Hareidi Hasbara

Addressing erroneous arguments to draft yeshiva students, and zeroing in on the real motivation of the opponents

This post recognizes fully the efforts and mesiras nefesh of the heroic soldiers, for which we are tremendously grateful, but explains why we should be at least equally grateful for the Torah scholars who hold up the entire Jewish nation, something which the religious soldiers themselves appreciate.

The Israeli government and other groups allied with Israel engage in something called “hasbara”, which is basically propaganda, explaining to the broader world why its defense policy is justified. The reason why such explanations are needed is obvious. Outsiders cannot understand why it is necessary to bomb and kill tens of thousands of innocent civilians, most of whom are children, to defend your country. It looks like simple genocide. For those who reside in Israel, it’s a struggle for survival, and anything is justified. This is something that we of course understand very well. But it’s obviously very hard to sell that to non-Jewish, non-Israelis, to whom there is no parallel for such a need in the civilized world, at least in the last 75 years. Thus the need for the constant psychological warfare.

Similarly with the institution of Yeshivos. People who have no experience with Torah, or who do not appreciate Torah, cannot understand the need for tens of thousands of students studying Torah uninterrupted. I would like to engage in some hasbara here, and address some of the common arguments to draft yeshiva students. But

First, the reason to not draft yeshiva students:

Torah study, Torah observance, and service of Hashem is our supreme national value and responsibility. There is nothing else which comes close. Both chareidi and dati rabbis agree that yeshiva students, who are engaged in the holiest work by which Jewish nation endures, should generally be exempt from the draft. Yeshiva students protect both the Jewish character of the nation, as well as protect it metaphysically, by making the Jewish nation worthy of God’s protection, and the work they are engaged in is every bit as vital as the military. The only point of contention between chareidi and dati poskim is in the quality of yeshiva students who should be exempt, and/or how long those exemptions should last. But fundamentally, both agree upon the same values and the same reason for exemption.

There is a separate argument that the IDF specifically was originally conceived as and still remains an ideological force designed to secularize the Jewish nation, and should be avoided by all God-fearing individuals, an allegation which I made myself on several occasions. However, there are many who dispute this characterization, especially nowadays with the existence of hesder units and many faithful religious soldiers. Either way, the case for exempting yeshiva students does not hinge upon the malign intentions of those in charge of the IDF, but stands on its own.

In general, the arguments in opposition to the draft exemption are extremely weak, and can only be explained as the product of an attitude that does not hold that Torah in very high regard, as I will show:

Why do we need so many students?

This question is often coupled with the remark that we never had so many people studying Torah in history. Surely we can reduce the ranks by 90% and we will still have sufficient Torah study, and the rest can serve in the army. But this misses the entire point of the Torah. Torah is not a numbers game. Torah is our national character, and there is no such thing as “too many yeshiva students”. If it was technically feasible to have everybody in yeshiva (ie, provided they have the intellectual capacity, and if there were no military or economic pressures, בימות המשיח perhaps), that would be ideal, it would be our sacred duty in which we would be very remiss if we didn’t attempt to make it happen. Unfortunately, it is currently not. However, it is certainly our duty to increase Torah study as much as possible. And in this generation, with the myriad and persistent secular influences, characterized by the many secularists this blog comes to rebut, there is a far greater need for yeshiva students than ever before to stand as bulwark against this trend.

This takes us to the second argument, the claim that it is not possible to have so many people in yeshiva, because

The army needs them urgently

There are those who assert that the army actually has an immediate pressing need for 150,000 more people. They never produce any sort of scientific analysis demonstrating the truth of this astonishing theory. Instead, they invent all sorts of apocalyptic “what-if” scenarios, in the vast majority of which an additional 150,000 would be unlikely to change the outcome. This demonstrates the fundamental unseriousness of those who make this claim, which leads one to suspect that they themselves don’t actually believe it.

