Army Exemptions for Yeshiva Students Part 1 By Rabbi Anthony Manning

okay good morning everybody let's make a start thank you so much for coming should be um I'd like to thank our sponsorship for the 2024 Academic Year the sh is sponsored brandit andik benman it should be an Al for and very grateful for the sponsorship now we have a task ahead of us if I could ask you to just turn off your phones please um I said last week that I was going to undertake this topic of course this is as I expected it would become more and more center of the news um it quickly became evident to me when I started preparing this uh this these are new sheer I've not prepared these before that you can't do this in one she uh this is going to have to be at least a two-part series and it might have to be a three-part series uh next week therefore I'm afraid we won't have to be able to talk about porin but I'm sure you'll manage to find a glass of wine without me um and uh the week after that is PM uh and the week after that we may finish this series if we don't get already on to pesak but we'll see let's make us start there's a lot to say I'd like to try and give as comprehensive a packet on this as I can you'll see already today's sheet is 12 pages to next time time will be no less today's sources quite a lot of them are in English um and I don't apologize for that because they were written in English I'd like to quote quite extensively today fromin who I didn't have a personal CER with although many of his tell me him am my um there are a few issues to talk about when first of all is it the right temperature in here no it's going to get hot isn't it okay just let let's be let's be aware of it maybe we should take ask ask open a little window okay um I leave you to decide if it gets too hard if you could ask them to turn the air conditioning on the there are a few halakic issues to deal with here as you well know uh the uh P the the uh exemption from army service that is mostly but not in highly uh given to thei community and I'm going to Define these terms we'll have to assume that we know who we're talking about um is something which is very strongly defended by many in that Community we heard the uh Chief Rabbi RAV talk about this in the last couple of days and there are five or six different issues that come up in the sources to defend this current practice four of them halik two or three of them are AIC we will talk about one of the halakic issues today the issues are basically what is a and who has to go out and fight that's number one a second issue which we'll deal with next week is the rambam has in his which is a work at the end of he has a piece that says that the Levan did not go out to fight because their job was holy work they were of De hasem in other areas and just like the levim were set aside for that Holy purpose anyone else in the Jewish people who decides to be part of shaved Ley can become part of that Holy group and they themselves will be free of the burdens of General society that is often quoted as a uh as a source on this issue and we'll have to look at that next week together with another rambam who very clearly says that anyone who learns Torah all day and takes money for the community is committing a terrible has we'll have to put those two sources together and try and work out who he's talking about and that applies if if at all to the current situation a third halakic issue is the statement which may be which and it is applied Hally in certain areas which says that do not need protection because the Torah protects them we'll talk about that maybe next week as well we have to talk about what that means what are the parameters of that does it mean it protects them does it protect everyone else as well we'll talk about that and there's a very heavily which is if I'm involved in one Mitzvah do I have to get pulled away to do another Mitzvah or do I continue in the Mitzvah that I'm in we won't be able to get into all the weeds of that because it's a very highly complex topic but we'll talk about it and there are a few agatic statements as well some of which we'll see today uh it talks about AB ainu who was punished and we were punished by having to go to MIT and be slaves because he recruited to fight his war against the Four Kings but have to see what that means is that a halakic statement does that have application and many more as well but today we're going to to really talk about something which is often not talked about and I think this is a mistake which is the stroke situation of HDA meaning whatever happens in terms of the way forward politically it'll be some kind of hezer arrangement that is done a little bit like it's done with the datum where there's a combination of learning and and uh military service that's I'm sure what will be proposed and I want to talk about R Lenin's approach to hez there which we I think we should keep in mind rather than just getting swept into a bandwagon of shivba netel and we'll analyze what that might mean um we should look at maybe the side of it I brought you on page one which I'm not going to read now because I'm sure you many of you have looked at this before the historical background to the P to the exemption for Army service starting in 1948 when Boran agreed to give a uh a p to around 400 senior Scholars Torah Scholars on the basis of taso Oso which is that their Torah is their whole life their occupation and he allowed that he assumed that the problem would just go away as this Old Eastern European model of the Yeshiva Yesa Bim would eventually just die out um that did not happen barem um and Bean when he came in in 1977 removed what was then a cap on this the number of exemptions and the number of exemptions began to rise quickly to the point that rather than 400 Scholars being Exempted today the current number in 2023 24 is 66784 exemptions now I can't guarantee those numbers they were taken from uh research which was done by other agencies but let's assume they're round a roundabout correct um over the last 25 years the Supreme Court has got involved saying this is not lawful because it's discriminatory and requiring the knesset to pass laws they passed in 2002 something called the towel law which was designed to address this with a new system eventually that was also struck down by the Supreme Court that said it didn't work um and various coalitions over the last seven eight nine years depending on who is in the Coalition have either passed more you know Progressive as it were legislation on this or uh