The "Three Weeks" Fraud

On Attempts to Stifle Criticism

Remember how it used to be absolutely unthinkable to talk about sexual abuse in the Orthodox world? And then some people start talking about it. But others told them that it was lashon hara and a chillul Hashem, and nothing was done. Finally, the people reporting it went to the press. And finally it was acknowledged that, yes, it was a very, very serious problem, and the only reason it began to be addressed was because of public exposure and the pressure that it created.

The same thing is happening again, in a different area. The other day I posted on LinkedIn the video interview with various charedi yeshiva students explaining their arrogant, ignorant and uncaring reasons for avoiding army service. Someone commented as follows:

During the period of the Three Weeks, a time synonymous with sinas chinam, why are you trying to make more cracks amongst Klal Yisroel?

I replied that this is not "making" cracks. This is revealing the cracks that exist, so that they can be addressed. And in doing so I am acting unlike other people, who try to pretend that these cracks do not exist, or that they don't matter so much, and we should just turn a blind eye to them. There's nothing more appropriate for the Three Weeks than the material that I am posting.

This did not sway my critic, who responded as follows:

True, there is a desperate need for soldiers. There is also a desperate need for ruchniyos too. I know I am not going to convince you, as you seem to repeatedly point to the issues. Neither will I bother commenting again, as I've made my point. All I am saying is, in an age when anti-Semitism is at the highest rate it has ever been since the age of the Holocaust, do we really need to be fostering more hate amongst our own?

I replied that these people are not creating ruchniyos, any more than someone who learns Torah while his wife desperately needs help or while his father is in hospital and needs family support. And yes, we absolutely do need to be fostering widespread awareness and opposition to the charedi refusal to serve, as otherwise nothing will change. The only way it will change is via political pressure, which results from public campaigning. And this has nothing to do with antisemitism. Yirmiyah didn't stop telling off the Jewish People for their sins because of antisemitism!

It’s just like people who tried to stifle exposing the problem of child abuse because "it's lashon hara." Problems have to be dealt with, not swept under the carpet with fake religious pretexts. It's not "sinas chinam" to want to address the problem that there is a terrible shortage of manpower because of a refusal by an entire sector to help during a war.

(Beyond all the justifications for criticizing charedi lack of participation in Klal Yisrael, there’s also the hypocrisy of my critics. They are objecting to my criticizing people for harming achdus - but that’s exactly what they are doing to me!)

Criticizing charedim for causing terrible hardship and danger for everyone else is not “baseless hatred” - it’s pointing out the problems of their lack of achdus. And the “Sinas Chinam” of the Second Commonwealth itself was ultimately about the sectarianism that weakened the Jewish People against their enemies - which is precisely the problem of charedi sectarianism.

Then there was also the destruction of the First Commonwealth. Rambam attributes that one to the Jewish People’s lack of taking their military responsibility seriously. And can you imagine if my critics today were around during the time of Yirmiyah? They’d be criticizing him for criticizing people, accusing him of fostering sinas chinam!

All this seems rather straightforward. So why are there so many people who don’t get it? I think that there are several explanations.