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Yehoshua's avatar

This is mainly relevant to your last post but as this is current I am posting here. Hope you appreciate.

Considering that it is almost שלשים יום קודם החג, I think it's appropiate to share the "modern" "rational" twist on רבים ביד מעטים גבורים ביד חלשים which I've recently discovered.

Our rational friend is not afraid of the fact that the Israeli defense was made a laughingstock in the whole world. He is not afraid of the possibility that Iran may ח"ו go nuclear, nor of its many proxies surrounding Israel with hundreds of thousands of missiles and other weapon, nor of the possibility that Iran may team up with Russia and China. He is not afraid that the Israeli Arabs may ח"ו join with their brothers, nor of the fact that the world may soon turn their back on Israel due to their supposed "war crimes". He is not afraid of the fact that we have seen that the Arabs are worse than suicide bombers and kamikaze attacks, worse than כאשר תעשינה הדבורים, as they are willing to sacrifice their life for even a half or less of an Israeli life.

None of this scares him. After all, the Israeli army is fully capable against any such threats. https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/theodicy-or-idiocy

What is it that terrifies him? The concept of over one hundred thousand yeshivaleit sitting and learning with hasmada. That is what scares the daylights out of him.

https://www.rationalistjudaism.com/p/the-importance-of-torah-study-vs/comment/42958911

Truly רבים ביד מעטים גבורים ביד חלשים.

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michael stern's avatar

The article is somewhat misleading.

Firstly while it is true that only a small percentage of soldiers are trained combat soldiers and enter combat the reality is that every soldier, repeat every soldier, knows that he or she may end up in combat as was experienced in 1973 when the Syrians broke through and everyone e.g cooks, mechanics, first aiders etc were roped in to try and stop the Syrians.

I imagine this was repeated recently on 7 October when many soldiers bravely on their own initiative and often without equipment or sufficient ammunition went immediately on hearing the news to the attacked settlements to rescue our brethren. How many yeshiva bochrim or those kollelnikim in learning went down there to help - at the risk of their lives as those soldiers went ?

Secondly there are too many scandals of those in "learning" and whose institutions receive Israeli government grants (mainly funded by taxes paid by chillonim ) who actually are working part or full time. What a chillul hasem.

Government checks have found in a number of cases that the numbers paid for exceed the numbers found learning.

Those who want an exemption in learning need to know that you need to earn it by learning full time, not simply registering at a learning institution.

Thirdly the army has tests and trials and those not meeting them will be downgraded in their roles or at the extreme discharged from the army. Many and perhaps most learning institutions have no test. Life is easy and convenient. Just register and get your exemption.

Finally I see no equivalence between a person who is in learning (with usually convenient hours) where the most significant danger seems to be a masechta falling off a bookshelf onto his head and a soldier who can be killed or wounded for life or captured and tortured and who is on call 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Learning while of course necessary for every one of us (including serving soldiers who often do learn in their occasional free moments) is not remotely equivalent to putting your life on the line.

That the learning community does not remotely recognise and praise those who do serve in the army in whatever role – is IMHO a lack of hakoras hatov.

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