rolled it back until the point now if you just go over the page and again I've given you more details if you remember over the last 5 years we had four elections in 5 years or something like five elections in four years something like that nothing much got done um the current draft extension that was in place under the current legislation expired on the TW on the 31st of July 2023 the cabinet then ordered the defense minister to um to delay conscription until March the 31st 2024 which of course is coming very soon but all of this happened before October the 7th and then October the 7th happened and everything changed how it changed we don't yet know but that it changed it definitely did and change is coming um and how it will look we'll have to see what are our new military requirements the Army is saying we need way more people than we thought we needed a year ago how how does that work and what do we need them to do what is public opinion how is all the men and women who've been in miluim over the last six to seven months how will a bit less than that but you a long time how will their opinions voting patterns change the how has the opinion of the religious Zionist Community shifted on this issue given their very heavily involvement heavy involvement in the war and many of the losses that have been suffered in the war how will the new political alignments work will will there be a change in the attitudes in the community where will that come from will it come from the leadership will it come from the Grassroots or Everything Will Change and there will be some people like when you smash a plate that you live in denial and you try and glue it together and hold it with rubber bands and pretend that somehow or other you can still have the plate that you used to have but then at a certain point you realize now I'm sorry it's now there's a new system there's a new paradigm and who exactly will bring that in and how it will work remains to be seen but let let's just take a little bit of a a historical look to start with it's important to remember that at the beginning of the state in 1948 there were many strong positions against recruitment of Yeshiva Bim and Torah Scholars from within the religious Zionist Community as well and I brought you two quotes here one from ra map who of course was rashash America AR in 1948 and one from R is Alman Meltzer R is Meltzer was not one of the extremists in the old yeshu in the 1940s he was one of the middle ground as it was seen let's have a look at number one this is our view this is the view of the Torah every boys should know his actual unit is you are military fighters in learning in you have no oblig a to sign up you don't have any obligation to feel that you need to be in any other unit you are in now in that short quote he doesn't say you're not allowed to but he makes it clear that the the role of Yesa which again was a small group in the 1940s was in however came out more strongly about against this look at number two I want to make this absolutely clear to all those who are learning the according to the holy Torah the terrible state in which we find ourselves in the independence war in 48 the Salah the the the ability to to be saved from that is only in the of the Tor and you can see therefore the comments that people make today in in a in a a m if you like of these comments and again I'm bringing you ra I'm not bringing you someone from an extreme position in the in the all the time that the voice of is in then the hands of asav will not be able to succeed now don't forget the people knows full well horrors of the Holocaust he's com he's not living in a naive Universe they're living just a couple of years after all of the Shiva in Eastern Europe and theat and the communities were completely wiped out by the Nazis so he's not living in in a naive universe and I'm giving out a as a clear he goes further than in the C that I brought he must not sign up not even for not even to help meaning even when it comes to just standing a post locally with a gun to make sure for a few hours a day that nobody's attacking you can't do that either forget about joining the Army for years you can't even do and God forid we should even doubt this we certainly shouldn't enter into a g and look for ways out today the have an even bigger obligation because there's a war on right [Music] now you have to learn even harder learn even more and this will give to all the Jewish people okay very clear now it's interesting I heard from ra vitman vman is the the ra of and also the ra of of and a very senior that he heard from ra who was the founding R of raal was a of RA Isel and ra received SM from ra Isel and ra married the granddaughter of RA isman Meltzer and at the time when he'd done all of those things ra Amal told R vitman who I heard from ra vitman that he walked into a Shear that ra is was giving in 1948 ra am was a a holocaust Survivor he came over he fought in the ha he joined the ha he was involved in very active service in 1948 he walked in in his MIM in his army uniform to ra and ra turned around to his students and said we sit and learn in the ramban but Yehuda he lives it how do you how do you square the two you there's a number of different ways to square them and I'm not going to go into that now but that's a family story from the amital family and the uh and the uh and the family of isman but nevertheless he came out with a clear written pronunciation against it in contrast to that and I want you just to turn to the back page for a second of the appendix R Shalom ra sh yosf Z RAV Zin who was of course one of the founding uh fathers of the encyclopedia tal mudit project very much part of that it's the front of the last oh the front of the last page excuse me page 11 thank you um rev Zin issued in writing a very clear piece which opposed the positions of Ra of R isman and said it's absolutely essential that there is a Yesa draft now other people will seen the minute who were very much in favor of that were RAV and RAV DAV Nair one of the students of RAV cook and we'll see what RAV cook has to say about that in a minute but originally RAV Zan didn't publish this under his own name he he published it under the maybe it was just too hot to handle but look at what he says this was translated uh and it's from a tradition Journal it was translated I put here earlier on in the sheet the details are where you can find it so he says as follows I'm not going to read the whole thing but let's read a few bits of it the deepest respect and