The nature of the crowd — which contained many young, working chareidim — carried another message. For years, critics of the chareidi world have looked eagerly for signs of an intragenerational rupture. The rise of the working chareidi was meant to herald the end of the sway of the rabbinic leaders.

The chareidi world has indeed grown massively, but has retained its defining characteristic. As a glance overleaf at the voices from the gathering shows, at moments of crisis, graduates of its yeshivahs — whatever their external appearance — rally around the flag. Chareidi soldiers risked official sanction for arriving at the gathering in uniform.

If anything, the unprecedented moves against the chareidi world — which have culminated in the supposedly liberal, pro-democracy opposition parties now proposing to strip chareidim of the right to vote — have hardened attitudes among the million-strong community.

Amid this standoff, what is the off-ramp from a crisis that threatens to topple the Netanyahu government and likely condemn Israel to political instability?

Part of the solution lies in acknowledging the central message of Thursday’s gathering — that a draft of those committed to full-time Torah study is a genuine red line. Only when lawmakers cease the attempt to enforce the draft issue by fiat is any progress possible.

Contrary to what some believe, the chareidi leadership is well aware of sentiment among the wider Israeli public on the draft issue.

In that context, the statement by a leading rosh yeshivah, Rav Yehoshua Eichenstein, in the pages to come that a change is possible if the political and legal requirements are met, is a significant one.

The rally’s carefully worded closing statement — which didn’t mention the army at all — reaffirmed the gathering’s central purpose, which was to build that consensus around Torah study.

“Brothers!” the statement said, turning to Israel’s general public. “Throughout the ages our ancestors gave their lives for the holy Torah. Is it conceivable that precisely now that we’ve merited to be in the Holy Land, that those who study it should be attacked?!”

Reactions in some quarters of Israeli society show that the display of religious unity resonated. Post-rally, media star Yinon Magal’s Patriotim show — a bellwether of sentiment among the country’s traditional-religious public — made clear that there’s support for the idea that Torah scholars must be exempted from the draft.

The Ne’ilah rally in the gates of Yerushalayim was a historic occasion by any standards. The question now is whether it will open the door to a resolution of the great clash over the draft.

Waiting for the Music

By Devorah Perlman

Wednesday, 8:30 a.m.

As I step out of the house with my three-year-old in tow, heading to his playgroup, the ordinariness of the street is broken by a flurry of motion blending seamlessly into the bustling morning routine: A crew of workers is assembling a massive framework, hoisting up a huge loudspeaker. My son is transfixed.

“What’s that? What are they doing? Why?”

While we walk, I explain in three-year-old terminology: “Tomorrow there’s going to be a big gathering, an atzeres. Lots of people coming to daven together from allll over the country. They’re putting up these speakers so everyone can hear what tefillos to say. They have to be strong and high and built by a lot of people, so everyone can hear.”

We pass two more corners where more speakers are being set up, and by the time we reach the playgroup, he’s running to share these new concepts with his friends.

Wednesday, 12:30 p.m.

As the day unfolds, I’m darting from task to task, but everywhere I go, signs of tomorrow’s gathering pop up.

An email from the office pings into my inbox: Stay tuned for updates about tomorrow’s schedule. The city will be shut down from 12 to 7. Many employees may not be able to reach work.

Out on the streets, new posters are appearing by the hour. But the one that stops me in my tracks wouldn’t win an award for edgy slogans or sharp graphics. It’s just black text on white paper, similar to the numerous posters that dot Yerushalayim daily. I don’t have time to read the densely packed lines of text, but the emphasized phrases jump out at me, and the gist of the message is striking:

If hundreds of thousands of us are already gathering and davening together, let’s not forget to keep in mind our tefillos for the Geulah Sheleimah.

And that gives me pause, creates an internal shift. Because really, isn’t that what all of this is about? Every communal crisis, individual struggle, every collective ache — aren’t they all echoes of the same longing, the same absence of the Geulah Sheleimah?

Wednesday, 2:30 p.m.

I hurry past a balcony that overlooks the busiest intersection in Romema, not far from the city’s entrance, where thousands pass each day. This ordinary porch has

suddenly become a beehive of activity. Tomorrow, it will host two gedolim, the Gerrer Rebbe and Rav Meir Tzvi Bergman. The place is alive with motion as

askanim confer with logistics crews, mapping out the best setup and arranging the equipment and furnishings.

On the street below, onlookers gather to watch, trying to grab hold of that intangible anticipation that is building up. Nothing’s officially begun, but you can feel the thrumming in the air, the sense that this familiar corner has taken on a life of its own for this historic moment in time.

Wednesday, 4:30 p.m.

