The Gemara in Sotah famously states: בעקבות משיחא חוצפה יסגא "In the days preceding Moshiach, chutzpah will proliferate."
They weren’t kidding.
This week, the contrast between true suffering and performative outrage couldn’t be more glaring. Hostages kidnapped by Hamas have begun to share their harrowing experiences—two years of starvation, torture, and psychological torment. These are Jews who endured unimaginable horrors simply for being Jewish.
And yet, back in Israel, a group of yeshiva students—bochrim—chant “we will die, but we won’t enlist,” while simultaneously panicking over a few days in a Jewish jail. A jail that provides Mehadrin meals, visitation rights, and basic comforts. The comparison is not only absurd—it’s offensive.
To equate the incarceration of draft dodgers with the suffering of Hamas hostages is a moral distortion. It trivializes the pain of those who were brutalized and dishonors their resilience.
Even more troubling is the recent statement by Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, long considered a “moderate” voice in the Charedi Litvishe world.
He reportedly threatened that if the situation doesn't improve the “entire public” will join the Peleg protests—demonstrations that have increasingly been marked by chaos, disruption, and hostility toward the state.
This isn’t moderation. It’s a dangerous alignment with extremism masquerading as religious conviction.
In a time when Jews are under attack globally, unity and responsibility must take precedence over ideological theatrics. The Torah demands truth, compassion, and perspective. We must not allow chutzpah to drown out the voices of real suffering.