admiration is due to the rabbis and learned Scholars of our holy city but the question may nonetheless be asked teachers are Masters how can this be justified what is the source for exempting Yeshiva students and terrorist cars from an obligatory War Mitzvah we'll see what that is in a minute fought to defend Israel from those who come to to destroy her God forbid how can you pass it off as if it was H or D Torah D Torah is a little bit manipulative when you say the word d Tor people feel that you know that everyone agrees on this that Yeshiva students need not register or serve have we not learned that when it comes to saving a life not many lives just one these things are done by the leaders of Israel is done by G Israel by the scholars in order to teach the to the nation he's saying D the should be fighting in the Army dka was any distinction made whether or not it's time of learning Torah that is to be lost if this is the case in Saving One Life how much more so in the saving tens of thousands of Jews now perhaps a distinction should be made as to whether one must endanger himself in order to save someone else's life could we go so far as to say that if one's own life were threatened he has no obligation to save other people if so where does the teror differentiate between the self-sacrifice of the highest of the high and that of the low lest of the low if a person should not have been drafted because of the danger involved all of Israel is exempt why have you excused only the Yeshiva students how do you know that your blood blood is redder than that of your fellow man very strong statement well what right do you have not to be part of the danger when everybody is in danger how do you know that your blood is red Etc There's no distinction to be Tak between the blood of a Torah scholar and that of a common man the rule that one life is not pushed aside for another applies even to a day old baby it is clear that up to now there had never been any controversy as to whether the principle that one must put his out life in danger to save anothers applied only to saving an individual's life or perhaps the lives of many individuals but there is certainly no disagreement when it comes to saving CL isra surely there is no need to review the unanimous opinion that a defensive War for to save Israel against their enemies is an obligatory one of which it's been said all must go even a bridegroom from the room and a bride from under her how have we arrived at the conclusion that Scholars are not included in the obligation if our generation merited everyone studying Torah let's imagine the whole of erell everybody was involved in t Torah amazing thing would we allow our enemies to ravage our land and kill our people without taking up arms to defend ourselves we were not worthy but thank God that there are people ready to stand firm and fight what source have we for a hierarchy of obligation regarding par ipating in a war to save Israel from its enemies and just turn over the page I'm just going to read one other uh small paragraph if you go on the right on page 12 he says I understand the feelings of nria who are unalterably opposed to the state of Israel they oppose the war because they feel that we should surrender even according to these ideas there's no difference between yiva student and the Common People meaning they don't make a distinction between the yiva boys and the regular people they just think everybody should surrender anyone who subscribes to this philosophy must be against the conscription of anyone in Israel whoever he would be luckily very few people feel this way our entire nation in Israel and in the diaspora eagerly risk their lives in this defensive War which has been thrust upon us they understand well that there is no future for the Yeshiva for the yeshu here or for the refugees waiting in the diaspora without our own independent country one that would be open to accept our bloody brothers who wonderer in the burning wander in the Bur govern God Israel and the rest of the world know that we are not the aggressors we do not want war we are not gladdened by the spilling of blood but if our enemies fall Upon Us in a mad Killing Frenzy we must defend ourselves and you he's addressing the Rob admit the dire necessity of this obligatory War many of you have sent blessings and words of encouragement to our Valiant soldiers it is your obligation to encourage young and healthy Scholars to fight will you send your Brothers to war and yourself sit at home which is a POS from Moshe Renu when the B and the B ruven we'll see that posing inside say you know something we're just happy to stay over here he looks at them incredulous and said now that we fought for your land you're going to stay at home while the rest of Cl Isel fight and you're not going to fight with them how can that be anyway R Zan's piece you should read the rest on your own it it makes very important reading but you should know even in the earliest days of the yeshu this was a a significant issue R herok the chief Rabbi at the time was very in favor uh of the Shiva students being draft drafted but then when the government suggested withholding Food Supplies to yiva students who wouldn't draft he said you can't do that you can't starve people to force them to draft and that of course is likely to be one of the discussions on the table as to well are we going to cut down the uh the payments that we make to families in order to incentivize them to draft and R herok said no matter how important drafting is starving families is not the way necessarily to do it again I'm not making any personal comment on what we should or shouldn't do it's there's no comparison because these people are literally staring yes you're right 100% there's no comparison there was no was 100% And distribut that's absolutely correct it's a different situation they never but no two situations are ever exactly the same you're right but there 100% people were literally starving today people are not literally starving but also you know today our standards of living are not what they were in the 1940s and what people could live with in the' 40s people may not be able to live with today anyway I brought you again please don't anything I say should not be interpreted whichever way I say it as my own personal opinion you if you want my personal opinion you can ask me personally I'm not interested in putting it onto a a Sho which we broadcast around the world um I brought you on page three and I'm not going to read this uh R shaiu