“You cannot harm those who believe learning torah is their profession. There will be no change in the current status and in the worst case scenario talmidei yeshiva will sit in jail” stated MK (Yahadut HaTorah) Rav Moshe Gafne. Gafne, who chairs the Knesset Finance Committee made his comment during a meeting on Tuesday, of the Knesset Foreign Affairs & Defense Committee addressing the need to formulate an alternative to the now-defunct Tal Law.
MK (Kadima) Yochanan Plesner feels his party’s alternative plan to Tal is the only one that is serious and comprehensive enough for the job. He feels the plans to compel chareidim and Arabs to serve in the IDF or national service are “superficial and populist”, with the exclusion of Kadima’s plan of course.
Gafne responded to Plesner emphasizing that the matter of chareidim and military service will never be resolved by passing a bill into law. Plesner heads the committee seeking to find a solution, a bill that will pass through Knesset in place of the Tal Law which may not be renewed as per the High Court of Justice ruling from February.
Gafne explains they simply do not get it, and “they cannot harm one who truly believes torah study is his profession. There will not by any change [in the current status] and in the worst case scenario, talmidei yeshivos will sit in jail”.
Gafne adds “the coalition agreement with Likud states explicitly that the current situation vis-à-vis bnei yeshivos must remain unchanged. This paragraph in the agreement is valid in a coalition with Yisrael Beitenu and/or Labor Party even before it [the Labor Party] split”.
Gafne adds that from his viewpoint, the reason for moving up elections is the tensions that exist today between the prime minister and Lieberman, with one being suspicious of the other and the they wish to avoid a situation in which they become disgusted with one another.
Interestingly, some of the leaders of the “Suckers Tent” visited Ponevezh Yeshiva in Bnei Brak as well as the Itzkowitz Shteibelach. The visitors, who demand equal IDF service for all spoke with talmidim about “serving or learning torah”. The visitors explained they are not opposed to a specified number of people continuing to learn torah, but they insist on most of the 18-year-olds to report for military or national service. Most they feel will not be inducted into the IDF, but join an appropriate national service, with the latter being more suited to their lifestyle.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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14 Responses
The “best” will sit in jail. Many others wil lend up a unwilling, disloyal soldiers, who would be inclined to disobey orders in a situation where the army is acting against what they perceive to be Jewish interests (as in evacuating the West Bank settlements). If you combine them with the religious soldiers already in the army who are both a growing number and incrasingly cynical about the government’s willingness to protect their families (in the post-Gush Katif era), Israel has found a recipe for disaster.
The army could mitigate the damage by bending over backwards to accomodate frum soldiers, and by not actually throwing anyone in jail (e.g. cutting off government funding to yeshivos rather than locking up students). But if cooler heads prevailed in the hiloni camp, they would already be trying to accomodate hareidim throughout society.
Their medina is on the verge of collapse and this is what concerns them?
No falling into any traps. Remember how the Egyptians started putting us into work. Zionism’s goal is to create an alternative to Judiasem. Where instead of the Torah as being the one and only source of our Nationality “Yisroel Kudsha Brich Hu V’Oraisa”, they are creating there cheap alternatives of their: State, “Tzahal”, “Kneset”, their flag, Their “Hatikva” etc. Their State in not sustaining itself, and as it’s last attempt they are trying to pull frum Jews deaper into their trap. Don’t fall for it. Stop taking money from them and don’t vote. Obstain. Cry out at loud “We have nothing to do your Nationalistic endeavors”. We are the real Authentic Jews.
The usual delusional comments from the posters here.
Let me be clear- I have no love affair with the secular pork eaters who have total disdain for Judaism.
Now, having said that, I am also a realist.
A realistic person realizes that a country has to survive on revenue ( that means tax revenue ) and an army.
Stop deluding yourselves and thinking that others will work for you, pay taxes and subsidize your learning, and serve in the army for you forever. It can’t continue. The numbers just don’t work with the explosion ( Baruch Hashem ) of the Charedi population.
I just can’t understand why you guys won’t see reality.
What planet are you guys living on ?
