The Moetzas Gedolei Hatorah of Agudas Yisrael is expected to convene again after Sukkos to address the matter of bnei torah reporting to IDF offices upon receiving a draft notice.
Council Secretary R’ Mordechai Stern is working to convene the admorim immediately following yomtov to address the matter of bnei torah receiving draft notices and how to respond if at all. In the past the admorim ruled that bnei torah should respond to a first draft notice and provide personal information only, no more.
Gedolei Hador Shlita in Bnei Brak support the same policy while HaGaon HaRav Shmuel Auerbach Shlita has instructed his talmidim to ignore any and all draft notices and not to cooperate with military authorities in any way.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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11 Responses
I don’t understand what’s wrong with joining the army. the country needs to be protected by somebody. why not me? if you tell me that torah will protect me, then let’s make a new law that the army won’t protect yeshiva bochurim bec torah protects them anyway. if you tell me that the army is a spiritually dangerous place, then instead of using our power to keep yeshiva bochurim out of the army, we should use our power to make the army a religiously tolerant place to be. I just don’t understand why we make such a big deal out of a law that makes sense
Binyomin, My holy Jewish brother.
Our Rebbeim have Daas Torah, and they can foresee the dangers of joining the IDF more than we can.
I am a fan of the IDF, however I can see the lack of tolerance in the case of Col. Ofer Winter, who was suspiciously denied a promotion after he gave some “torah inspired” Chizzuk to our brace soldiers.
Bochrim who have no interest in learning should do community service, or work. Better to keep themselves busy, rather than idle and tempted into aveiros( chas ve shalom).
I have a Charedi friend, who did his IDF volunteer service with autistic kids, before continuing his path to semicha. I think if the IDF offered these things, then it would be much better. Force and penalties are futile.
in addition to #1s comment, the army today is a much better place for frum soldiers than it was 30 years ago simply because there are many more frum soldiers today that have joined. yes there are still problems but the more frum that join the better frumkeit will be observed. after all the army is just a reflection of its soldiers.
We must join the army . be an example and win.
#1 I think at the hart of this issue is that you sre an idiot
binyominhartstein I hope at least you understand that we have gedolim who know what’s best and what’s wrong and right
Firstly you need both, Torah and army. Those who can’t and don’t want to learn should go to the army but those who learn and eventually become the teachers and leaders and rabbonim need to stay in beis hamedrash undisturbed.
Also various attempts were made to create a spritual acceptable enviroment for the chareidim in the army but it just failed. The army cannot and don’t want to accomodate the chareidim.
Thirdly, politians have made it clear the army does not want and don’t need the chareidim but they use it as a backdoor to secularise the chareidim and our gedolim do not need mine or Mr Hartsteins approval for their fierce opposition to compulsary draft of yeshiva students.
Excerpt from Ruth Blau, convert to Judaism, in her autobiography Trail to Truth.
Chapter title My Disenchantment with Religious Zionism
….
..More sensitive to spiritual matters than ever before, I was receptive to anything that seemed to open for me a path to truth. I constantly aspired to get into Judaism proper. Consistoire Judaism did not satisfy me. Nor did the French Mizrachi. The religious zionists in whose Kibbutz Yavneh my son was staying satisfied me until I got to know the fabric of their thoughts and found their thinking and behaviour inconsistent with G-d’s demands in His Torah.
… My past did not contain these elements. Military parades with uniformed participants did not elevate my spirit. I had often seen much more impressive presentations than the Israeli Independence Day parade without being moved more than any Frenchman of lesser or greater intelligence. Marching Israeli soldiers and Israeli airplane formations made no more impression on me than their French counterparts. Could I not see all this in the Champs Elysees? I knew the French military tradition almost by heart yet french military prowess had not kept me from converting to Judaism. Was I to think that the Israeli prowess and its concomitant nationalism would constitute my Jewish happiness? Had I left my father and mother, for lack of nationalism in the land of my birth?
#1 et al
While one perhaps ought to serve legitimate governments(such as some very frum non zionist yekkes serving in the Swiss army)
it but leaves one to ponder:
Is the Cause worthwhile and/or somehow legitimate ?
[If you really desire to be cannon fodder in order to enrich and empower the (present) oligarchy,be our guest?!]
Binyaminhartstein, I once thought like you. I now have a cousin who is Dati Leumi who is very serious about his yidishkeit. His father who also served, and raised his children with this ideaology recently repeated to me from his son that he finds it very hard to be frum and serve in the army.
Now I don’t know all the details but it shows that we should trust our daas Torah and emunas chachamim.
Atyeshiva, can you please name that politician that has a goal to secularise the haredim??? If you mean putting them to work , well that’s a economical issue and the usa also feels it’s important ( ami sukkos addition)