Parshat Vayishlach - 5761 "Doron,
Tefila U'Milchamah" - Gifts, Prayer, and War The
"Haredi" Viewpoint on War In the
beginning of Parshat Vayishlach, Yaakov
Avinu has his final personal confrontation, when a
flash of anger could have set off a war, with his brother, Esav.
At the end of the Parshah (Bereshit 25:29), they meet again, but this time it is to bury their father,
where all is calm, even though Esav at
one time had said, (Bereshit; Toldot 27:41), "Let the days of my
father's mourning be at hand; then I will
slay my brother Yaakov." Here,
however, upon Yaakov's return from the House of Lavan, Esav approaches with a troop of four hundred armed men.
The Midrash
Tanchuma Yashan finds in the actions of Yaakov, using the idea of "maasei
avot siman l'banim," a model and a lesson for his descendants, in
their confrontations with their enemies. According to
the Tanchuma, he prepared for the confrontation with three different strategies: "Doron, Tefila,
U'Milchamah," "Gifts, Prayer and, as a last resort, War."
The Jewish State is now engaged in a confrontation with the Islamic
world, spearheaded by its weakest member militarily but perhaps the most
effective in the battlefield of world opinion, the so-called
"Palestinians." One of the
problems facing the State of Israel is the dissatisfaction of large
segments, chiefly the secular elements of Israeli society, with the
deferments from military service granted to full-time yeshiva students,
particularly those whose origins are the haredi community. There is
another approach taken by the yeshiva world to the question of military
service; that is the approach of the "hesder" yeshiva. Young men in this type of yeshiva combine Torah study with
military service over a number of years.
Here we attempt to explain the haredi viewpoint. I asked
Rabbi Avi Shafran, Director of Public Affairs for Agudath Israel of America,
and American Director of the Agudah's Am Echad Program that seeks to respond
to the generally false representations of the Orthodox Community that appear
in American media, to share information and explanation of the haredi
approach. He very generously
responded with several articles. In
one, written by Rabbi Shafran, entitled "Distinguished Service,"
he presents arguments from a practical point of view and from a fundamental,
philosophical perspective. Rabbi
Shafran notes that "Prime Minister Ehud Barak entered into an agreement
with one of Israel's religious parties … allowing yeshiva students to seek
employment at age 24 or 25, but only after undergoing
basic military training in accord with the army's needs.
The new setup, aimed at young haredi men who are not prepared to
devote themselves to full-time Torah study beyond their mid-20's, was
designed to add haredim to the pool of those trained to serve Israel in
times of need, to facilitate
the movement of haredim into the workforce and to end the dependence of many
haredi families on the very modest
government subsidies provided to the unemployed." "The
accommodation is a reasonable one. Yet
the controversy continues, …" To explain the continuation of the controversy, despite the reasonableness of P.M. Barak's proposal, Rabbi Shafran goes to the heart of the matter by formulating the chief objection put forward, as one would expect, mainly by Secular Jews, but also by some non-Secular American Jews. "Those who opt for full-time Torah study," even for a limited period of six or seven years, as foreseen by the new proposal, as opposed to a lifetime, "are contributing nothing to the security of the Jewish State." He counters
this assertion by stating that "from a truly Jewish viewpoint, informed
by Jewish ideals and Jewish texts, the single most important part of Jewish
security is the practice and study of Torah.
While Jewish tradition mandates the employment of conventional means,
like armies and arsenals, for maintaining the security of Jews, it has been
the Jewish conviction for millennia that the true safety of the Jewish
People derives, in the end, from dedication to the values, laws and study of
the Torah. We need only
recall what Jews the world over recently read in the weekly Torah portion:
it is not 'my strength and the might of my arm' that has 'wrought me
this victory' but rather 'the L-rd, your G-d, Who gives you the strength'
(Deuteronomy 8, 17-18)." In an article from the Jerusalem Post, where the author is a columnist, Jonathan Rosenblum, Rabbi Shafran's counterpart as the Israeli Director of "Am Echad," entitled "In Defense of the Tal Committee," briefly discusses the history of the haredi community in the middle to late part of the twentieth century. "The
leaders of this community for the past 50 years have viewed themselves as
living in an extraordinary historical moment.