#4- I agree. The hilonim simply have to change their ways. Once that happens, the rest will fall into place. Most frummies will do things like they do in America (doctors, accountants, lawyers, engineers, politicians) – and the rest of the population will limit their pork eating (etc.) to their private lives. They will be Jews in public, and animals in private – leaving the publich sphere open to Jews.
While some Hareidim would be conscientious objectors, and some seriously intend to be full time students who never get non-yeshiva jobs – most yeshiva students expect to work outside the yeshiva at some point, and can’t do so under Israeli law and custom unless they give up on much of yiddishkeit and would join the army now if the army stopped requiring that one give up on Yiddishkeit for the “privilege” of being in the army.
#5-
According to your thoughts, if the army provided a totally frum environment, there would be no issues.
If so, I believe that this is easily doable, with the Nahal Haredi as a model pioneering effort in that sphere.
No women singing, no hand to hand combat with women…total separation of the sexes..Kashrut Lemahadrin, no Chillul Shabbat..Torah atmosphere…
I just don’t think others are as reasonable as you are. I believe that many people just want a free ride on the backs of others.
That can’t continue with the changing Charedi demographics.
#4, “What planet are you guys living on?” Answer: the one Hashem created in ma’aseh bereishis. It’s the only world there is. It’s indeed sustained on revenue, and this revenue is created by yidden learning Torah. Take that revenue away and down goes the world. It already happened once, in dor hamabul. The chilonim are threatening to bring on Hashem’s anger again r”l, and those who call themselves Modern Orthodox have to ask themselves whether they’re not aiding and abetting it.
WHY CAN’T LEARNING IN YESHIVA BE CONSIDERED A “NATIONAL SERVICE”? It would solve all problems.
#6- Agreed. The entire army should be run like Nahal hareidi (or the Hesder units – and arguably combining learning with soldiering is the “Jewish” way to run an army). The same goes for the corporations and instituitons of the Medinah. The problem is convincing the hilonim to agree that when in “mixed” company (meaning mixing hilonim with normal Jews), they have to give up their hiloni’os. They’ll have to keep their disgusting habits private.
Any chance you can convince the Golani and the Air Force to agree to be converted into Jewish units, along the proven path of the hareidi nachal unit? Or do you want to admit that the hareidi units play a roll in Israel similar to the “Buffalo soldiers” in the American army – a place to put people who have to be kept in their place.
#4 Modern Orthodox,
If you are such a realist, What makes you think that serving in their army is anything but dangerous. Maybe it’s time to get over of the delusional “Six Day War”. There have been many orange and red flags already. Going with the state is what is mad. The Egel was also created through a miracle, and these so called “miracles” of the Zionist state are not going to last forever
#7-
I might be living in a modern world, where I attempt to mesh and synthesize Torah with the world in 5762.
But you are the one living in a dream world. Your ideas are noble, but they do not reflect reality.
Reality check:
1) The Israeli Cheraidim are being subsidized by the tax paying population.
2) The Cheraidi population is growing exponentially.
3) No matter how noble a life of purely learning Torah is, it cannot sustain itself. The numbers don’t add up.
So being “modern” and “orthodox” is not an oxymoron. It is dealing with the realities of life in the world as it exists today.
Please face reality and stop living in a dream world, bais medrash, cocoon- a world of father-in-laws and governments subsidizing a pure Torah life.
Just like a cocoon in nature, that cocoon will not last forever.
Loyal Jew, according to you and your likes, the medinah has been falling for the last 64 years. It is still there. I think, it will be till coming of the Moshiach.
m.o.:
“I might be living in a modern world, where I attempt to mesh and synthesize Torah with the world in 5762….So being “modern” and “orthodox” is not an oxymoron”
Actually, it is very much an oxymoron.
Other things can be and are changed (or discarded) to conform to the Torah, and this is what traditional Orthodoxy does.
But Torah is not “meshed” or “synthesized” CH”V, with anything, the way M.O. changes the Torah to conform to “modernity”, CH”V.
This whole MO movement was anyways only a horaas shaah a few decades ago, and, in hindsight, was incorrect then, too. But it is certainly outdated now. This is ironic, since MO considers themselves Modern and progressive when, in fact, they are the ones who are outdated (from a religious point of view).
If need be, let those who are learning worry about the finances, but do not discriminate BECAUSE they are learning.