There is a modified version of this argument, that

They could at least help

It is true the country faces all sorts of pressures in a wartime, and mobilizing so many reserves has a severe, albeit temporary impact on the economy. Therefore, some argue that this situation constitutes a need for all yeshiva students to join to relieve the pressure, both militarily and economically. However, this is extremely weak reasoning. According to the logic of this argument, there shouldn’t be any categorical exemptions ever, because almost anybody could technically help relieve pressure on the army. In fact, there is no reason why the draft should be limited to 18-year olds. 14-year old children could also contribute in some fashion, the same way they actually would if Israel truly faced imminent extinction. Nobody in the world believes that we sacrifice every other value to assist the army or economy in any possible manner, but rather, it depends on the scale of the threat. This brings us back to the previous point, none of the detractors have even attempted to demonstrate that the general or current situation reaches the level to justify emptying yeshivos. They are simply showing that they don’t believe yeshiva students have value in the first place.

Moshe rebuked the Tribe of Gad and Reuven and insisted that they serve alongside their brothers

One of our dear friends constantly cites the verse in which Moshe expresses dismay at the prospect of Tribe of Gad and Reuven exempting themselves from fighting alongside their brothers (Bamidbar 32:6)

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר מֹשֶׁ֔ה לִבְנֵי־גָ֖ד וְלִבְנֵ֣י רְאוּבֵ֑ן הַאַֽחֵיכֶ֗ם יָבֹ֙אוּ֙ לַמִּלְחָמָ֔ה וְאַתֶּ֖ם תֵּ֥שְׁבוּ פֹֽה׃

Moses replied to the Gadites and the Reubenites, “Are your brothers to go to war while you stay here?

He believes this is a sufficient proof to the proposal that nobody is exempt from battle, even yeshiva students, and that this refutes all the great poskim (including dati poskim) who allowed exemptions for yeshiva students. Of course, this individual never questions his own exemption. Needless to say, his imagined proof demonstrates nothing except his own self-satisfied ignorance and conceit. But two can play this silly game. Why not cite God who tells Joshua (1:8)

לֹֽא־יָמ֡וּשׁ סֵפֶר֩ הַתּוֹרָ֨ה הַזֶּ֜ה מִפִּ֗יךָ וְהָגִ֤יתָ בּוֹ֙ יוֹמָ֣ם וָלַ֔יְלָה לְמַ֙עַן֙ תִּשְׁמֹ֣ר לַעֲשׂ֔וֹת כְּכָל־הַכָּת֖וּב בּ֑וֹ כִּי־אָ֛ז תַּצְלִ֥יחַ אֶת־דְּרָכֶ֖ךָ וְאָ֥ז תַּשְׂכִּֽיל׃

Let not this Book of the Teaching cease from your lips, but recite it day and night, so that you may observe faithfully all that is written in it. Only then will you prosper in your undertakings and only then will you be successful.

Why not cite Chazal who declare (Avodah Zara 3b)

אמר רבי לוי כל הפוסק מדברי תורה ועוסק בדברי שיחה מאכילין לו גחלי רתמים שנאמר (איוב ל, ד) הקוטפים מלוח עלי שיח ושורש רתמים לחמם
§ Rabbi Levi says: Anyone who interrupts his study of words of Torah to occupy himself with mundane matters will be fed with the coals of the broom tree

After all, if we are citing verses completely out of halachic context, we can do this all day long, in any direction.

Chareidi poskim are biased and even an am ha’aretz like myself can dispute them, because I think they got some other unrelated thing wrong

Yes, our beloved colleague actually made this bizarre argument! See the whole discussion here. Obviously, such tomfoolery deserves no response.

Torah doesn’t protect from death

In his latest post, our esteemed companion claimed that Torah doesn’t actually protect anybody from death, seemingly in opposition to the many Chazals that it does. He bases this on a Maharsha on Sotah 21a

אלא אמר רבא תורה כו' בעידנא דלא עסיק אגוני מגנא כו'. ק"ק דאכתי כיון דמגנא לעולם למה מתו דואג ואחיתופל קודם זמנם כדאמרינן פרק חלק אמאי לא הגינה תורה עליהם

This is a little difficult, for still, since Torah protects forever, why did Do’eg and Achitophel die before their due time, as is said in Perek Chelek (Sanhedrin 106b); why didn’t their Torah protect them?

