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| Charedim volunteering at the IDF recruitment center (TOI) |
To the uninitiated that might seem like a strange comment. After all aren’t all Orthodox Jews already united by the common denominator of observance? That’s what I once naively believed many moons ago. (Probably dating back to my early teenage years.) But the truth lies elsewhere.
The internecine conflict between the many varied segments of Orthodoxy has destroyed any sense of unity that our common observance should give us. Shockingly, I think the gap between Dati (religious Zionist and Modern Orthodox ) Jews on the one hand – and Charedim on the other - is greatest in Israel of all places. Where observance is more likely based on religious ideology rather than on rote behavior. But their differing religious ideologies is perhaps the primary reason for that divide. A divide that encompass service in the IDF.
For Dati families service in the IDF is seen as a moral and religious obligation to defend the Jewish people. Even at risk of life and limb. Charedi families see IDF service as an obstacle to one’s spiritual health. They refuse to be subjected to those spiritual dangers. The refusal to serve is non-negotiable - thereby avoiding mortal combat during war.
That gives some peace of mind to the Charedi mother who never has to worry about an enemy bullet killing their son or daughter during one of Israel’s many wars. The Dati mother on the other hand does nothing but worry about her soldier son or daughter being hit by a bullet and being killed or maimed for life.
Those differences have generated some truly fierce animosity between the two communities.
This has never sat well with me. It is unconscionable that there is a segment of religious Jewry that gets to avoid the dangers of combat while the other segments are required to be subjected to it. Even though Charedim hold that the merit of Torah study is what really saves them, that does not give the Dati mother any real comfort – if her son or daughter was killed in combat.
I can’t imagine a greater reason for division than that. But the brutal Hamas attack against Israel on October 7th seemed to modify this social construct a bit. These days we don’t seem to hear so much Charedi accusations about the IDF being little more than a social engineering mechanism for disabusing Jews of their religious observances .
That has been replaced by the realization that the army is more than just a Zionist social experiment. That it is instead the mechanism for protecting the entirety of the Jewish population in Israel. To that end many Roshei Yeshiva have required their students to do their part by studying and praying longer and harder as their contribution to the war effort. They know there are Jews risking their lives in Gaza right now. That attitude did not seem to exist heretofore.
Although we have a long way to go to get parity in terms of sacrifice, a change in attitude from despising the IDF to actually appreciating it is a huge step in the right direction. To that end there has not only been an increase in their Torah study and prayer, but as noted, there have been a significant increase Charedi enlistment in the IDF (Although a relatively small as a proportion of the whole). There has also been all kinds of Charedi Chesed projects directed at soldiers serving at this moment in time. That is a sea change in attitude.
But I do not think we are entirely there yet. Unfortunately generational animosity that has existed and passed on for over 75 years is not wiped away so easily, This was made clear by Rabbi Natan Slifkin on Rationalist Judaism:
Last Shabbos, someone in my community told me that the war has strained her relationships with her neighbors… when she sees her neighbor’s sons coming home from yeshiva every Shabbos, while her own sons are in Gaza and she hasn’t even been able to hear from them, that it stirs up frustration and resentment.
For me, that alone is enough to retain Dati resentment and anger. But there is more to the story. Rabbi Slifikn’s observant daughter serves in the IDF and had a conversation with a Charedi mother that really upset her. As it did me when I read it:
Last week an American-Israeli charedi group came to my daughter’s base, to provide a barbecue and entertainment…
One of the women who arranged the barbecue struck up a conversation with my daughter, and asked her hat she does. My daughter explained that she is a mefakedet (commander) in charge of a group of beginner soldiers. The woman replied, “Oh, I’m also a mefakedet!” Confused, my daughter asked what she meant. The woman explained that she’s a mefakedet of her children.
My daughter wryly mentioned that it’s not exactly the same. But the woman wasn’t joking and didn’t back down. She said, “Which do you think is more difficult, carrying a gun all day or carrying a baby?”
At this point my daughter started to get upset. She pointed out that she also plans to spend many years carrying babies.
The woman responded that everyone has their role, and her own role is to do chessed for soldiers. My daughter pointed out that one can do both, and that her own family and community is involved extensively in chessed, be it packaging food for soldiers or helping with the farms in the South that need workers, and that this does not mean that you can’t also serve in the IDF.
The discussion continued with a man from Ramat Beit Shemesh, who explained to my daughter that he doesn’t send his children to the IDF because it’s like walking at the edge of a cliff, in terms of the spiritual dangers.
So there you have it. Even in the midst of doing a truly nice thing for members of the IDF that was once so vilified (and now appreciated) they cannot let go of their prejudices. And that is unfortunately indicative of what it will be like after the war. I am not so sure that we won’t return to the former state of animosity between the two sides since the two differing core ideologies still exist.
Some people like to think that what happened on October 7th and the ensuing war is a message from God about the unity He wants of His people. Which seems to only happen under conditions of existential crises. That the Hamas attack and the war that followed was intended by God to bring us together. But if that's true, will God issue his wrath against our disunity again - if we revert back to the divisive days before the attack. I sure hope not.
If this was God’s message then in my view the burden is on the Charedi community to permanently change their past paradigm of vilifying the IDF. Will they do it?
Something to think about.