The children tumble in from school, each bearing a note. Tomorrow: Atzeres Day. Dismissal at 11:30, 11:45.

Two appointments scheduled for the next day get canceled. Everyone’s using the same language: “Tomorrow’s not really a day. We’ll have to reschedule for next week.”

Across the city, it seems, life is being put on hold. Tomorrow, the city will stop and focus on something else entirely.

Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.

My son calls from Bnei Brak, tells me that his yeshivah will be davening at five the next morning and then heading straight to Yerushalayim to learn first seder locally, before the traffic and closures begin.

He plans to come home tonight and meet up with them in the morning, asks if he can bring a few bochurim to sleep here. Of course. Isn’t that what Yerushalayim is all about? Later that night, the house fills with bochur energy as they pile in and figure out the morning schedule: davening, first seder, head toward the atzeres area to stake out spots before the rush begins.

Thursday, 8:30 a.m.

I bump into him on the way home from playgroup dropoff. My neighbor — the one you know in every neighborhood.

His family has a gemach for everything under the sun: medications, medical supplies, folding chairs, humidifiers, baby gear, and more. They run the weekly bread gemach, organize the pre-Pesach food distribution, and set up the Lag B’omer bonfire.

And there he is, already busy outside his house, setting up a table with giant plastic garbage cans fitted with spigots. He’s attaching them to a water line connected to his home, filling them with cold water. Stacks of cups are set up on the table for passersby to take a drink, and I wonder how many thousands of cups and gallons of water will be refilled through the day.

Across the street, outside the small neighborhood shul, where he’s also the gabbai, he’s set up a full coffee station: several steaming urns, cups, milk, sugar, rugelach, juice. Ready for the crowds, and he’s set up to be at their service all day to replenish his offerings.

And I think: This is just one corner. How many others are doing the same right now? Later I’ll hear about children handing out cookies and drinks along Malchei Yisrael Street, and others setting up impromptu kugel and cholent sales. Whether for chesed or a bit of business, everyone is thinking about what the crowds will need.

Thursday, 11:30 a.m.

Running to (early) playgroup pickup, I pass a father and two young sons sitting on my front steps. They’ve probably come from some far-off town, arriving early to avoid the traffic and closures.

The boys play quietly as their father learns from a pocket Gemara. All along the street, there are men learning together on stoops, benches, and bus stops, as more people keep streaming from the direction of the central bus and train stations. Excited children bounce as their fathers prepare them for what’s ahead, hurrying to their desired location.

At gan, thirty little boys bounce with excitement. “I want to go to the atzeres! I want to go!” they call out. Their mothers laugh. “The atzeres is coming to you,” they say to these children, most of whom are lucky enough to live along the atzeres route.

And it hits me: This whole event is about all of us, yes, but so much of it is about them. These small boys, their future. That’s what we’re davening for, whether they know it or not. It makes sense that they feel so invested in it, even if they aren’t quite sure what or why.

Thursday, 1 p.m.

It’s an hour and a half till showtime. The huge speakers have finally sprung to life, piping a soundtrack of Torah-themed music through the streets, wrapping the

mood across the city. Minchah minyanim are cropping up every minute, outside every shul in the area.

Without having the distance to travel to the event that’s coming to our doorstep, we use the time to run some Shabbos errands on the side of town where stores are open. The shopkeepers are ready, owners calling out cheerfully, “You can’t get this in Bnei Brak!”

There is a muted festive vibe in the air, as it would be whenever crowds come together against a musical backdrop; but the sense of purpose and intensity is palpable.

The same father and sons are still on our front steps when we get home, now eating individually wrapped containers of chicken and rice, lovingly packed by their mother, who probably woke before dawn to send them off. It seems like this father has paced his family well: arrive, find a spot to sit, learn, eat lunch, then head to find a niche to stand for the atzeres. He’s almost there now.

Thursday, 2:30 p.m.

The atzeres begins with Minchah.

Many had already davened earlier, in the countless small minyanim that sprang up outside every beis midrash, but there’s nothing like the Minchah of so many people together. The streets of Yerushalayim roar with Amen, yehei Shemei rabbah, wave after wave of sound rolling through the city.

The loudspeakers carry every brachah to the farthest corners. From my porch, I can hear the chazzan’s voice, strong and steady, the crowd’s response rising like thunder. And I remember the sign from the day before: Daven for the Geulah Sheleimah. The thought stays with me, spreading to every brachah of Shemoneh Esreh: Refa’einu, keep in mind the cholim of Klal Yisrael; Hashivah Shofteinu; Shema koleinu Hashem Elokeinu… Sim Shalom! We’re all here, together, trying to figure out what shalom really means, what unity feels like.

