateful about this statement, they are persecutors of religion. Furthermore, it is ironic and obtuse for somebody seen as a merchant of hate to complain about hatefulness.

6. There is nothing obtuse about using the word "war" figuratively when there is an actual war going on. The fact that there is an actual war going on does not automatically create new and senseless language regulations. The same goes for "mesiras nefesh", which is commonly used for those who sacrifice their material comfort for higher spiritual achievements, and not just for people who have actually died.

7. Your speculation about the psychology of the anonymous authors of the poster you found is not grounded in reality.

8. Finally, portraying this as a "reform of Agudah" based on one poster you found does not demonstrate an interest in the truth. There is a great deal of historical context to Agudah's opposition to ZIonism and eventual grudging, partial reconciliation to the State, but you sum up the entire thing in some anonymous poster you found from 1948 which happens to be consistent with your own views.

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