Roshei yeshivah from across the spectrum came together as one, even if with divided hearts

PHOTO: FLASH90 IMAGES

1

It was a spectacle the likes of which had not been seen since the days of the Knessiah Gedolah of Agudas Yisrael, before the split in 1989. Litvaks, Sephardim, and chassidim — roshei yeshivah from across the spectrum — came together as one, even if with divided hearts.

The location was unusual in every way: the plaza outside the military prison at Beit Lid, in the hottest week of the year, during bein hazmanim — a time when the roshei yeshivah usually devote attention to their families and rest from the burdens of the zeman.

But these are not normal days, and in this bein hazmanim, the mashgichim’s mussar shmuessen about the feeling of “dread” that must take hold even before Elul hardly need reinforcement. After all, yeshivah students, without exception, received draft orders toward the end of the zeman, and thousands are already classified as deserters. Anxiety has become an existential fact.

Dozens of roshei yeshivah, under the leadership of the great rabbanim, who came to the rally outside the detention center in the oppressive heat, found themselves in an unfamiliar situation.

“The turnout was impressive,” one rosh yeshivah told me, “but anyone looking for reasons for the sorry state we’ve reached could have found them also in the chaos that reigned there.”

Some of the veteran litvish roshei yeshivah recalled the Agudas Yisrael gatherings before the founding of Degel HaTorah. The moment the Gerrer Rebbe arrived in the hall, all other participants became spectators in a play. In the prison plaza, there was a sense of history repeating itself — this time as tragedy — when the Gerrer Rebbe’s son arrived and sat at the dais. “The Gerrer chassidim were the only ones who came organized, sitting at the central table with empty seats on all sides.”

After Peleg Yerushalmi, which shouted warnings from the rooftops, Gur is the first faction among the chareidi groupings to realize that all its premonitions have come true, one by one. Netanyahu failed to deliver, after the chareidim paid in cash and passed the state budget for him. Too many months have passed, and by now everyone understands that Bibi’s postdated checks will never be cashed.

2

Will we eventually reach a scenario in which yeshivah students — and not only those from Peleg Yerushalmi — launch a wave of protests blocking roads and disrupting traffic? I posed the question to several roshei yeshivah and was answered with a story.

Eleven years ago, when the draft legislation was again at an impasse, a group of roshei yeshivah came to Rav Aharon Leib Steinman and presented him with the points they wished to raise at a rabbinical conference.

“When we mentioned protest as an option, Rav Steinman shook his head in refusal and said: ‘It is not good for the boys’ education. We must not speak of it.’ Only after a long discussion, when we brought sources from Chazal about the obligation to protest the denigration of Torah study, did the Rav refrain from rejecting the idea outright, but he requested that it not be the focus.”

I remarked that Peleg Yerushalmi claims justice is on their side; they speak of the loss of deterrent power after years of compliance.

“You are speaking to us as educators,” one rosh yeshivah replied, “and we see things from a very different perspective. We live among our people, and the roshei yeshivah know one another. Every time a yeshivah student goes out to the street — and certainly to a chaotic event like blocking roads — he is taken away from learning, and it harms his soul. Rav Shach always said ‘ohn alimus’ [without violence] — not only because of how it would be perceived in the street, but because of what it would do to the soul of the student. That is why it was easier for us to go out and demonstrate ourselves, rather than send our students to do it.”

I asked if the rosh yeshivah if there is disappointment with the political representatives who brought us to this point.

“We are not politicians and do not hand out grades,” came the evasive reply, “but clearly, we have reached a situation from which, realistically speaking, there is no way out. Students have asked me what will be, and I told them that we are in the situation of Bnei Yisrael at the Yam Suf. I see no natural escape from the predicament we are in.

“Netanyahu is trying to show us that he is making an effort. In my view, he really does want to pass a law, because it will preserve his rule — but he is not the address, certainly not the sole and central address. After all, it does not depend on him, because even if a law passes — and it is hard to see that happening — the chances that the High Court will refrain from striking it down are almost nil. I do not know what the politicians will do, but I know what we must do in the yeshivos this coming Elul — strengthen ourselves, and disconnect from this tumult.”

3

The image of the detainee in shorts and a tracksuit, caught at Ben-Gurion Airport, moments before takeoff, was also an affront in the eyes of the roshei yeshivah.

“We should have split the draft issue into two, without tying them together,” they said. “Regarding one who sits and studies Torah — there is nothing to talk about at all. For us, this is absolutely impossible, like the prohibition of drafting girls in the days of the Brisker Rav and the Chazon Ish.

“As for those who are not immersed in study, that is where we should have focused our concern — on what the military frameworks would do to anyone who enters the army as a chareidi. Mixing the two issues together harmed us. We should not have spoken of them in the same breath, nor managed joint discussions on them.”

This position, it should be noted, also found support in the in-depth surveys Netanyahu conducted among the right-wing base. Over 80 percent of Likud voters supported passing a draft law that would distinguish between true Torah learners and those who use the pretense of learning Torah to evade service.

“And now this is our problem. In the past, we said it was the army’s business to draft those who do not learn. But today, because of this reality, public legitimacy has been established to treat all yeshivah students as criminals under the law. This does not mean that we should ignore the needs of those who do not learn, or fail to care for their spiritual wellbeing, but the fact that the two issues have been intertwined concerns us as well — and it stems, to a large degree, from our own conduct.”

Is it still possible to correct matters? I asked Rav Shlomo Zalman Grossman, rav of Elad, who served as an aide to Rav Shach in the 1990s and was sent by him to manage negotiations with the authorities.

“I agree with the roshei yeshivah and I see no way in the world to turn back the clock,” he replied with a pessimism born of hard realism. “In my opinion, the MKs have only one possible fallback: to legislate the regulation of sanctions to be imposed on all draft evaders — secular and chareidi, Arab and Jewish. For that, we must think outside the box and not leave the work only to the politicians, who proven themselves not to be very effective to this point. A conference of roshei yeshivah and chareidi strategists must be convened to try to devise a strategy — not just summon them to protest rallies outside the detention center.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1075)