The Charedi war that should never be fought

 

The words (in the Haredi weekly, Yated Ne’eman) landed like a thunderclap: the community is “at war.” Not a metaphor, not a figure of speech, but war. So the claim went. The State of Israel, we are told, has declared war on the haredim, and they must now respond in kind.

How will the war be fought? Various options have been raised. Protests and disruptions are one. Economic pressure is another, pulling Haredi capital from Israel. Even the idea of causing diplomatic damage has been floated via an international religious Jewish coalition.

But in war, things escalate and often spiral out of control. The enemy, we hear from one figure, is like the Nazis, or even worse. And as in ages past, others state, we will be victorious, just as we have been for 3,000 years. Vehi She’amda, proclaimed a rally notice: “Not just one has risen against us to destroy us, but the Holy One, Blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.”

The trouble is that war is not waged against abstract states. A war against a state is, in practice, a war on its citizens. And who are they? The people dwelling in Zion. The Jewish people. Meaning, this is a war of Haredim against the Jews.

The obvious question arises: The Haredim themselves are part of the Jewish people, so how can they go to war against the Jews? The answer, given by some quarters: “We are the true Jewish People, bearers of the Torah’s flame for 3,000 years; the others are not truly Jewish.” This is the bitter fruit of over-zealous isolation: a public ani ve’afsi od (“I and none but I.”)

Yet deep down, even those who say this know it isn’t true. We are all Jews. Even posh’ei Yisrael (“sinners of Israel”) are full of mitzvot. All the more so in a generation returning in strength and en masse to its roots.

A “Haredi war on Jews” is an oxymoron. You can’t turn your brothers into “Nazis,” Heaven forbid, or invoke Avraham’s covenant against them. Heaven help us if we are forced to choose between Haredim and Jews.

I’m reminded of the late Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld. After the murder of his aide, Jacob de Haan, he abandoned talks with King Abdullah of Jordan on an alternative to Zionism. Asked why, he replied simply: “I realized the people are not with us.”

An elite, even a Torah elite, leads the people; it does not wage war on them or their state. I don’t claim that responsibility lies solely with the Haredi leadership. Of course, mistakes are made on all sides. But we need to realize not only the limitations of our power, but even the basic moral constraints that restrain us.

This is why Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch has avoided calling for protests and making empty declarations. He understands the damage such rhetoric can cause—damage that could take years to repair.

His responsible attitude calls for a return to the wisdom of our venerable sages, over multiple generations, who taught that “no one will enlist” only guarantees that yeshiva students will be drafted. Declaring war, even rhetorically, leads us inevitably down that path.

A clear, simple statement whereby those whose Torah study is not their sole calling must enlist, including many thousands of young Haredi men, would spare us this pointless “war” and begin to heal the rift between the Haredim and the Jews.

And the sooner, the better.

by Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer