Torah vs. Daas Torah

And what it has to say about the army draft

The pretext that this Sunday’s prayer rally in Lakewood is about anything other than railing against the draft of charedim has been largely abandoned. Torah u’Mesorah - that’s the organization behind hundreds of Orthodox day schools, community kollelim, “Partners in Torah,” project SEED, etc. - sent out a mailing featuring not just the letter paying lip service to the war and the hostages (which was intended to encourage larger participation), but also the flyer I posted yesterday which was only about the yeshivos, along with a letter signed by 25 “Gedolei Torah” for the original rally which likewise only made mention of the yeshivos.

This letter is a real gem. It describes the people who want the draft to apply equally to every Jew - which is not just the High Court stating the obvious fact that the law must be equal, but the vast majority of Israel - as resha’im, wicked ones. (Do you think that the charedi community should not receive a wholesale exemption from the universal draft? Then you’re a rasha, too!) It describes the IDF - the army protecting all seven million Jews in Israel - as “their” army. And it talks about the ru’ach hatuma behind all this.

It’s tragic that Torah u’Mesorah has joined up with the extreme right wing of the black-hat community in the US. You might want to make your feelings known to them by writing to info@torah-umesorah.org, and I would also urge people not to donate to any Torah u’Mesorah projects and to support Torah study in the US instead with such organizations as Torah MiTzion.

What about the left wing of the right wing, the Agudah? They’re not endorsing the Lakewood rally. But I suppose they didn’t want to look irrelevant, so the Moetzes Gedolei HaTorah just sent out their own Kol Korei:

The “Gedolim” speak about the terrible things that have happened this year:

• The Oct. 7 massacre

• The hostages

• The “harsh decrees” against the Torah and its learners (i.e. making the law which applies to everyone in Israel also apply to them)

• The passing of other Gedolim

• Calamities in the community

• Parnasa challenges

Note that there is no mention whatsoever about the soldiers - the hundreds of soldiers who have fallen, the thousands of soldiers who have been injured, the millions who have experienced the hardship of having a family member in the IDF. I’m not sure if these were deliberate omissions, or if the Einei Ha-Edah are simply not even aware of such things.

Anyway, the “Gedolei Torah” provide a list of five practical steps of what can be done to help. These are:

1. Davening with a minyan and saying Tehillim with them;

2. Not skipping any part of pesukei d’zimra;

3. Not talking during davening and kriyat haTorah;

4. Strengthening emunah and reviewing Rambam’s Thirteen Principles of Faith;

5. Increasing tzniyus by accepting practical commitments.

For the last one, they provide a Torah source: “Hashem, your G-d, walks in the midst of your camp, and your camp shall be holy” (Devarim 23:15). Amazingly, these “Gedolei Torah” seem to be entirely oblivious to the fact that the “camp” mentioned here in the Torah is a military camp of soldiers going to war against the enemies of the Jewish People. The Torah urges these soldiers not to succumb to the challenges of war, to guard against sin, to retain their standards of sanctity, and to thereby deserve Divine aid. But it’s a given that they will actually go to war, and that the spiritual risks do not justify avoiding it!

Meanwhile, I’ve started collecting stories showing the practical ramifications of charedim avoiding army service. (If you have a story, please send it to me.) There’s nothing like an actual personal story to show the real-world impact of their approach. Here’s one:

I never had an issue with anyone learning... But this year changed me... My daughter fought like a lion for a year, was exposed to everything, just to be called up to reserve duty when she was finished with her service, in order to guard and feed the Nakba terrorists in jail, because they have a shortage of soldiers. That made me snap... I actually told her for the first time to say no and they should go and get charedim or people who made excuses to get out of the army to do it. It makes me sad that subconsciously now I am so angry with these boys sitting in Yeshiva especially when I see them on a break. I am not happy or proud of those feelings I'm actually so sad I am so angry.

Here’s another, from a friend of mine in the US:

My daughter and son-in-law made aliyah a few years ago. She has two small children and struggled with a difficult pregnancy while her husband was in reserve duty this year. He was now called back again, to the north, and she spent the night crying to me. If there were more soldiers available, maybe he wouldn’t have had to be called back.

And here's another:

My (religious) brother-in-law, with five children, is on his third time in reserve duty this year. Only half his unit returned, because the guys are losing their businesses and their wives are alone. The unit does not have enough soldiers and the ones they have are exhausted.

It’s a pity that in the list of things that the “Gedolei Torah” said could be done to help, joining the IDF and easing the burden on reservists and strengthening the army for the forthcoming Lebanon invasion wasn’t included. That’s what my sons’ yeshiva, along with eighty other hesder yeshivot, are going to do. They are going to join the military camp that the Torah speaks about as being needed, with all its spiritual risks, in order to fight the enemy.

I guess that’s the difference between Torah and Da’as Torah.

Please forward my posts to people for whom you feel it would be beneficial. A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index