Cohen who of course some of you in this room may have known him personally um who was the son of Ravid Han and was a student of am arav and he was uh confronted he was signed up to fight and he was confronted with a slogan on the wall that ra raah cook himself said that he was not allowed for Yesa B to fight and he ran through the streets he couldn't believe it and he saw RI he bumped into R cook and he said is this true is it true that your father said also that Yeshiva Brahim should never be drafted um and ra if you look here at the last two paragraphs under the pressure of his questioning I told him about organizing a fighting Isa in the Jewish quarter and my distress when I saw the announcements which indicated that we were acting against the guidance of ruk when he heard my words R was horrifying he grabbed me by my shoulders began to Roar this is a complete forgery a distortion an utter falsehood he was so upset his shouts echoed down the street after calming down he explained that his father had written the letter joining the first world war regarding the draft of Yeshiva students who' escaped from Russia to England R cook felt that these students should be Exempted from the draft just as the British Exempted other clergy students but here continue with the motion here we are fighting for our hold on the land of Israel and the holy city of Y this is undoubtedly a mitah whereas in England the demand was Yeshiva students should fight for a foreign army now I actually brought you an extract from R Cook's letter in number four to R Herz the chief Rabbi of Britain and the Comm and sorry the British Empire I should say nearly said the Commonwealth by mistake um the British Empire at the time and uh R RAV cook wrote to Rav Herz encouraging him uh begging him to intercede to prevent the draft of yiva students from London into the British army um one of the things he says there which we'll have to come back to um one second so show make sure this is still going yeah one of the things he says there just underlined in number four he brings different garat one of which is that Abu was criticized as I mentioned before for recruiting to fight the war against the Four Kings and again we're going to have to unpack that what does that mean was it is that aad it isn't aad how do we understand that but if you look at what ra does say there he says underline we've seen how great is the prohibition to make a draft of to force them to go out to war even for a very very big Yesa students mustn't go out to war doesn't say just oh very nice I I accept your correction it's a very accurate one he says and that is a point that we will need to address and ronstein will address that next week when we see his peace response to this tribe of Ley argument and we say who does this actually apply to that's an excellent point but we have to work out what to do with rev cook rev cook was writing in England in 1917 1916 1917 what would R cook have said in 1948 in defending ER Israel so son is no question he said this was this was for them and now he would not say anything like this yes Sirah refering no he's talking about whenu was fighting because that's the next line I didn't read the next line he's not saying the world war one is in case you're asking that although he did have a lot to say about World War one which we're not going to talk about now so just introducing those different voices you can see there's a certain fog of War even in the opinions about war um and that is uh the nature of things and people are always going to bring the quotes from people they wish to support them uh even if those quotes have to be examined more carefully as to what was their context let's have a look at a a fundamental question which we need to which I want to bring in Rob aronstein to talk about is the Army a good place for Yesa and here I do mean a Yeshiva yeah the guys they're drafting in from Yeshiva is 181 19 these are young men they learn Torah they're not Fighters do we say that this should be a place for them so let's have a look if you look in at the end number five there's a POS in that goes through the different fighting Personalities in David's Army these are the names of David's you know valorous glorious man there's a debate as to whether that's the name of person or sitting in the with the wise the the r which is the head of a part of the army you can look in the different there who is this person who this fellow who was famous for what he took down 800 warriors with One S with one Arrow okay who is this fellow so if you go over the page to page four take this to be reference to DAV himself and rather than reading this as a a list in the chat of the different generals all these expressions are about DAV so look at what it says in number six what's being said here this is what it's saying this is how we praise David this is what we look up to in David himself who he is the and yet he's the when he was sitting and learning Torah he was as soft and gentle as a worm you could have just pressed him and exploded he was in learning Torah but when he had to take off his whatever Torah clothes and put on his army clothes he was as strong as a wood and he talks about the 800 people that he would kill he would he would shoot an arrow he would take down 800 and he would regret he didn't get the other 200 he brings that from apos as well in other words see in the personality of David himself not a or a fighter but both he was both and he was both with extreme success and that was an ideal mhia himself if we look in number seven R says how do we know it's going to has to be very learned in again like and he also needs to be a warrior now you could sit around and say May mean spiritual Wars and of course the took this idea to its next stage and and what is the youth group ofad little boys I don't if they got girls as well probably hav the armies of so may may not be some views literal but the RAM I think clearly is seeing it as an actual battle there's a model of a mashia who is a and also a look in the ramban in number eight I'll mention it outside the ramban says why was AB so Keen to make a treaty with with Abraham and he says because they were he'd seen what they could do he'd seen a had smashed the Four Kings he was nothing compared to the Four Kings and therefore the personality the ramban is telling us of aaham and that the Torah is presenting is not only all the other things we always learn about abah and their spiritual sensitivities and Thea Etc but also their ability to be and the ran wants