Misleibeled?

A clarification letter leaves more questions than answers

Not long ago, Natan Slifkin unveiled his favorite Charedi rabbi, Rabbi Dovid Leibel. Rabbi Leibel, who is described as a “rabbi and businessman”, seems to have attracted a large following amongst working Charedim in Israel, in which the sectarian society their makes them a class of their own. I was originally sympathetic towards this rabbi. I feel that the ever-expanding tent of Charedi society in Israel must be able to accommodate different types of people cut out for different things in life. And apparently, Rabbi Leibel seemed to fill a demand in that regard.

However, a surprising letter from Rabbi Leibel which recently surfaced in Israeli media has left me scratching my head. Before we discuss the actual letter, it behooves us to revisit why Charedim by and large claim exemption from the IDF.

1. First and foremost, historically, the Israeli army has been the cultural melting pot of secularist Israeli society, both explicitly and implicitly - since its founding. The first prime minister of Israel, David ben Gurion, even said so openly, and many military in the military leadership have continued to echo his sentiments to the present day. As frum Jews, it is unthinkable to absorb the culture of people living a free and immoral life style.¹

2. An extension of this is that the IDF is the biggest cultural icon of Zionist society. Since the conception of Zionism in the late 19th century, our gedolim were against it. Although we now b”H have the zechus of being able to live in Eretz Yisroel, Zionism itself continues to at most be a necessary evil. We certainly wouldn’t want to join and identify with its most powerful symbol.

3. Additionally, the continuity of Klal Yisrael is dependent on Torah. Besides for a metaphysical level, on a simply practical basis, if every Yeshiva bachur were to be drafted at 18 years old, we would not have any serious talmidei chachamim. Klal Yisrael is not simply a race or ethnicity, but a nation which observes and follows the dvar Hashem. A Jew which lives his life al pi halacha takes our corpus of tens of thousands of seforim extremely seriously, and attempts to live by the letter of the law.

In addition to all this, and this is often misunderstood - is the concept that Torah protects. This was never the reason given by the Gedolim as to why Charedim should not serve in the army. But it’s a real concept and discussed in many places in Chazal. Not in passing. Not as a one off. But in literally dozens of places. And it is not merely "fanciful drush" - Chazal discuss that a talmid Chacham is exempt from paying for a wall around the city because his Torah protects him.

Now it's important to understand the parameters and ramifications of it. To quote from our post Does Torah Protect, there appears in Chazal two different levels of it: 

1. That which the spiritual well-being of the Jewish nation is improved, and their physical safety be extension. This is evident generally from the entire Tanach and many places in Chazal (see specifically Berachos 64a, Megillah 11a, Makkos 10a, Yerushalmi Rosh Hashana 3:8, Midrash Tanchuma B'shalach 25, Tana D'bei Eliyahu Zuta 5)⁵. In the merit of the study of Torah, Klal Yisroel as a whole is protected.

2. There is another level where the Torah learner himself is protected, and depending on his merit, those who are in his vicinity as well. This is evident from many of the sources brought above (specifically Sota 21a, Bava Basra 7b, Makkos 10a, Talmud Yerushalmi and Chagiga 1:7). The general idea of the righteous protecting themselves and their locality is evident from the narrative of the destruction of Sodom (Genesis.18.23-33)​

Quite simply, an increase in Shemiras Hamitzvos of Klal Yisroel translates into an increase in Hashgacha Klalis. This is apparent in literally hundreds of places in the Torah and Tanach. And, as we know, Limud Hatorah is one of the biggest and most important mitzvos that a Jew can perform. So it goes to follow that Israel gains tremendously from the zechus of such a large population of people learning Torah all day, every day.

Now let us examine Rabbi Leibel’s letter:

Torah Magna U’matzla - Torah Protects and Saves

On the misuse of this aggadic phrase

Talmud Torah k’neged kulam - learning Torah surpasses all other mitzvos. Torah learning is our lifeblood, and applying it practically means practicing all mitzvos discussed in the Torah.

And that which the Gemara is Sotah 21a says that תורה מגנא ומצלא, Torah protects and saves:

1. From the discussion of the Gemara there it is clear that only the one studying Torah is protected, and not others etc.

2. Rashi says that Torah protects - from travails (and the Maharsha there says that it does not protect from death). And that is saves - from the Yetzer Hara.

3. As is clear in the Gemara there, Mitzvos also provide Divine protection. Therefore if one visits someone wounded in the war or participates in a funeral, he’s also providing protection.

4. And the main point is that it’s obvious that in reality we don’t rely on the concept of Torah saving. No one would argue that in times of danger one should not take precautions or that one should not seek shelter if the sirens went off while he was in the middle of learning. Therefore learning Torah should not exempt one from participating and sharing the burden.

You can’t have it both ways. One who attributes the public safety to his learning and as such absolves himself of his communal obligations - must also take responsibility for any breach in public safety, both in respect to the massacre on Simchas Torah, as well as the soldiers who are killed in the war every day.

Dovid Leibel

I’m not sure in what context this letter was written and what it is addressing, but on the surface, it seems extremely puzzling. The first part of it sounds almost like a low energy blog post on Rationalist Judaism on a slow day.