The atzeres flows seamlessly, starting with a series of Tehillim rotating between chassidish, litvish, and Sephardi pronunciations. Line by line, the timeless words ring out and hover in the air.

From my porch, looking down at the thousands packed below, I’m amazed at how the crowds are holding with the chazzanim. There is very little sideshow, most people are standing in one spot, focused on the tefillos without distraction, following through the loudspeakers and carried by the energy of this immense tefillah gathering echoing across Yerushalayim.

I wasn’t consuming any media, and was dismayed at some of the headlines I saw afterward, which did nothing to convey what was the actual experience for the vast majority of the participants. All I can tell you is what I saw, what I heard, what I felt: Davening. Pure davening. A medley of accents and traditions joining as one.

After Tehillim began a section drawn from Selichos, Ne’ilah, Avinu Malkeinu, 13 Middos, shofar blowing, and Kabbalas Ol Malchus Shamayim. It felt almost out of body — hadn’t we just said Ne’ilah a few weeks ago? And yet, maybe this was a second chance at a very unique Ne’ilah, perhaps a vision of what it could be in years to come? Every stream of Klal Yisrael together, voices blending, Sephardim and Ashkenazim, chassidim and Litvaks, and knitted kippah-wearers, too — one nation saying the same words, the same plea.

A collective high note was struck as the immense crowd began the Sephardi piyutim of Aneinu and Chatanu Avinu, printed in the atzeres pamphlets. Word for word, in that familiar tune we know from Elul at the Kosel and the pitzuchim stores, now chanted in unison by this exquisite spectrum of humanity joined at the heart.

Above the Fray

TO the tens of thousands clustered around them, the sight of a white-bearded rabbi in a knitted kippah flanked by a handful of talmidim at an overwhelmingly chareidi event might have caused momentary wonder. Or it might have been entirely missed. Standing in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Yitzchak Navon train station, the little group from Sderot was swallowed up in a sea of mispallelim.

Whatever those standing around the group did or didn’t think, the decision by Rabbi David Fendel — rosh yeshivah of Hesder Yeshivah Sderot — to attend last week’s historic gathering was a remarkable act of independent thinking that made waves in his own world.

“I saw it as a privilege to join the atzeres tefillah, because Hashem doesn’t reject the tefillas rabim,” he says. “And when an entire tzibbur speaks, you have to listen.”

Rabbi Fendel was far from the only Religious Zionist figure in attendance. Scattered throughout the vast crowd were students of leading rabbanim such as Rabbi Tzvi Tau of Yeshivat Har Hamor, who called on their talmidim to attend.

Their rationale is the knowledge that the draft issue is being used by Israel’s left as a wedge to prise apart the right wing-religious bloc that has governed the country for years under Binyamin Netanyahu.

“The military justice system is going after yeshivah students without offering real solutions — without understanding the community, and without seeking a proper framework within the IDF for those who aren’t in full-time learning,” Rabbi Fendel says.

“We know this is a deliberate left-wing attempt to bring down a right-wing government — an effort to to break the bridge between the chareidim and the Likud and the religious-Zionist public  — because that alliance is their nightmare.”

As rosh yeshivah of Israel’s largest Hesder yeshivah, with over 800 students, Rabbi Fendel is more conscious than most of the crushing burden borne by his talmidim whose families buckle under the strain of hundreds of days of reserve duty.

He would like to see that burden eased by drafting working chareidim in appropriate units, whose religious standards are anchored in law. That would require the army to forgo mixed-gender units and exposure to secular influence — moves that would elevate standards for all religious soldiers in the army, including his own Hesder students.

Yet Rabbi Fendel’s decision to attend a gathering connected to the chareidi struggle against the IDF draft law generated strong pushback among his own talmidim.

“Many talmidim were hurt. One who was injured in the Gaza war saw my support for the chareidi community as if I think it’s fine for second-class citizens to go to the army. I spent significant time explaining how much I respect both his Torah and his contribution.”

The decision to attend the tefillah gathering was the product of a consistent approach to the draft law controversy that has seen Rabbi Fendel make high-profile interventions since the beginning of the Gaza war.

“What the left is really trying to do is undermine the miracle of so many people dedicating their lives to Torah study. If a left-wing government comes to power,” he warns, “they’ll hurt the Hesder yeshivos, too. All the pure souls who’ve fallen from so many batei medrash — including our own — won’t impress anyone. And we shouldn’t expect the chareidi public to stand with us if we don’t stand with them.”

