A prayer of unity is always on our lips yet here in Eretz Yisrael a depressing new divide is forming between us and a certain potion of the secular community as well as a small sector of the national-religious community that has joined them. It’s important to understand that what is developing is not a true ideological clash between the two sides that seems impossible to resolve. Indeed that clash does exists. But that basic difference in outlook really has nothing to do with this latest attack on chareidi Jewry and on the yeshivah world in particular. I purposely wrote “a certain portion of the secular community” and “a small sector of the national-religious community ” because in fact if you manage to have a sensible conversation with a secular Israeli whose sole source of information is the news media that feed his brain day and night he might not agree with you but he’ll understand your position.

“Look at how hatred can foist senseless opinions on people” I said to my not-yet-religious friend. “Look at how foolishly some of these chilonim are acting declaring open and total war against us.” In general the aggressors are people who control the news media who are in turn activated by outside forces with the purpose of disintegrating the delicate fabric holding our society together.

Those of us who live inIsraelknow who those outside forces are and what their goal is: to cause as much social unrest as they can in order to further their dream of replacing the Jewish State with a state of all its citizens. One of the means they use is fear-mongering. The chareidi population they say is growing at an alarming rate. True our numbers are growing baruch Hashem but listening to the biased lectures and position papers of these professors and politicians you could think we are an apocalyptic threat poised to bring down the secular establishment within a few decades because according to them the chareidi community only studies Torah and doesn’t work.

Just the other day Naftali Bennett the rising young star on the new political constellation was talking about “hundreds of thousands” of Torah students and “hundreds of thousands” of chareidim who don’t work. What fantasy-land is he living in? They way things are going Bennett and his fear-mongers declare the secular population will very soon be a minority and that minority won’t be able to go on carrying the entire state on its shoulders. Certain figures in the media are experts are magnifying these fears for one primary purpose: to trigger a search for ways to stave off this perceived threat or as one prominent columnist put it ways to shrink the chareidi population. Both openly and in veiled terms they have declared that their real intention in imposing the draft on bnei yeshivah and pressuring Torah students to go to work -- all under the banner of “sharing the burden equally” -- is to secularize the chareidim although they prefer to call it “integrating them into Israeli society.” This is being presented as a logical way of warding off the imaginary collapse they are expecting within a few decades the doomsday scenario they have foisted upon the average citizen through ceaseless propaganda brainwashing and pushing of panic buttons.

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Meanwhile due to various socio-economic factors there has been a growing trend in the chareidi community to enroll in academic or vocational courses with a view toward finding gainful employment. Enlistment in the army has also increased especially since the formation of programs within the military that make it easier for religious soldiers to maintain their devout lifestyle and survive their army service spiritually intact. More and more men in uniform can be seen these days in chareidi neighborhoods all over Israel provoking criticism from kano’im on the other side of the spectrum complaining of “pollution in our streets.” That is ironically just the way things are at present.

One would think that the fear-mongerers would look upon this development as a kind of victory. If chareidim who don’t work or serve in the army are such a threat to Israel’s survival then they ought to be happy about the growing number of chareidim in the work force and the military and they ought to be rejoicing that leading rabbis have even given tacit approval to the trend. They should be applauding and patting themselves on the back feeling smug at the sight of cracks forming in chareidi society since in their world view as soon as yeshivah students start getting some secular education they will see the light abandon their antiquated ways and become “Israelis ” as a dean of the law department at an Israeli university recently expressed to a group of master’s students.

Yet surprisingly as they watch their dream seemingly beginning to come true we see them reacting in quite the opposite way acting completely irrationally according to their own world order: launching an all-out attack on the chareidi community pushing it into a defensive position while at the same time trying in every possible way to conscript every eligible member of that community. And on top of that they want to reduce the meager livelihood of the average kollel yungerman (who gets about 2 000 shekels a month not the 6 000 that was falsely emblazoned on election posters). Anything to make him leave the yeshivah and thus breaking the spine of chareidi society.

Apparently they lack the patience to wait for the trend taking place in chareidi society to evolve naturally. They want revolution not evolution. While they should be murmuring to themselves “Wow this is just what we hoped would happen ” and hoping vaguely that chareidi society will break down under financial and other pressures instead they are shooting themselves in the foot. They’ve created a situation in which the chareidi community is curling up like a porcupine in self-defense. Even those who were thinking of going into a military program or studying for a profession are taking time out for second thoughts now that they see what the recruitment campaign is driving at. Several yungeleit who went into national service programs told me recently that if faced with the same decision in today’s political climate they would definitely not do it again.

What do they hope to gain these people who are pressing for a quick solution to the supposed problem of yeshivah students and the draft? Why aren’t they pleased with recent developments? Why must they demand everything right now by force instead of letting nature take its course? Why are they trying to resort to dictatorial means that go against the spirit of every democracy in the world? What has become of logic and common sense?

This is the power of hatred at work. Hatred has nothing to do with logic; it suffocates logical thinking. Hatred sees nothing but what is immediately before its eyes only the object of hate in the present moment. It cannot take a broad comprehensive view. It doesn’t care about consequences it only wants to hit. To hit without thinking without considering tomorrow. Again this is the view of a minority; yet it is a minority that controls most of the media. Blinded to all logic it bats away every possible solution to this emotionally fraught issue.

Am Yisrael is a stiff-necked people as we’ve been called by those who love us most — Moshe Rabbeinu and HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself. So why should Mr. Lapid and Mr. Bennett think we have changed? It would behoove them to be prepared for surprises on the road ahead.

Food for Thought

“Lo kein nasan lecha Hashem Elokeicha” (Devarim18:14).

HaKadosh Baruch Hu has given you the attribute of saying “Lo kein — not that way.”

Not the way your enemies want. You want that I want the opposite.

(Rebbe Simcha Bunim of Peshischa)