First off, as we mentioned above, the reason why Charedim do not serve in the army has nothing to do with Torah protecting. There are many serious concerns that the Gedolim felt preclude us from serving in the army². But moreover, the concept of Torah serving as a protection is not limited to that one Gemara in Sotah (and even on that specific gemara, my choshuve colleague R’

Happy

demonstrated that Torah learning does indeed save from death).

As we showed above, there are numerous places in Chazal which describe this. To take just one example, the Gemara in Makkos 10a says, “Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says: What is the meaning of that which is written: ‘Our feet were standing in your gates, Jerusalem’ (Psalms 122:2)? What caused our feet to withstand the enemies in war? It is the gates of Jerusalem, where they were engaged in Torah study.” In our post earlier this year, we brought many other sources from Chazal which are unequivocally clear about this. Why was Rabbi Leibel hung up on that gemara in Sotah? Does he think that qualifying that gemara put the notion to rest that Torah is a divine protection for Klal Yisrael? Did he miss all those other gemaros?

And even for our Rationalist friends who prefer to bypass “medieval Judaism” for “ancient Judaism”, the concept of shemiras hamitzvos serving as a shemira for the wellbeing of klal yisrael is discussed throughout Tanach! In fact, it is probably the most prevalent common thread running throughout the twenty-four books of Tanach. When Klal Yisrael does mitzvos and the ratzon Hashem, they merit Divine Providence and Protection. Conversely, when they do not, calamities befall them.

Does Rabbi Leibel believe in כל דברי הנביאים אמת?

For us, the message is - wars are won and lost based on specific criteria and a confluence of events. Only a Navi can see clearly how things happen. We are not privy to Hashem’s cheshbonos. Everyone else is just suggesting based on his limited information from the media or elsewhere. But the Nevi'im tell us how we won wars, and the soldiers were incidental to the story.

Contrary to the simplistic and juvenile way Natan Slifkin imagines it, learning Torah is not supposed to serve as some sort of heeby jeeby incantation, in which we could debate whether the incantation only protects the one who says it or those around him too. Rather, it means that Klal Yisrael as a whole is being mekayem the Torah! It causes all the berachos that the Torah describes when the Jewish nation performs the Torah to be bestowed upon them. It’s really not that difficult and it’s quite surprising that Rabbi Leibel missed this obvious point.

Of course, it goes without saying we can only feel tremendous hakaras hatov to those being moser nefesh in the most literal sense possible for the security of all Yidden living in Eretz Yisrael. I can't even imagine the pain, worry and grief of the communities whose sons and husbands serve in the army. I am in no way trying to minimize that here. If there is any way that anyone from Charedi community could assist and alleviate the situation, I would think they most definitely should. But for Lomdei Torah themselves, there are very clear parameters set forth by Chazal and codified in Halacha as to when they are supposed to disrupt their learning, and a letter raising silly quibbles with a pshat in a Gemara in Sotah would have no bearing on that.

And the end of Rabbi Leibel’s letter, where he writes that whoever says that Torah protects must take personal responsibility as if he himself caused the 10/7 massacre is so ridiculous, it sounds almost as if it came straight out of the horse’s mouth. First of all, as religious Jews, we do take responsibility, and as the Rambam in Hilchos Ta’anis 3:1-3 writes, we search inwards and do Teshuva. There have been all sorts of initiatives of Torah, Teshuva, and Tefilla since the onset of the war.

But moreover, as we mentioned earlier, Limud Hatorah is not some sort of magical incantation. It’s simply the Ratzon Hashem! We can only hope that there aren’t others out there counter balancing that with morally reprehensible behavior. If we were to zoom out and examine the Jewish people living in Israel under a Torah lens to see what was the likely cause of the massacre, would it make more sense to say that the biggest factor was the Lomdei Torah weren’t learning enough Torah? Or that the millions of secular Jews literally at war with the Torah and religion, breaking up Ne’ila prayers and throwing wild drug parties with znus and a buddha were the cause?

1. Although in recent years there have been positive developments, such as the institution of hesder yeshivos, where the spiritual dangers are minimized or even eliminated, the fact remains that the primary advocacy of שוויון בנטל ("sharing of the burden") generally comes from avowed secularists who care nothing about the Torah, and whose main purpose is to reform the "irrational" chareidi society. These voices are typically non-supportive or openly opposed to any significant increase in even the current hesder units, and would certainly not be satisfied with the type of religious changes IDF would have to undergo to absorb hundreds of thousands of chareidim. The main motivation for demanding chareidim serve is therefore not from a place of practical necessity, but from a desire to secularize the chareidi community.

2. Rabbi Leibel’s call for Yeshiva students to stop learning and attend funerals of soldiers based on the premise that doing so is a mitzva so it also protects is equally bewildering. First, as we explained above, the primary reason why we learn Torah is not merely in order to protect. “But mitzvos also protect” is hardly an argument. But even more so, the halacha (Shulchan Aruch, YD 361:1) specifically says that Torah students should not interrupt their Torah learning to attend funerals, unless it is the funeral of one who taught Torah to the masses.