The issue of army service for yeshiva students has been in
the news lately, as a case before the High Court that seeks
to upset the Tal Law makes its way through the legal process.
The public service of yeshiva bochurim was also
discussed extensively at a Cabinet meeting two weeks ago,
where suggestions were made to make army service "more
attractive" to Torah scholars, as it were. In addition,
various economic leaders present the importance of
integrating the "chareidi community" with the work force of
Israel from their own perspective.
Many of those who speak or write publicly about the issue
professed to be concerned for our own welfare, worrying about
our "lack of economic alternatives" and the subsequent
"grinding poverty" in which chareidim are said to live. We
are naturally suspicious when those who are known enemies
profess concern for our welfare, but the truth is that many
who genuinely mean well express similar concern about the
economic future of the chareidi community. Even various
private chareidi-oriented publications present expressions of
concern about the difficulties of those who study in kollel
and their families, and offer their own suggestions.
The common thread is the recommendation to seek economic
security or even comfort, at the expense of Torah study.
Worried about a "social time bomb" or "economic disaster"
that is, according to their calculations, inevitable if
things continue along the trend lines that have been
established, they opine that fewer people should learn full
time and more should work.
We say that this echoes the threat we faced in the time of
Mattisyohu: to make us forget the Torah. In our spiritually
impoverished days, we need all the learning that anyone is
willing to do.
Our gedolim have provided us the appropriate guidance.
HaRav Elchonon Wassermann Hy"d wrote some seventy
years ago: "In previous generations the apikorsim
said, `Of what good are the rabbonim to us? They learn [only]
for themselves.' [In those days] they acknowledged the
pleasure and spiritual benefit gained from learning Torah.
The kofrim of our days say that those who learn Torah
[do nothing more than] bring destruction upon themselves and
upon the entire Jewish people." (From Kovetz
Ma'amorim, "HoRo'im")
HaRav Elchonon also wrote, "It is important to know and
understand that the agents of the Soton assume different
guises. Some of them choose to kill the Torah using the worst
of the 999 types of death that sufferers of askeroh
experience. Others find it more appropriate for their goals
to kill them with a missas neshikoh. But both aspire
to the same goal. They differ only in their tactics." (From
"Omar Ani Ma'asai LaMelech")
Speaking in almost the same style was HaRav Shlomo Wolbe,
zt"l: "The Roshei Yeshiva and the Vaad Hayeshivos will
stand as an impregnable wall against any attempt to include
bnei hayeshivos in any way in the army. The government
knows this and millions of Jews all over the world support
this. Therefore they will not take drastic steps to draft
bnei yeshivos but they will prefer to choose a
pleasant death for the yeshivas — a missas
neshikoh. They are liable to propose a great concession,
that if they are willing to be drafted at the age of 23 they
will have to undergo only a short period of training, maybe
five months, and this would not be obligatory but out of
their good will . . . Maybe someone thinks that with this
gesture the bnei yeshivos will choose army service,
but let us declare publicly that any concession and any
pressure will miss their mark, because, as we said, this is a
missas neshikoh. . . . We will not argue about this
nor agree to any compromise. Anything set against the
existence of the yeshivos will not succeed: neither the
bludgeoning club nor the staff of persuasion."
This is a lesson that has retained its relevance and
importance and will continue to do so ad bi'as Goel
and even thereafter: for the relationship between Am
Yisroel and Torah and Hakodosh Boruch Hu will
never change.