The ability to identify with the chareidi world even as he pursues a different course is a product, says the American-raised Rabbi Fendel, of years spent at institutions that had windows on both sides of the chareidi-National Religious worlds.

“I spent 15 years in Yeshivat Shaalvim, a place that’s considered part of the wider olam HaTorah, where we heard shiurim from Rav Dzimitrovski of Ponevezh,” he says. “I learned for a time in Mercaz Harav, and for a period in the Mir, so I’ve seen the whole spectrum.”

That background underpins his insistence that Israel’s wider religious public needs to stay together, and that it’s time to support the yeshivah world at a time of crisis.

“What we saw now was a protest against arrests that serve no purpose other than to hand the left an election victory and deepen divisions in society,” he says. “The entire chareidi community is being held hostage because of the political desires of people out of government. It’s clear that anyone genuinely interested in drafting chareidim would do the opposite of what the justice system and the left are doing.”

— Gedalia Guttentag

We All Bear the Burden

I wouldn’t exactly define myself as chareidi, and I’m not an avreich. But I feel that my sense of belonging comes from a very deep place that actually sharpened itself in light of the events that have happened recently. It’s true that in daily life I am a working man, and I don’t always see eye to eye with the central approach accepted in many parts of the chareidi public, but it doesn’t matter at all what our positions are on one issue or another. Even though the chareidi spectrum today contains a wide variety of streams and opinions, there is one thing that runs as a common thread among all who define themselves as affiliated with the chareidi mainstream — that Torah study is the supreme value. Period.

You can debate who will learn, how they will learn, how much they will learn, what they will learn, but at the end of the day, this reality in which Torah scholars and yeshivah students are arrested in the Jewish state when their only “crime” is studying Torah — that is something that cannot be accepted, no matter which chareidi stream you belong to.

In my personal opinion, this is something every Jew, whoever he is, should feel. Even a secular Jew must understand that it cannot be that in a country claiming to be the home of the Jewish nation, boys who study the holy Torah — which has been our source and foundation for over three thousand years, the Torah for which our ancestors gave their lives — should be arrested. It’s simply inconceivable.

The reality is that the Jewish state has declared war against the world of Torah. You can call it the courts, the judicial system, or the government itself — it doesn’t really matter. Practically speaking, the governing systems have declared war on the world of Torah. That is a fact. And the minimum required of anyone to whom Torah is dear to his heart, for whom Torah study is the highest value, is to go out into the streets and cry out in pain.

I define myself as a working-modern person, an open person — call it whatever you want. But it really doesn’t matter what my self-definition is in “normal” times, because today they touched the very core of all of us. The Torah is above everything, and we will not allow harm to come to those who learn Torah.

And I want to say something precisely as someone who is also integrated in the general society. The government and the High Court created here a reality that measures a person’s contribution by one indicator alone — whether what he did, he did in uniform or not. That’s it. According to their view, anyone who made coffee in the Kiryah (IDF headquarters) or worked as a sound technician for Army Radio is worth more than volunteers in ZAKA, United Hatzalah, and Yad Sarah. And all this in the name of that invented and sanctified concept of “equality in bearing the burden,” which has nothing to do with reality.

Of course, the security forces and the dear people who risk their lives in defense of the Jewish people and Eretz Yisrael  deserve endless appreciation, gratitude, and thanks, and it is clear to every reasonable person that we absolutely need them in order to live here by miracles. In my synagogue, too, every Shabbos we say a prayer for the well-being of the IDF soldiers.

However, this does not contradict the fact that there are countless other ways to contribute to a long list of public needs that require solutions. Why is there no recognition of the contribution of the chareidi public who volunteer day and night in countless civil organizations, saving hundreds of millions of shekels for the state treasury?

—Chaim Philip

Aftertake

The atzeres ended on a high, like a collective intake of breath. Even though the day’s events had revolved around so many conflicting issues, still, so many hundreds of thousands of us had come together as one. And then, from one moment to the next, came the announcement:

Because of the tragic fall, there will be no music. Everyone is requested to disperse calmly and safely along the designated route.

What?

Our emotional high deflated in an instant. Confusion mingled with the loftiness of the moment as the news hit me. I tried to make sense of this, but I’m just one person, and this was too huge for me to wrap my mind around. I tried to shift back to normal — kids, home, Shabbos prep — but the question kept echoing: What just happened? What does this mean? What are we supposed to understand, to think, how do we process this?

As the difficult news emerged, the reality shifted, but the confusion remained. For the rest of the evening, I struggled to find my footing. I felt wobbly, off-kilter, like the world had shifted off balance. And through it all, one thought surfaced: that sign, that reminder, Daven for the Geulah Sheleimah. Even now. Especially now. Maybe that was the point all along. Not the scale, not the sound, not the perfect orchestration, but the shared cry.

