<b>You need to read the Gaon and Malbums explanation on what they did and all these Qs and more fall away.</b>

Thanks, will do

1. My initial post referred to drafting those Bochurim/Yungerleit who aren’t using their time properly. It was couched in diplomatic terms but what I really meant was those who are messing around. Going to Yeshiva used to be a personal decision and those who went didnt mess around. Now, the (Shidduch/societal) system mandates it. But not everyone is cut out for it. Perhaps those guys would be better off doing a year or two, then going to the army/getting a job etc.

I’d be amazed if any Gedolim advocate keeping these type of boys in Yeshiva if they are clearly not managing there. Maybe the Gedolim aren’t aware that these type of Bochurim exist?

2. Also, most of you (Kano’im) missed my point. I suggested that Bochurim should spend 3 yrs in Yeshiva then serve in the army. If this was the system / cycle, then the Yeshivas would remain full – those who left to join the army would be immediately replaced by the incoming year starting Yeshiva. Thus, Eretz Yisroel would have the constant protection of Lomdei Torah and Israel would have the constant participation of Chareidim in the Army. [To those who harp on about the Peritzus and Chilonius of the army atmosphere, I am sure that if Litzman et al told the Army ‘we are giving you 10,000 bochurim a year if you set up strictly chareidi units’ they would agree in a flash]

Ben Levi said

Furthermore considering the fact that I have had close reletives killed in terrorist bombings in Isreal I take exception to someone stating Chareidim don’t live in Isreal with risks. It so happens to be that the cousins of mine that served in Tzahal all returned home safe and sound. The Chareid cousin who boarded the wrong bus with her children lost one, and the parents live with their woumds.

My response:

There is a very obvious, simple difference which you appear to have missed. Your Chareidi cousins did not willingly/intentionally put themselves into harm’s way, whereas your Tzahal cousins did. The consequences are irrelevant. What we are discussing here is who makes the intentional decision to contribute to the country BiMesirus Nefesh Mamash and who doesn’t.

akuperma said:

The military solution won’t work. The Muslims will never accept a non-Muslim country in what they regard as their turf. They will accept, based on past and even current practices, a non-Muslim community that accepts that its the Muslim’s neighborhood and are content to be autonomous, i.e., accept being “second class citizens.”

Hiloni Jews have a western ideal of civil and political rights. They also are very much into being libertines and other behavior that Islam (and not coincidentally, Judaism) can’t put up with. The hilonim dream they can offer bribes and lands and make the Palestinians go away, but the hilonim can’t offer to give up being part of Euro-American secular culture nor can they accept loss of political primacy.

The Hareidim can make meaningful concessions to the Muslims (ban gays, close down the brothels, ban ribit, require modest clothing, etc.), and Hareidim can accept be an autonomous community within someone else’s country. Running the government has never been a priority for us.

Only the Hareidim can make peace. Only the Hareidim can prevent the destruction of the Jewish communities of Eretz Yisrael.

My response: You are a dreamer, my friend, if you honestly believe the Arabs are willing to make peace with the Charedim because of common interests (ban ribit, modest clothing etc).

Til now the suicide bombers haven’t discriminated between charedim and chilonim when choosing their victims. They kill indiscriminately. It is absolute delusion to claim that there is more chance of peace with Charedim.

At the moment, the IDF is well and truly needed. Whether the state should have been started is another discussion (although as a frum person you should be aware of the post-Holocaust sentiment at the time that allowed for the state to be created) but be as it may, the IDF is needed now.

Many thanks for your answers. My responses:

avhaben said: ”Because anyone who wants to learn Torah full-time is entitled to do so even if he is a poor learner. All that is to be expected of him is to DESIRE to learn Torah.”

My response: That is exactly my point. I never suggested that learners of low ability/intelligence should stop. I was referring instead to those Bochurim who are ‘in learning’ purely because that is the system, to get a good shidduch; those Kollel Yungerleit who find sitting in Kollel drinking coffee while Shver picks up the tab easier than earning a job — not because they actually have [as you put it] the ‘DESIRE’ to learn Torah. I don’t think their absence from the Beis hamedrash would be that sorely felt, nor do I imagine their presence actually is Meigen Eretz Yisrael more than physical hishtadlus of picking up a gun.

By the way, Yaakov Avinu did not think his Torah was enough when facing Esov, so why do you think it is?

popa_bar_abba said: ”If you weren’t asking lekanter, you wouldn’t insert hyperbole such as: “Why is the Yeshiva velt so opposed to giving anything back to the State of Israel?” ”

I think you owe me an apology – I meant it sincerely.

write or wrong said: ”The world exists in the merit of Limud Torah. If the Israeli gov’t pulls everyone out of yeshiva, in what merit will Israel be protected?”

The Israeli govt is not suggesting to pull ‘everyone’ out of yeshiva – the Iluyim will remain, as I wrote above. (As an aside – isn’t that the way it’s always been throughout history – the top guys went to Yeshiva and the others were ‘just’ [sarcasm/irony] Baalei Batim? Why has the expectation changed?)

akuperma – thank you for your articulate responses, the latter 2 which I agree with and appreciate.

simcha613 – excellent post, well said.