us to know that and understand that this is the Jewish way and therefore Rin for who we're going to give over the next 10 minutes or so of the sh to says number nine although stateless centuries have tended to obscure this fact HDA has been the traditional Jewish way what were the m of mosu someone's phone is it may be outside disturbing people well it won't ring for long something I think I think I think we just have to ignore it okay okay because otherwise we'll be searching everybody's bags for the phone although State the cists have tended to excu this fact hezer has been the traditional Jewish way what would the of mosu yeshu as conceived and described them but yes they were fighting the war OFA and they were learning Torah and therefore what I want to to talk to you about for the next few minutes is this idea of hezer um and some important points that R Lin brings out because we often get swept up into the to the secular Narrative of shivon banel but actually that is not a perspective that the religious Zionist community supports this idea and we'll see in a sense why that is there is an idea of in a situation I remember when our son joined went into HDA he went to the and when when they called all the parents in for the you know your son's going into hez I think ra said this is a solution to a situation and there is a element to this which we need to understand looking number 10 optimally hezer doesn't merely provide a religious cocoon for young men fearful of being contaminated by the potentially secularizing influences of General Army life although it incidentally serves this need as well hezer at its finest seeks to attract and develop Torah who are profoundly motivated by the desire to become serious but who concurrently feel morally and religiously bound to help defend their people in their country who given the historical exigencies of their time and place regard this dual commitment as both a privilege and a duty who in comparison with their nones love not to paraphrase Byron's child Harold Torah less but Israel more I I can't resist I could read this all day honestly I I I was I was shocked to find that on a website R Lin article article had been printed out had been brought down but it's been dumbed down it had taken out a lot of the you know Expressions that he uses you you read about ly not just for the content but also for the style mainly for the content it provides a context within which students can focus upon enhancing their personal spiritual and intellectual growth while yet heeding the call to public service and it thus enables them to maintain an integrated Jewish Essence now again this is going to be a hard sell to the community but they don't know this Torah they haven't learned this Torah they haven't thought this through in this way and of course this is a religious Zion Manifesto in the sense that it seeks to balance things as a Jew in the modern world and he sees in this sense the idea of Army service not as kind of shlepping you away from Torah to do something else but to actually take you from Torah to enhance your Jewish religious personality in a certain way number 11 when the mission States if there's no flower there's no Torah and if there's no Torah there's no flower it hardly means that both are equally important let's not lose sight of it now what it does mean is that both are in fact equally necessary although axiologically and theologically flower exists for the sake of Torah and not vice versa okay which he translates you don't live to eat you eat to live he claims one of M's characters and so it is with the HDA the Yeshiva prescribes military service as a means to an end and that end is the enrichment of personal communal spiritual life the realization of the great moral religious version and maybe it should mean Vision whose fulfillment is our national destiny and everything else is Holy subserving no one responsibly connected with any Yesa HDA Advocates military service per se we have void even the slightest tting of militarism no less than every Jew the typical henic yearns for peace Longs for the day on which he can divest himself of his uniform and Uzi and devote they don't have an Uzi anymore but you know what I mean and devote his energies to Torah in the interim however he harbers no Illusions he keeps his powder dry and his musket ready R lonstein lives in the 17th century in his mind okay in terms of his Pro mind process um go over to page five again I make no apology for reading some of this out quickly but it's important and this next piece is very important number 12 in one sense therefore in so far as an army service is alien to the ideal Jewish Vision HDA is grounded in necessity rather than choice if you wish B it is if you wish a b a postf factor response to a political reality imposed Upon Us by our enemies in another sense however it is very much a freely willed option grounded in moral andic decision we at yes any rate do not Advocate hezel as a second best alternative for those unable or unwilling to accept the rigors of single-minded terrorist study we Advocate it because we are convinced that given our circumstances would that they were better military service is a m and a most important one of that without imping the patriotism or ethical posture of those who think otherwise we feel that for the overwhelming majority of Benet Torah defense is a moral imperative of course that concern must be balanced against others kesity Sur needs not only security but spirituality and ultimately the former for the sake of the latter spirituality is more important those who by dense of knowledge and inspiration are able to preserve and enrich our moral vision and spiritual heritage contrib incalculably to the quality of our national life and this must be considered in determining personal and Collective priorities hence while we of yat hasda feel that training and subsequent Reserve status for men should be virtually Universal spiritual specialization being reserved at most for the truly Elite C and that's the point that you made over there the length of posttraining service should be justifiably briefer than that of those unable or willing to make a comparable spiritual contribution um we don't have equality of Army service men serve longer than women men serve for three years roughly women serve for two years why is there no equality there so you say no no of course I mean that's the obvious reasons why women have to serve less I don't know other obvious reasons other other considerations what about um