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| Rabbi Feldman at an anti IDF lecture in Ramat Bet Shemesh (Rationalist Judaism) |
His argument did not center on the familiar claim
that Torah study supersedes all else, or that it is Torah learning rather than
the IDF that protects the Jewish people. Instead, his case was based on the
belief that army service will likely cause religious recruits to abandon their
religious practices. That this, in fact, is the very purpose of the IDF.
This is the argument most often cited to justify opposition
to drafting Charedim, even those who are not learning full-time in a Yeshiva or
Kollel.
However, when he uses the same argument against joining even
Chashmonaim—IDF units created specifically to accommodate Charedi
religious needs – he loses me. Rabbi Feldman relies on anecdotal evidence from
colleagues that claim these units fail to live up to their promises. And tells
of his own experience with a student at his Yeshiva that told him about his
brother who was allegedly forced to violate Shabbos. These stories are offered
as proof that such units are unreliable and should not be joined either. To consider
this a common occurrence rather than an unusual occurrence – or based on the
circumstances described and IDF rules – is probably not even true (as Rabbi Slifkin
points out.)
Rabbi Slifkin does an excellent job refuting all of Rabbi
Feldman’s anti-IDF arguments. The reality is that there are no decisive
arguments that justify the Charedi world’s refusal to serve in the IDF. The
real culprit is Daas Torah. Which also happened to be Rabbi Feldman’s
fallback position when he attempted to explain why Rabbi Slifkin’s books
reconciling Torah and science were deemed heretical and banned.
If memory serves, Rabbi Feldman initially endorsed those books as a legitimate way of reconciling Torah and science when the two appeared to conflict. After hearing that Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, whom many at the time regarded as the Gadol HaDor, had labeled them heretical he sought confirmation. He flew to Israel, consulted Rav Elyashiv, and once that judgment was confirmed, he ‘joined the chorus’ of rabbis that called those books heretical and endorsed the ban. How Rav Elayshiv himself came to that conclusion is the subject of great controversy but beyond the scope of this post.
How could Rabbi Feldman have endorsed books containing heresy in the first place?
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