When Yeshivos Crushed Syria

The Latest Victory!

A few months ago, we learned a suprising revelation from Israel’s charedi Yated Neeman newspaper. It turns out that when thousands of Hezbollah fighters had their hands blown off, this was not, as was widely claimed, the result of a meticulously planned Mossad operation. Rather, it was solely the result of (charedi) yeshivah students learning Torah. This week, the Yated quotes the Rosh Yeshiva of Grodno, the “Gaon” Rabbi Derovkan, who informs us that the collapse of Syria demonstrates the power of charedi yeshivos for all to see: they accomplished it without the IDF even having to make a pretense of doing anything.

Now, there’s three observations to be made here.

First, of course, there is the sheer ignorance and lack of critical thought on show here. Assad’s regime collapsed due to a very clear cause: it was attacked by many thousands of rebels, who realized that the regime had been weakened by Hezbollah’s losses, Russia’s distractions in Ukraine, and Iran’s problems. Subsequently, the actual hardware was blown up by IDF planes. Meanwhile, if the charedi yeshivos are so powerful that they can collapse powerful regimes, how come they weren’t able to prevent the much weaker force of Hamas? His claim does not withstand a moment’s critical questioning. This is the sharp intellect and wisdom of a “Gaon,” that the Gemara study of charedi yeshivos creates?!

Second, there is the denial of traditional Torah theology. The Rosh Yeshiva quotes a lone aggadic teaching about Yaakov’s “sword and bow” referring to his wisdom and prayers. He takes this view as literal and definitive, extrapolates from it that military action never has any genuine significance. He even makes the astonishing claim that the Jews who fought the Greeks did not learn Torah and were not actually responsible for the victory, while Mattisyahu HaKohen and the other heroes who really won the war against the Greeks did not engage in any physical combat against the Greeks but merely sat and learned Torah! Of course this approach completely denies the endless sources in Tanach and Chazal and the Rishonim about the reality and genuine significance of physical effort and military action.

Third, as even some in the yeshiva world realized with shock, there is a striking downplaying of God. It’s all about the “power” of learning Torah, with barely a mention of Hashem. Torah simply becomes another type of weapon, a manifestation of “kochi v’otzem yadi.” This is a result of the shift away from the traditional Torah view of God determining our ultimate fate through the merits of our deeds (along with normative physical action), to the post-R.Chaim Volozhin mystical view of Torah having innate spiritual power.

So, we have a religious worldview which is illogical, foolish, anti-traditional, and veering on idolatry. And it has catastrophic effects on the wellbeing of millions of people today, along with serious threats to the economy and security of the Jewish homeland. Such are the dangers of anti-rationalism.