many of the people in this room I'm sure have children grandchildren young women who did non religious Israeli girls do not get a choice to do Shi they have to go to the Army and if they say I'd rather do sh me they tell well I'm sorry you're not da you can't do it now there's no equality there if you are pushing for equality then very soon you'll be told well all your girls have to also join the Army and Sh is not an acceptable option why should this daughter have to fight or do whatever she does in the Army and this daughter do something else now you could say well is critically important and I'm not denying that but Shon is a dangerous word and ra ravenstein also referred to this in terms of the heas many of your sons grandsons my son went to azda Yeshiva so in a we're very proud of the boys in azda Yeshiva but they don't serve for three years and they won't serve for three years because as ronstein says what they do in theat is also important there's no equality there if we fly the banner of shivang then very soon that Banner will be applied in ways that a lot of people will find unacceptable so we just have to be a little bit careful as to how we apply equality because equality is a as we saw after the French Revolution uh equal I'm not saying it's going to be exactly the same we're not going to bring back a guillotine but uh equality is a uh is a difficult thing uh and not a fair one either so just just want to mention that I would prefer a different expression not sh Manet maybe uh I don't know something ored I don't know no one's asking my opinion on that but I don't like sh on number 13 says R Lin the case for has the rest and on simple assumptions firstly during the formative postsecondary years aent ter should be firmly rooted in a preeminently ter climate this been crucially important both for his personal Spiritual Development and the future of a nation in critical need of broadly based spiritual commitment and moral leadership think about the the the M the boys who go go to m come out of M after a year sometimes two years although I think they're cutting that back much more mature much more able to but it's not Shivan it's not equal not everybody is going to Second the defense of Israel is an ethical and hierarchical imper halic imperative because be it because as we believe the birth of the state was a momentous historical event and its preservation of great spiritual significance or because even failing that the physical survival of its 3 million and I've added in ban har now over 7 million Jewish inhabitants is at stake and third in light of the country's current military needs and these should be admittedly reassess periodically Yeshiva students should participate in its defense etc etc um so all of these are very important points we could go on and I'm just going to mention one more thing he brings in a number 14 um service enables the religious community as a whole to avoid both the reality and the stigma of parasitism he's very aware of this there's a reality and there's also a stigma it helps build personal character on the one hand open channels of public life on impact on the other by producing potential leaders attuned to the pulse and experience of their countrymen to be sure the prospect of secular criticism should not routinely be the decisive factor in determining religious policy we don't change our religious policy because the secular World jumps up and down and screams nevertheless it cannot be totally ignored kazal at any rate did not regard hasem and kesem likely and he's very conscious and R herzo also wrote I brought you in the note at the bottom although I didn't bring you the whole piece in 19 48 in favor of the Yeshiva draft and he said because what will happen if the Yeshiva men are not drafted even if we feel that there is an enormous contribution that they're making through learning Torah the secular world will not understand that and there will be enormous and it will lead to a God forbid a terrible rejection of Torah and a hatred of Torah amongst people that are that and again that can't be the only consideration but to not bring it into the consideration is unacceptable Lin is trying to trying to balance that on page six and I want to get back into the Hebrew sources quickly um I brought you here um in number six the the Ravin deals with the dangers of eroding religious commitment in numbers 15 and 16 one of the main arguments that the kedi community advances is that the Army will be very very bad for the religious observance level commitments dedication of many of their boys now you could turn around and say well I mean that's a situation that you should have thought through and and you're not you know giving them enough understanding of why they want to be okay that's fine but that's a little bit like the fellow coming to the door collecting for his nine children who've got no money cuz they've got no jobs and me saying well you know you should have thought about before you got that into that system it's the system that's okay the system is at fault but that doesn't help this fellow when he's got no money and he is almost as much a victim of the system as everybody else nevertheless uh ravenstein is is very uh keenly aware of the attrition and the uh the uh negativity that the Army has on religious life and it does and I've and anyone who's had family in the Army for all that we support and want to be part of the of the kidos hasem of being in the Army it is a it is very draining and it's not because they can't keep Shabbat Shabbat they have lots of post game in the army that are very clear on what they can do and can't do on Shabbat and the Army won't force them them into do things which are against uh and the K the kitchen's a glat kosher don't worry it's the kosher kitchen you ever ate in the Army cuz if the mash messes it up he won't get fired he'll get put in jail so the kitchen's fine and the shabas the problem is that being in the Army and this was my experience I was never in the Army just you know full disclosure I came on aliia when I was in my mid-30s when I asked them about the army they smiled at me and they said you want to help Israel maybe you join the Syrian Army so I felt that sarcasm was not helpful in my Aliyah process but nevertheless but my son our son was in the Army and being in the Army necessarily takes over every single cell in your brain you have to be a small Cog in a very big wheel you have no time for broader thinking for deeper thinking and every minute that you're not busy doing what