Reply To: I just don't get it

the imposition of secular studies is designed to allow (make, encourage) the chareidi sector to better support itself, like other sectors of Israeli society. Period.

This is not 1920 and no politician in Israel is so ideologically motivated that he wants an ultimately richer or more self sufficent chareidi sector simply to “shmad” Torah learning. Get it into your head – THEY DONT CARE HOW YOU THINK AND LIVE AS LONG AS IT DOESNT IMPINGE ON THEIR LIVES OR COST THEM DISPROPORTIONATELY. They care about equality of access to public space and public buses. equality of service. equality of input/output in society. capacity to make material contribution to society commensurate with material entitlements. Whether you believe in HKBH or not, whether you keep shabbos or not, whether you shteig all night leil shavuous or not, whether you eat rabanut or mehadrin – they don’t care. Thinking and saying otherwise is perhaps comfortable, is perhaps a good defense mechanism to put every chareidi on guard by making it an issue of “persecution”, but it isn’t true, logical, or material.

The political element of this is indeed political, not halachic. And therefore halacha should be the same across the board, either for or against math and english. Or, conversely, leadership should have the propriety to stand before the entire public and say clearly – this is about one thing, power, or, if you like, authority. We had some, and now we have less. If these changes happen, even though they are halachically permissible, we, your leaders, will have less leverage over communities less reliant on government and donors handouts, and certainly less power in the halls of politics, where we wielded considerable power for decades.

We are the carriers of the mesorah, and as such, according to what we all hold dear and sacrosanct, HKBH wants us to wield this power and authority, and by consent, you, the chareidi public, want us to retain that power and authority. The way in which we are determined to do that is to maintain the status quo, one which we admit, is economically unsustainable.

Having made that declaration, at the very least there wouldn’t be a lack of clarity or a hint of contradiction. everyone would know where they stand.

Yair Lapid is many things, but he isn’t stupid enough to want to force the creation of a sector that is not only vehemently opposed to him, but also, due to his efforts, more capable of supporting themselves, and therefore having more resources to fight him and beat him in an election down the line – UNLESS he’s made a cheshbon that that is a risk worth taking in order to rectify what the voting majority sees as a major social and economic problem.

And lest anyone think I blindly expect economic perfection from the brilliant minds in Israeli government, I am sorely disappointed in them. They brought 100,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel, promised a policy and a budget for them, and delivered neither. They expect too little from the arab minority, and they spend less on them than on other citizens. Not right either.

Everyone should expect better. not only of the government, but of each other.