Why Must Our Sons Risk Their Lives, While Your Sons Don't?

What are we actually fighting for?

We are all in this war together, but everybody has different tasks. Some fight. Some plan. Some drive. Some cook. Some repair tanks. Some maintain IT systems. Some work in communications. Some work regular jobs that keep roofs over folks heads and food in their mouths. Some stay at home raising the children. And some work towards the ultimate goal that the Jewish people was meant for, dedicating their lives to the service of Hashem and the study of His Torah, which is even more important in wartime than in peacetime. 

Obviously, we can’t expect secular people who don't value for Torah to recognize this. To them, learning Torah is no different than rain dancing or eating hummus, as one of our commenters has suggested, so of course they must terribly resent the non-contribution of these lazy bums. But they too are part of the Jewish people, and we must do all we can to bring them back.

On the other hand, there are those who are ostensibly religious, who ought to appreciate the value of Torah, but who still resent the position of the yeshiva students. The yeshiva students are not risking their lives, and the combat soldiers are. While this seems like a simple argument, there is a nuance here, because not more than 5% of the population are actually combat soldiers, which obviously makes the argument far less compelling. But the nuance is as follow: Although a relatively small percentage of the population are actually risking their lives, the families and communities of these heroes are bearing the terrible burden of fear and mourning, as opposed to the communities of yeshiva students, who are ostensibly not. And it is extremely unfair that that the chareidi community gets off so easily. There can be no unity if every community does not experience roughly the same level of misery, so goes this line of thinking. 

Some have even gone so far to claim that chareidim themselves do not really believe that they are making any contribution, and are only avoiding service out of selfishness. Of course, this perverted speculative approach to other people’s deeply held beliefs is patently absurd as well as deeply offensive (suppose I claimed that Zionists don’t really believe they have a right to a State, because they have not come up with a solution to the Palestinian issue?), but those who assert this likewise  make it quite clear that they consider it such an unforgivable crime that chareidim don’t serve, that there is no slander, no matter how distorted and despicable, that chareidim don’t deserve in return for their “shirking”. 

We will not deal with such hatred-filled individuals for now, who can best be described as partners of Hamas, laser-focused on dividing the country during wartime just to get revenge on their ideological enemies, with no regard to the consequences. These people only deserve our blessing of רפואה שלימה. Rather, we will discuss the complaint of the group in the previous paragraph: Why must we, our sons, our husbands, our brothers put their lives on the line while you go to bed as if nothing happened? Isn’t this terribly immoral and unfair?

And the response is twofold.

First of all, who told you that the chareidim are unaffected? Many chareidim have non-chareidi relatives who are fighting. A very large percentage of chareidim are ba’alei teshuva. And since chareidim have such large, extended families, many have chareidi relatives in the army as well, including over 2,000 who signed up in the past few weeks, an almost 100% increase from previous years. And even those who do not, still possess the attribute of Ahavas Yisrael, feel solidarity with the rest of the country, and are affected by the losses on a deep emotional level. 

But much more pertinently, this entire complaint is a very unfortunate distorted perspective. Who told you your sons and husbands must fight, while yeshiva students have the privilege of learning? Nobody forced anybody to enlist in the army rather than enlist in full-time learning. Anybody can decide to devote their lives to Torah study, and are welcomed and in fact encouraged by the chareidi community. Rather, those who volunteered to fight rather than learn full-time made a decision, and the yeshiva students also made a decision. 

And guess what? 

Both of these are good decisions.

We need religious soldiers and we need people learning. It is natural for individuals and communities to choose different tasks that are particularly suited to their identity. Some are more inclined towards combat, some more inclined towards engineering, and some more inclined towards full time Torah study. 

Furthermore, and even more importantly, what are your sons and husbands fighting for? Is it so you can enjoy the good life? So that your can sip martinis at your poolside cabana? The Israeli version of the American dream? Of course not. As faithful religious Jews, you understand that they are fighting for the glory of God, for the continuity of the Jewish nation, and for the proliferation of the holy Torah. John Adams wrote: “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” But we have something vastly more important than mathematics and philosophy. We have the Holy Torah, which is חיינו ואורך ימינו, the life and length of our days. This is what our religious soldiers are fighting for, and to the extent that we make this our national character, we are likewise assured success in our military campaigns. The vital importance of yeshiva students who are uninterrupted in their studies is something agreed upon by both chareidi and Religious Zionist rabbis, and there is nobody who works to make this our national character as much as they do. Both the students and the religious soldiers are working towards the same goal, to sanctify God's name, and both are playing a necessary role.

This entire division, as if chareidim are a separate hereditary caste that don’t care for the rest of the country, is completely counterfactual, fallacious, is not how chareidim think at all, and is brought to you by the partners of Hamas we discussed before. Please don't fall for it, don't let it distract from our real goal, and with God's help, we will be successful.

For more on the true religious soldier’s perspective, see here: https://irrationalistmodoxism.substack.com/p/a-voice-from-the-front-2