וי"ל דלא קאמר תורה מגנא אלא מפורעניות ויסורין ולא ממיתה וק"ל

One can say that it was not said that “Torah protects” except from hardship and suffering, and not from death. And this is easy to understand.

Now this is really unbelievable amaratzus on the part of our friend here. Besides for completely ignoring the many Chazals that affirmatively maintain that Torah protects from death, he is literally talking about a Gemara which states that Torah and/or mitzvos protect a Sotah from death. He also ignorantly (or intentionally?) mistranslates פורעניות as “hardship”, when it in fact means “retribution”, “punishment”, or “calamities”. And the Maharsha himself, previously, on the very same page, explains what these פורעניות are.

כן המצות בעוה"ז שדומה ללילה מצלת את האדם מפורעניות המתרגשות בעוה"ז שהם דבר וחרב ורעב

So too the mitzvos in this world, which is like night, saves man from the calamities that arise in the present day, which are a plague, sword, and starvation.

The only explanation for this gross error is that our colleague didn’t even look at the sugya he was citing, but just copied and pasted from the other website where he saw the Maharsha quoted.

It’s not fair

Our dear friend quips:

First is that such blatant unfairness, aside from the frustration and pain that it causes to so many in Israeli society, cannot be reconciled with the legal system, which requires equality.

“Not fair” is not an argument, but simply a childish complaint, especially when dealing with something as vital as Torah study. But in this case, it’s also blatantly false, because anybody can choose to devote his life to Torah. The draft exemption for yeshiva students is easily one of the fairest, most egalitarian policies in the world.

This is also a response to the more mature version of the objection “Why Must Our Sons Risk Their Lives, While Your Sons Don't?” And the answer is, your sons don’t have to risk their lives more than anybody else, but are doing it out of their own volition, idealism, and a sense of responsibility, (just like Torah scholars are studying and teaching out of their own sense of responsibility.)

Why take that tremendous merit away from them, and turn it into a grievance?

Those selfish Torah scholars. How do they help us? They just learn for their own benefit

Some have argued that yeshiva students are only studying for their own growth and are not interested in helping the community. Our dear but very misguided friend

David Ohsie

expounds upon this in an exceptionally long comment. In summary, he explains that yeshiva students are exclusively interested in their own achievement, whereas those in the army selflessly sacrifice for sake of others, since they don’t really want to serve in the first place, but would rather do other things. In the very same comment, he also maintains that you need to resort to force to draft these selfless volunteers.

If that sounds muddled and incoherent, it’s because it is.

In terms of the slanderous accusation of selfishness, Chazal already addressed this (Sanhedrin 99b):

אפיקורוס כגון מאן אמר רב יוסף כגון הני דאמרי מאי אהנו לן רבנן לדידהו קרו לדידהו תנו

…how would he characterize the apostate?… like those who say: In what manner have the Sages benefited us with all their Torah study? They read the Bible for their own benefit and they study the Mishna for their own benefit.

Factually speaking, David’s comment is nonsense. Almost everybody in yeshiva aspires to teach Torah to the nation, and they certainly inspire and facilitate the growth of others within their community in many different ways, as our contributor זכרון דברים explained so eloquently. Conversely, soldiers, while they too have a desire to serve the nation, also join the army for their own personal, professional success, which in the State of Israel, practically requires military service. Ironically, David is commenting on a post that claims “The army enables enormous personal growth, and plays a major role in why Israelis are so successful.” None of this satisfies David’s narrow definition of self-sacrifice which is “when you give up something that you would otherwise do in order to achieve another person's goal.” In addition, soldiers are no doubt aware that their service helps defend themselves and their own families, not just “others”. And given that they identify with the nation that they are defending, we would hope they don’t consider them “others”.

Furthermore, it is completely contradictory to simultaneously argue that soldiers selflessly serve of their own free will, but at the same time, a draft is necessary to compel them to serve. Actions performed out of compulsion are the opposite of selfless, and certainly have nothing to do with self-sacrifice. If the recruits really were reluctantly postponing all their life dreams out of compulsion, but could have easily avoided service by joining the ranks of yeshiva students, yet felt the only thing worse than being forced into the army is learning in yeshiva, this wouldn’t demonstrate selflessness at all, but disdain for the Torah. Thankfully, David is wrong.

