Haredim unwilling to draft are the new Zealots in Israel - opinion

This coming week, we will commemorate the 17th of Tammuz, the day on which (among other tragedies) the walls of Jerusalem wer breached, following a siege by the Romans in 70 CE.

This was the prelude to the destruction of the Temple, the razing of Jerusalem, and the exile of the Jew from the Land of Israel, which was to last for almost 1,900 years.

This exile had the most profound effect on Judaism and Jews in the history of our people.

One of the lesser-known aspects of this sorry episode is, in fact, the most tragic of all, and the most relevant for us today.

The truth is that the siege could have been withstood for many months longer, and, had there been unity among the people, the Romans might not have succeeded in their mission to destroy the spirit of the nation and remove Jewish self-determination from the land.

At the time of the siege, the Jews were a fragmented nation with different sects vying for power. There were the elitist Sadducees, the ascetic, puritanical Essenes, the “party of the people,” the Pharisees, and the Zealots.

The leader of the main group, the Pharisees, was Yochanan ben-Zakai who advocated negotiation with the Romans to try to bring about peace and end the siege.

The Zealots, on the other hand, were an extremist group, with a sub-sect known as the Sicarii, whose philosophy was to fight the Romans and attack anyone who disagreed with their approach, whether Jew or Roman.

At the time of the siege, there were sufficient supplies of food to last many months.

However, to force a showdown and a fight to the death with the Romans, the Zealots resorted to acts of national sabotage, including burning the city’s extensive food supply. These extremists even set part of the city on fire themselves.

What a tragedy.

A group of extremists were prepared to put the entire nation in danger, even unwittingly aiding and abetting the enemy, to preserve and protect their own philosophical view of Jewish presence in the land.

And we haven’t learned our lesson.

IN LINE with the Supreme Court ruling, the IDF stated its intention to send draft notices to a significant number of the 63,000 yeshiva students currently not serving in the IDF.

In response, senior rabbis from both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi sides of the ultra-Orthodox world issued rulings that haredi men should not cooperate with the draft orders nor follow instructions to show up, even for preliminary checks.

The rabbis added that yeshiva students should choose prison and economic sanctions rather than follow the orders to report for drafting.

Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef stated: “Whoever receives a conscription order – let him tear it up.”

The issue with extremists

A group of extremists are once again putting the nation at risk by digging in their heels to preserve their own philosophical position at the expense of the rest of the people.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

ISRAELI LAW defines sedition in Article 136 of the Penal Law, inter alia, as: “The creation of discontent or resentment among Israeli residents; the promotion of conflict and enmity between different parts of the Population.”

The available sanctions against a person convicted of sedition include custodial sentences.

A recent article by Rabbi Tamir Granot, rosh yeshiva of Orot Shaul, whose son Amitai z’l was killed in battle at the beginning of the war, postulated a way forward to what he describes as a “common future.”

His suggestion is for bilateral compromise. The army, according to Rabbi Granot, “will have to adapt itself and compromise” while ultra-Orthodox society will have to “mature and start to take responsibility.”

His vision can be summarized as: “The haredi world becomes a partner in the defense of the Land of Israel, succeeding in sorting its students so that a minority remains full-time at their study, manning the beit midrash (study hall). Others can integrate into society and the economy, and contribute to it when the process does not harm the strength of its spiritual and Torah commitments. On the contrary, this will contribute toward curing some of the ills existing in haredi society.”

In my view, the problem is that the two sides are so far apart in their worldview that they do not share a common set of values. For the non-haredi population, and most certainly the lawmakers and the IDF, the State of Israel is the single most important step that the Jewish people have taken since the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

It has ended exile, renewed confidence, enabled self-determination, and put the destiny of the Jews into their own hands.

For haredi society, the state is, at best, a vehicle for just being in the land that God swore to our forefathers. In their mindset, haredim have never left exile; for them, learning Torah is their only raison d’etre, and the secular state holds no ultimate value.

Even Rabbi Granot admits that for haredim, the state was only established to “save or serve the world of the Torah destroyed in the Holocaust.”

Non-haredim are willing to sacrifice everything for the state, the land, and the people of Israel.  Haredim are willing to sacrifice everything to preserve their exilic world of Torah until the Messiah comes to redeem them.

In terms of Rabbi Granot’s utopian vision, I believe the army has, indeed, begun to compromise. It has taken significant steps to enable haredi soldiers to  serve while preserving their identity, their haredi values, and their Torah observance.

There are all-haredi units where there is much less exposure to the “outside world” that is deemed so toxic to haredi society. 

Times are allocated for prayer and study, as the situation allows, and the standards of kashrut have been significantly raised.

Could the army and the state do more to accommodate? Of course they could, but major steps have been taken.

Sadly, the response from the haredi rabbis is not the maturity and taking of responsibility that Rabbi Granot says is necessary. 

Rather, it is intransigence, sedition, and failure to consider any viewpoint other than their own, which has characterized their leadership for decades, and which is so reminiscent of the Zealots of old – only without the violence.

I am afraid that on Tuesday, the 17th of Tammuz, 5784, we still have much to mourn for, as much as at any time in the last 1,900 years.