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Alex F's avatar

Infallibility is a dangerous Christian concept, not a Jewish one.

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Michael Lieber's avatar

Once again I'll express my thoughts on your writing about this topic. Once again I'll lead with the point that I mostly agree with your logic, so this is certainly not coming feom a place of opposition to the issue.

However, 1) You constantly ignore the fact that there are other legitimate considerations for a religious person to be very hesitant to join the IDF. The blame for that is on the IDF. They insisted on making the IDF a place that is anti-Torah. While there has been significant improvements because of the hard work of the many religious people who HAVE joined, it is still a struggle to stay pure in the IDF environment and they don't lovingly accommodate authentic Judaism in the IDF, full stop. This makes some gedolim continue to take a very hard opposition to it. 2) You speak with great cynicism about very great men. It sounds like you're not even fully respectful of the Vilna Goan! It is hard not to see the irony of how you're trying to argue for religious people not to be afraid of the spiritual side of their life by joining the army while you're speaking disparagingly about Torah leaders! You are a caricature of precisely why charedim don't join the IDF - they don't want to end up like you! Every valid point you made can easily be said without throwing rabbanim you disagree with under a bus. Abaye and Rava disagreed all the time, they didn't go on and on insulting each other. 3) Your approach is very irrational for a rationalist Jew. It has zero chance of appealing to the minds you'd like to change. Therefore, all it does accomplish is sowing internal hatred. This is so detrimental to the safety of Israel on a practical level, everyone knows that, a house divided will not stand. And spiritually, if you still believe that the Creator is capable of letting Israel be victorious without the help of the IDF, and if you still believe the numerous portions of the Torah that promise us success if we follow Hashem's will and failure if we don't, then your attitude doesn't help that either.

My suggestion? Keep making your point. Keep pointing out the logical inconsistencies in the opinion of those you disagree with. Some of your points are excellent! And leave the rabbi bashing out of it.

I know I sound like a broken record, but to be fair, so do you.

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