I heard some kids complaining about the canceled music, and I hear it from their perspective. They stood through hours of waiting, then hours of davening. Of course they wanted some music at the end.

But… maybe it’s not time for that euphoric ending yet. The world is still complicated. Still broken.

There was no closure, no clean descent from the spiritual high. Only the painful recognition that we still need help, the work isn’t done.

And so we continue, carrying fragments of that sound, that ache, that hope, until the next time we gather, and maybe, just maybe, the song won’t have to stop.

Keep the Focus

It’s very tempting, when you have hundreds of thousands gathered together, for someone to slip and make a political comment — but all I saw was Tehillim and tefillos, and that’s why I’m glad I brought my son along. To be honest, when I arrived and saw so many police officers, I was a little nervous — worried there might be a provocation — but I didn’t see any disorder at all. I liked the idea that the event was divided among chassidish, litvish, and Sephardi rabbanim, each leading their part. We need to understand that, even though we’re technically part of the governing coalition, the truth is, the other parties don’t really want us there. We have to work toward unity among all who believe in Torah and mitzvos, and stop falling into the traps of petty partisanship.

 Yosef Berg, cheder rebbi (together with eight-year-old Shlomo)

Where You Belong

If you’re like me, an American living in Yerushalayim for 15 years, sometimes you feel far away from the action. When you miss a family wedding or your parent’s landmark birthday weekend, when there’s never an option of joining family for Shabbos regardless of how much overwhelm you’re drowning in and your children only have vague memories of Seder night with their grandparents, you just feel so far away.

But then there are other times, whether it’s when Iranian missiles are flying in your direction and you feel a sense of calm and security in the knowledge that there’s nowhere to run, or your little boy says something reminiscent of the chochmah and purity of the yaldei Yerushalayim of old, and you know, with every fiber of your being, that this is where you belong, that this is where it begins and ends.

The atzeres tefillah last week was one of those days. Not because I was there, mind you. I spent the day taking care of my children, who were home early from school, without any of my regular Thursday help because no one could travel from other parts of Yerushalayim. But the stress of getting through the day faded into the background against the monumental sense of being part of something so much bigger than me.

The excitement built up in our home all week, as the details were gradually released. Wednesday night my 14-year-old son excitedly told me that three yeshivos from out of the city were going to be learning in his yeshivah the next morning.

Thursday morning, the air was charged. You saw crowds of bochurim in the street and you just felt it; something big was going to happen.

At 2:30 p.m., as hundreds of thousands began Minchah in the streets of Yerushalayim, my husband and son among them, I davened from my living room, and then said the Tehillim of the seder hatefillah that had been publicized earlier. Then I went back to mediating fights and entertaining the toddler, but all the while, there was this buzzing charge — something big was happening.

When my husband came home that night, he told me he stood in a crowd near the porch where the Gerrer Rebbe sat. I asked him how many people he thinks were there, and he says the crowd was so dense he couldn’t see more than ten people around him. He tried to find the words to describe how moving it had been to sing the haunting tune of Chatanu Lefanacha from the Sephardic Selichos.

It’s a few days later now, and I still feel optimistic, encouraged. Something good is going to happen. What, how it will play out, I have no idea. But after so many bnei Torah gathered together in unity to show Hashem how precious the Torah is to us, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’ve turned a corner.

—An American lucky to be raising a family in Yerushalayim

Is It Bridgeable? 

I’m a chassidish Yid, as you can see from my attire. Why am I here? Because the rabbanim of Eretz Yisrael said to show solidarity, that this is a war for Torah, so what’s the question? We came to declare, as one man with one heart, that we are loyal to the way of Torah, to the way of Hashem, and we will not surrender to the State of Israel and the arm of the government that wants — intentionally or not — to secularize the chareidi public.

Frankly, I see here two polar ideologies clashing with one another, and I don’t know if it’s possible to bridge the gaps. So then, you can ask, what’s the benefit of this rally? Well, what benefit is there for a Jew to get up every morning and declare acceptance of the yoke of Heaven? The very act of declaring faith publicly before the entire nation is something of utmost importance — even without any material benefit that we can see with human eyes.

People ask me if I think we can strive for tailored solutions in the IDF for those who don’t learn Torah full-time. I’m no politician, just a regular guy among hundreds of thousands here, but my personal opinion is that there is room to consider that, if there really are frameworks that give the ability to preserve the way of life of chareidi boys. But these are questions that gedolei Torah must decide, because it’s literally a matter of life and death.

—David Treitel

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1085)