Rabbi Paul David Bloom in his commentary “Transforming the Haredi Draft Crisis Into a Chinuch and Chesed Opportunity” (April 4, 2024) seeks to legitimize the continued inequity of Haredi non-service in the IDF by proposing “channeling their learning years into educating the masses about Jewish traditions.” This, he proposes, should take place while Haredim continue to benefit from the sacrifice of non-Haredi soldiers.
“Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” (Bamidbar 32:6). This, in a nutshell, is the basic and simply stated moral responsibility facing Haredi society. The Torah asks a rhetorical question. Moshe Rabbeinu had no doubt at all: No parts of the nation, even those who took their portion outside the boundaries of the Promised Land, could be exempted from the war effort against the nations of Canaan. The entire nation had the duty of serving.
We live in an age when the Jewish people are privileged to have returned to their land, maintaining a Jewish national life in which different groups—secularists, traditionalists, religious and Haredim, each with its numerous sub-groups—get to participate. But the ability to live in our own land depends on our capability to defend ourselves against enemies seeking to destroy us, sometimes by active war.
What justification is there for Haredi society to enjoy the protection of the IDF without doing its part for the shared defense? Why should a non-Haredi mother lose sleep over the fate of her uniformed son while Haredi mothers sleep soundly?
Haredim, like other Torah-observant Jews in Israel, attach great importance to Torah study and see in it a great value and assistance to safeguarding the people of Israel. However, is the Torah of Haredi Jews more valuable, more meaningful and more holy than the Torah of Hesder yeshiva students who put aside their learning of Torah to serve in the IDF? Is Haredi blood more red than theirs?
The “black Sabbath” was a costly wake-up call. Fifteen hundred dead, thousands of wounded, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and enormous economic damage. The meaning of this wake-up call is simple: The current IDF is far too small for Israel’s security challenges. The army urgently needs the addition of thousands of fighters each draft cycle. This is a fact.
The Haredim and those, like Rabbi Bloom, who justify their non-service, can no longer turn a blind eye to reality. The age of draft evasion must end. The Haredim must step up and serve. In the words of Rabbi Shlomo Yosef Zevin, zt”l, “Why should Torah scholars be exempt from participating in a milchemes mitzvah of saving the Jewish People from its enemy who seeks to eradicate and destroy them, God forbid? How can you pass it off as if it were halacha or da’at Torah that yeshiva students need not register or serve?”
