Speaking with Radio Kol Hai, Rabbi Moshe Maya, a member of Shas’ ruling Council of Torah Sages, states that “if there is an arrangement whereby someone who enlists would not come to desecrate the Sabbath and would preserve his holiness and purity — why shouldn’t he enlist? But there is one condition: that it be an official IDF General Staff order. As long as it’s just declarations, it’s worthless.”
Last summer, following the High Court of Justice’s ruling ending service exemptions for yeshiva students, Maya took a very different tone, telling Kol Barama Radio that it was “forbidden for those who don’t study to go to the army,” arguing that “those who do will end up violating the Shabbat.”
This June, the rabbi was one of several senior Shas rabbis who signed an open letter expressing opposition to any enlistment compromise that would lead to the conscription of yeshiva students. In the letter, the rabbis declared that it was forbidden for those not in yeshiva to enlist, even into “the so-called ‘ultra-Orthodox’ tracks.”
However, he started softening his position not long after, stating several weeks later that while at the moment no Haredim at all may enlist, “if military frameworks are established with the approval of the rabbis, which will certainly safeguard every Haredi—and we know that this will have legal validity—then only those who do not study at all should be drafted.”
The IDF currently maintains several service tracks for ultra-Orthodox soldiers, including the Netzach Yehuda battalion (also known as Nahal Haredi) and the recently-established Hasmonean Brigade.
The post Senior Shas rabbi appears to backtrack, says Haredim who don’t study full-time can serve in the IDF appeared first on The Times of Israel.
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