While the Jewish People lost one third of its members in the
Holocaust, the percentage of the world's Torah-observant Jews killed by the
Nazis was much higher. With the
sole exception of the Mirrer Yeshiva, all the great centers of Torah
learning were wiped out." "The
task the post-Holocaust Torah leadership set for itself was nothing less
than the recreation of the great centers of Torah learning in Israel.
They first had to build an entire community around the absolute
primacy of Torah learning. They
succeeded to a miraculous degree." "Yet
while the haredi community has flourished to an extent totally unexpected,
all is not rosy." "The
explosion of the haredi population itself creates its own challenges.
An intensity of vision appropriate for a small nucleus of dedicated
idealists cannot be imposed upon a much larger
and more diverse community." "Not
every boy is suited by temperament or ability for life-long kollel learning.
And the effect of not providing respectable alternatives is felt in
the tiny percentage of those who drop out and the larger number who remain
in yeshivot without enthusiasm…" "…
For all that parents do everything humanly possible to help their children,
and ensure that sons and sons-in-law can remain in learning for years after
marriage, many simply do not have the resources to do so." "The
proliferation of institutes providing technical education for haredi men in
a wide range of subjects, the growing number of yeshiva graduates in private
law schools, and the rapidly expanding career paths for women all point to a
growing social acceptance of the need for economic self-sufficiency." "Whether
these evolutionary trends will continue or not will depend to a large extent
on the secular community…" "Any
frontal attack on the yeshivot - in particular an attempt to draft most
18-year-olds - will be rightly seen as a bid to destroy the haredi world.
The yeshivot are not just one type of haredi institution, they are
the community's lifeblood, its very raison d'etre." "The
Tal Committee …correctly recognized that many hardeim see a world of
difference between adumbrated service for 24-year-olds and full army service
for 18-year-olds." By 24, most
haredi men are married. They
have already founded a home on the basis of Torah
learning, reached a sufficiently advanced level of learning to ensure
that study will remain the center of their lives no matter how they support
their families, and are mature enough not to be intimidated into violating
their religious beliefs in the army." "If
enacted, the committee's recommendations will encourage the integration of
more haredim into the economic life of the country and create a larger
reservoir of men trained to fight in event of war." One more
article will have to suffice to explain the deep and meaningful approach of
the haredi community to the subject at hand, military service for its youth.
It is another article by Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblum, that appeared in
the JPost in December of '98, "Confessions of a haredi father." "…In
some sense, I'm like the father whose son sits manning a Patriot missile
battery. He knows his boy is
performing a vital function on behalf
of millions of Jews, even though he is not exposed to the daily threats
faced by soldiers in Lebanon." "Similarly,
I know that my son is performing a vital service in the protection of the
Jewish people and the preservation of our heritage." "No
other nation that entered world history with the Jewish people still exists.
Our existence is inexplicable apart from divine protection, and our
people has always lived with the belief that nothing wins G-d's favor more
than dedication to the study of Torah." "…Haredim
have no desire to be the latest victims of attempts to impose a uniform
national culture or to have their children socialized into today's cultural
norms. Many of the values that
increasingly define Israeli culture, including its materialism, skepticism,
and emphasis on pleasure-seeking, are antithetical to haredi society." "After
guarding their children's souls like a Ming vase for 18 years, haredi
parents cannot be expected to expose them at the most vulnerable stage in their lives to an environment of casual sexual mixing and
standards of modesty so at odds with their own. To do so would place them in the position of the king, in
Rashi's homely metaphor, who gets his son drunk, places a bag of gold coins
around his neck, and deposits him in front of a house of ill-repute." "Finally,
haredi parents are rightfully terrified of turning their children over to
the control of those who hate everything they stand for.
The venom to which haredim are subjected hour after hour, day after
day, in the media goes far beyond anything haredim do or don't do; it
derives from a total contempt of who they are." "No
parents would turn their children over to the authority of those who seek to
uproot their values. Convincing
haredi parents that they will not be doing so by sending their children to
the army will require much good will and effort." Let us hope that the approach of Chanukah will herald another time of miracles in which we will see the disappearance of war and the need for armies, with the fulfillment of the words of Yeshayahu (11:10), "And it will come to pass in that day that the root of Yishai (the Mashiach), who will be a miraculous sign for the peoples of the world, unto him shall the nations seek; and his seat of tranquility (Jerusalem), shall be glorious." Rabbi Pinchas Frankel |
