Rabbenu HaRav Yosef Sholom Eliashiv shlita issued pointed remarks this week against dangerous developments that threaten to lay a hand on the "jar of pure oil" by eroding the walls that separate the chareidi public from the general population and protect it from the deleterious effects of secular life and sinful culture.
Various figures have been conducting a "culture war" aimed at altering the chareidi public through various initiatives and propaganda directed at the chareidi world — a destructive combination of institutional ideas and organizations that undermine the Torah world and the way of life of the chareidi public — trying to implant unfamiliar aspirations and perspectives, linking the chareidi world with the general Israeli population and with secular culture.
Marbitzei Torah and morei horo'oh who met with HaRav Eliashiv related to him their concern, and the concern of the Torah world everywhere, regarding the focused attack, which is gaining momentum relentlessly, creating a dynamic that threatens to wreak havoc.
The instigators' stated intention is to induce the chareidi public to collapse from within and to drastically alter its essential character and its lofty, eternal values, notably ensconcing themselves in a life of Torah, holiness and purity, while completely sequestering itself from the slightest speck of secular influence.
Often these attempts to alter the chareidi public are presented in the guise of "economic concern," which is expressed in a series of sophisticated schemes offering enticements to abandon the beis medrash and a transition to a new lifestyle. Secular and national-religious figures active in this sphere even decided to create special "chareidi frameworks" under secular control, similar to National Service, civil service and military service, which are imbued with an ideology that is the antithesis of Torah and emunoh.
In addition, colleges and institutes are established, for men and for women, to introduce academic ambitions to the chareidi public. They lure potential yeshiva and kollel students with special grants, as long as they express a willingness to exchange their dedication to Torah for professional training and academic studies. These trends reached a peak with astonishing oxymorons, such as "a kollel with academic studies."
These foreign concepts are designed to create a national network of "chareidi frameworks" organized under their control, enabling them to exert control over thousands of chareidi homes and dictate their lifestyle now and in the future.
What all of these initiatives share in common is an attempt to infuse an atmosphere of the type of secular aspirations the chareidi world has always eschewed. The ongoing attack seeks to create a "new chareidi Judaism," which would maintain the external signs of chareidi life, but at its core would be connected to the culture of those who cast off the yoke of Torah.
HaRav Eliashiv voiced his deep concerns and fears, issuing warnings against these dangerous trends.