Unlike David, I have a higher opinion of our service members, and choose to believe that they serve of their own free will, both out of a sense of responsibility to their nation, and for the tremendous personal benefit they accrue, and would do so without being compelled. They are not grudging inductees who need to be kicked and dragged to the recruitment office, which, if it was the case, would totally refute David’s point about self-sacrifice anyways. And as mentioned, even with a draft, under current law, these recruits could exempt themselves by studying in yeshiva, yet choose to serve instead. Similarly, yeshiva students serve by studying and teaching Torah out of a sense of responsibility for their nation’s spiritual welfare, as well as for their own personal growth.

They are halachically required to join a milchemes mitzvah

Finally, after wading through a morass of frivolous chatter, we reach one argument that may have validity, depending upon who makes it. There are some Dati poskim who conclude that Israel is perpetually engaged in a milchemes mitzvah, and also that there is no exemption for yeshiva students in a milchemes mitzvah.

However, a milchemes mitzvah in which everybody serves admits no exemptions at all, the Mishnah stresses that even a כלה בחופתה, a bride at her wedding, must drop everything and serve. There are no exemptions for those under 18, there are no exemptions for those over 50, there are no exemptions for those who were not citizens at age 18-25, there are no exemptions for anybody. Somebody who makes this argument, who is currently not serving but is taking advantage of an exemption to continue civilian life, is a ridiculous fraud that does not deserves a response.

Similarly, somebody who makes this argument but does not take halacha seriously in other areas of life, for example, who asserts that his daughter can sing in front men because of “sha’at hadchak”, or refuses to wear techeiles because he doesn’t want to “rock the boat” is likewise a complete fraud.

However, if somebody who actually walks the walk makes this argument, it deserves to be taken seriously.

And the response is that there are much greater poskim who feel that either Israel is not in a perpetual state of milchemes mitzva, or that since the urgency of the war is not at such a peak that even brides from their wedding chamber are drafted, yeshiva students shouldn’t be drafted either. This takes us to the other valid argument, that

Dati poskim rule the exemptions should be much more limited

Well, yes, they certainly do hold that way, and their followers should definitely follow them in this matter as well, and serve, unless they are one of those elite individuals who are exempt. But by the same token, numerous chareidi halachic authorities dispute this, and there is no reason why yeshiva students who identify as chareidi should not follow their own rabbis.

Like a monkey flinging earthenware vessels at the wall

As you can see, only the last two of these are arguments have any merit whatsoever, while the rest are completely unserious, the intellectual equivalent of a monkey flinging earthenware vessels at the walls of its enclosure, to the amusement of the onlookers. This takes us to

The real motive

In the end of the day, the real reason why 99% of the opponents feel comfortable deploying such meritless objections against the exemption for yeshiva students is because they simply don’t value the Torah or yeshiva much, if at all. As “shulman” put it so eloquently

The only true argument here is questioning the entire assumption, suggesting that Torah is indeed not so important, but let's not hide behind the army argument then; let's talk to the point. That's the whole point in calling it an outsider's perspective - we can discuss the validity of the worldview as a whole but presuming that the worldview is foolish and taking the conversation from there will get nowhere...

And indeed, when we observe the authors who are the most obsessed with the alleged intransigency of the chareidi world, we find that they are also the most secularist, the ones who constantly argue against Torah values in other areas, the ones who argue that Torah study isn’t terribly important, or that it has very limited utility, and only if studied with a Reform-Judaism oriented “tikkun-olam” orientation, the ones who argue against emunah and frankly admit that they don't believe God is protecting us. This is the type of attitude that is characteristic of the opponents.

Meanwhile, the religious soldiers who are serving heroically know what they are fighting for, know Who is really defending us, and know that both their own efforts and those of the spiritual bearers of the Torah combined are vital for the continuity of the Jewish nation and the sanctification of God’s name.

See this inspiring video which brought me to tears:

Tagging

ChanaRachel

, this is the explanation you requested, and thanks for your kids' (and your) service!