you have to do you're exhausted and you just flop down on the floor that's how it is now I'm not saying it can be any other way because that's how the Army needs to train its and use its soldiers but there's no room for that lifestyle in that lifestyle for religious growth in the way that we you know understand it and therefore it has to be uh understood that it's very very difficult to get that right R and R um R lonstein understands that just look at number 16 let's skip number 15 like all yadda seeks to instill a love for Torah so profound and so pervasive as to render protracted from it painful and yet it demands precisely such an absence it is painful to join the Army but we demand it he says it Advocates patriotic national service even at some cost to personal development and yet prescribed that students serve considerably less than the Nona peers these apparent antinomies are the result of the basic attempt to reconcile conflicting claims and duties by striking a particular balance one which should produce an aspiring who also serves rather than as soldier who also learns but one who perceives military sorry I said that wrong who he he produced a who also serves rather than a soldier who also learns one which perceives military service as a spiritual sacrifice we don't want students to be indifferent to their loss but which proceeds to demand that sacrifice one which encourages a henic to excel as a soldier while in the Army but prescribes his return to the B midash before that Excellence is fully applied or perhaps fully attained and this is other side of the coin you put a young man in an army I'm talk about men for now and and they do really well in the Army and they become they excel in their service and they're ready to sign on to be more to do an officite you say nope back to the B rash so in a sense you're cutting them back from excelling even in their army service which many boys will find difficult too from the achiever perspectives these antitheses are fully Justified and they constitute the very essence of HDA as a complex and sensitive balance however preserving that balance with its multiple subtle nuances entails traversing a narrow Ridge and heiz the primary difficulty existential and not just practical of Hester Small Wonder that many only achieve the balance imperfectly it is however in those who do succeed in attaining the balance and who despite the difficulty are genuinely peace with themselves that HDA at its finest can be seen and it is inspiring to behold and in this renin unquestionably is coming from his background in yila University because don't forget whyu also walks a very narrow bridge and that world of Centrist Orthodoxy which is a different Bridge it's not a bridge of religious sanism it's a bridge of modern Orthodoxy or Centrist Orthodoxy which also tries to balance two very important things in a way which will of necessity sometimes have casualties and some people will not do them properly and will fall along the Wayside you know rman said it everything is a s odds and you can't you have no choice but toh down because the the alternative is a is a world of pretense and denial that you don't live in conflict and ra solic actually has a piece which I didn't bring you we could have gone on forever today um but we won't go on forever um where raichi talks about modern Orthodoxy as as two mountains with a narrow bridge between them there's the Torah and there's the Mada and he brings from who lived on two mountains not one and he paints this picture of these why walking this narrow bridge between Torah and Mada and some falling off down into the Ravine as they go and he said I have sleepless nights the reality that people do sometimes stumble and don't succeed in this synthesis but what can I do I can't deny that that is the way we have to be so ra ra Lin of course who was son-in-law raik who was the Ros Yeshiva 2B at Yeshiva University before he muched to the dismay and excitement of many in the 1970s before he made alah and I don't know if that was you know expected and you can speak to people who are more in the Yu frame but he he's coming from that that religious sism is in itself this tense synthesis whenever you have a hyphenated hashkafa it's always tricky you know it's easy just to be yeshivish whatever that means nobody you know whatever it's great but once you're modern SL Dash Orthodox or religious Das sinist you've introduced a tension a dialectic which of course if you're R Lin and R salv means you're actually living life but which causes a lot of challenges anyway enough of that for now let's get back into some of the issues for the next 10 minutes let's dive into these sources what we don't get through today I will bring you next week um we know that certain people are sent back that's Source number 17 those people well let's leave the POS so the the the soldiers the the officers go to speak to the people and they say says the Tor anyone who is scared and weak-hearted let go home and not undermine the morale of other people what does that mean Source number 18 on page seven says the literally anyone who's scared is sent he can't cope with the with the Terrors of War what does it mean who scared it's scared of he's scared of his AAS he won't be able to succeed because he's not enough of aad give you two examples he holds its only Torah AAS and the two he points out are two you might hold to be slightly lesser or unusual or not standard ofas not necessarily lesser but a Cohen who marries a gr that's the kind of person says rosi who has to go home even that level of AA he's not going to be able to fight properly now says the then when are we sending people [Music] home but when he comes to everybody has to go even the slept away from the and we've seen in this war and in previous warsan and Kal who delayed their weddings who were taken away the day after their weddings from the sh I know personally many cases of this and I brought you in the references here for a previous one of the previous Gaza Wars one of the who was so badly injured only a day or two into his wedding we we even take thean and the Kal away fine couple of things before we go on the example of theen maring a you see from here that theim were in the war we're going to have a discussion next week about whether they called up the Kim well this Mission sounds like they did call up the Kim because the Kim was some of the people who they sent home if they were a naughty Co okay fine so we'll just remember that how do we Define so there are a number