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| One of the many massive Charedi protests against the draft in Israel |
Rav Dov Lando opposes participation in the Charedi protests
against the draft—and the arrests of draft dodgers—that have become
increasingly common in Israel. He argues (correctly, in my view) that these
demonstrations accomplish nothing except further inflame an already angry
public. They are counterproductive. Instead, yeshiva students should spend
their time learning Torah, which he believes is the greatest merit for the
Jewish people.
While I strongly disagree with the Charedi position on the
draft, at least Rav Lando understands how destructive these protests are. His
directive that students remain in the beis medrash is entirely consistent with
his belief that the best way to protect Torah is through Torah study itself.
Not so Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch.
He supports the protests and has even described them as a
Kiddush Hashem. According to that view, one must interrupt Torah study in order
to publicly demonstrate opposition to the draft. In the process, however, these
protests add to the misery of a nation already burdened by an extended war and
the prolonged reserve duty made necessary, in part, by the lack of Charedi
participation in military service.
The irony of these positions is not lost on me.
Rav Moshe Hillel (Milton) Hirsch was born in Brooklyn and
raised in an American yeshiva culture that, in those days, was considerably
less rigid than it is today. As a student of Rav Aharon Kotler during Beth
Medrash Govoha’s early years, he would have been part of a generation in which
students often wore baseball caps instead of black fedoras. One might therefore
have expected his approach to be more measured and less confrontational.
Rav Lando, by contrast, was born in Poland. His family
escaped to Mandatory Palestine before the Holocaust. Needless to say, life
there was anything but relaxed.
One might have expected Rav Hirsch to oppose these
demonstrations and Rav Lando to support them. Instead, the exact opposite
occurred.
Why? I don’t know. Perhaps because of his American
background Rav Hirsch felt the need to reinforce his Charedi credentials. But I
digress.
Viewed in isolation, Rav Lando’s position is sensible. If
Torah study is the solution, then students should remain in the beis medrash
instead of marching in the streets.
But when viewed in the broader context of a country at war
and suffering from a severe manpower shortage, it continues to trouble me
greatly: Why do neither of these great Roshei Yeshiva ever address that
reality? Even more troubling is their apparent lack of public empathy for the
enormous sacrifices being made by the rest of Israeli society.
Those sacrifices include soldiers killed or permanently
wounded in battle, lifelong PTSD, families separated for months at a time,
careers interrupted, businesses damaged, and hundreds of thousands of
reservists repeatedly called away from home because there simply are not enough
soldiers.
Yet the public statements of these Roshei Yeshiva rarely, if
ever, acknowledge those hardships…