of different ways to approach it the the gar says some things are clear of to capture the land of Israel okay that's definitely let's assume that means the same asah it's not so straightforward but let's assume that David's Wars to expand his kingdom they weren't necessary for defensive purposes that is rash okay that where there's a debate is a a war where we need to to preemptively weaken an enemy so that they won't cause us trouble in the future one view says this is and one view says this is but what about a war which is not to preemptively weaken but to actually defend ourselves after attack so there the mishna brings down I brought you in the footnotes there everybody agrees it'sah what could be more of aah than coming to the defense of CL Israel and in fact the ramb when he defines that if you look in number 21 the king is only allowed to go out and fight without permission from the San hedrin Etc in what is he gives three options the war of Yeshua against the Seven Nations okay that's historical which we talked about two we ago whether that is or isn't historical and the third saving Jewish the Jewish people from an enemy who has attacked them so that's not preemptively weakening where there's a debate but it's an enemy who has attacked them so most opinions will understand that this what we're in right now is M I did bring you Rashi in number 20 who says that the only was the one of yesu and after that there were no there's no such thing as aah you might hear that there's Noah anymore that's difficult because the Mish talks about the distinction between different kinds of so if they're all over the time of Yeshua then what's it talking about and again we can go into the depths of where rash is coming from but the opinion of the rambam is pretty much Universal I don't think you'll find in the community much argument as to whether we are or not in aah there may be some that say well Rashi okay but the ramban certainly says and it seems to be mus generally amongst pretty much everybody there is a rambam that says that you can't be without it's a difficult rambam I brought it in number 24 but I'm not going to go into it now certainly roren no surprises held that what we're in since 1948 and even before is a and you can read 20 2 and 23 in your own time I've actually looked at them before in one of theuk sessions we had earlier in the year when we were just after October 7th where and sayah there are no exceptions everybody has to come and it's an absolute Duty it's based on the Mitzvah you may not stand by While others other Jews specifically are suffering and therefore they see it clearly as a question is though need to come or not so what do we say about well are they is that is it if we even have to take then of course we have to take the you know or do we say no then we'll take but is a different case Al together you could read this in different ways and actually I brought you num 25 the K we had him last week the kar or was I think 18 Century 19th century he was the one that said that we can depose the king remember if we don't like the king anymore well not for now that was last week says it's absolutely includ and learns it as meaning how can you take away from the if you even take then you take everybody you might take everybody however I brought you and we'll probably have to end at number 29 but it's uh maybe just tack on the rest next time we've pretty we've made very good progress but I want to read you three more sources first of all that sit El also not seen as a quote unquote extremist on many issues he says very clear number 27 when they said in that doesn't include will see him next time that's a mistake that made will see talk about King that he did draft the and he shouldn't have done so there are those that say no however I just want to leave you today with a very important topic it could be there's something even bigger than we've been arguing do they have to come in yes or no but the the K is who of course had that famous meeting with benan which we'll look at next week where they talked about the issue of the draft and the was like laid down the law no way the himself writes in number 28 seems to me when it talks about it says La it is not talking about a situation at a time when you need everybody to win the war does there P because it's absolutely obvious in that [Music] case obviously everybody has to come if we need everybody or if we need another thousand or another 10,000 so that's not even a discussion the of the is the is even when they only need a specific number you can take from the but when you need everybody then everybody's needed you have everyone has to come which is an interesting question what does that mean everybody's needed how many people do we need now I don't know the answer to that when the Army say they need X more I mean how many more is that what are the enemies that we will go forbid have to face right now we're fighting Kamas are on the border Iran is around and of course the enemy that is never discussed but is at the back of everybody's mind is of course Egypt what's going to be with Egypt so you going to say Egypt Egypt are our friends well open up the tanak and see how that works now we're happy for our friends but you've got right on the border one of the most strongly armed armies in the world with American Weaponry building roads through the siai for tanks that only have one purpose for the Egyptians okay so how many men do we need I don't know ask the Army um and uh in even renberg who said you don't call the I want to leave you with this says in number 29 if we go into a war and there's a if we don't take from the rabbis they absolutely have to go out to their brother's help you're excuse for that because it's after time it's fine okay and therefore just be careful when people are throwing sources around the says you can't draft the rabbis forah but he says but if you need them then that's even more than and of course you draft the rabis so we have to work out what's please God be much better than we think it is but we have to be plan ahead and at the end of that Source he says of course we only draft people who know how to use a weapon so and that's a very important point which is if we're going to need people in a year we can't call them up in a year when they've been sitting in Yesa we have to train them how to be Fighters so we have to actually plan ahead in this way and and this will be definitely part of the anyway to be continued have a good week we'll continue next week off after sorry