Author Archives: Rabbi

The Missing Piece

Posted on March 18, 2024 | 1 comment

(First published today at Israelnationalnews.com)

The National Guard is patrolling New York City subways to keep the people safe and even that is not working. There are homeless encampments in every major city, cities which are already being overrun by the millions of illegal migrants that are crossing America’s porous borders. The United States is $34.5 trillion in debt. And Chuck Schumer thinks that Israel’s government needs to be changed.

Schumer’s obscene outburst – which he has since tried to partially retract – was revolting both in style and substance. Yes, who is he? This gross interference in Israel’s domestic affairs exposes the hypocrisy of the Democrats who whined (falsely) about Putin’s alleged interference in America’s elections; yet, they have no hesitation at all interfering in Israel internal affairs – again. Both Clinton (1999) and Obama (2015) sent staff and money to try to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu. Now Schumer is doing Biden’s bidding in this vile display of contempt and condescension towards Israel, our electorate, and our government.

Schumer has always fancied himself Israel’s shomer, a play on his name, but he has more consistently been, throughout his career, a schemer, a partisan Democrat hack. Schumer, who has the distinction of achieving the highest elected office of any American Jew now has the dishonor of being the highest elected American Jewish official ever to betray Israel. Let us not forget that it was Chuck Schumer who in 2015 pushed through Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran that will (barring some intervention) enable them to produce nuclear weapons and provided them up front with billions of dollars in cash that was and is being used to murder Jews. Having ensured there were enough votes not to override the dirty deal in the Senate, the oleaginous Schumer voted against it (to save face in the Jewish community, which bought it).

Besides calling for elections in Israel and the defeat and removal of Netanyahu, whom he deemed “an obstacle to peace,” Schumer emitted this gem: “The world has changed, radically, since [October 7], and the Israeli people are being stifled right now by a governing vision that is stuck in the past.” By this he meant that the path to “peace” lies through indulging the two-state delusion. Well…talk about being stuck in the past.

The “two-state delusion” is not October 6 thinking. It is November 1947 thinking. It is an archaic, discredited, wholly deranged idea that rewards terror and will only encourage the enemy to plot more, to attack more, and to bomb more because there is literally no downside to it. The Knesset made this quite clear just a few weeks ago. An unprecedented 99 MK’s voted against an imposed “Palestinian state,” and close to 80% of Israelis oppose it as well. It’s not Netanyahu or Smotrich or Ben Gvir – it’s us, it’s the people, it’s common sense, it’s elementary morality.

Sure, “the world has changed radically” since October 7. Evil is ascendant across the globe. Rather than fight and destroy it, Schumer, Biden, Blinken and many in the Democratic Party want to appease it in the finest tradition of Neville Chamberlain. But Israel is not South Vietnam, Afghanistan, or Taiwan, all abandoned by the US in one way or another. They can either aid Israel in this struggle or not. But if US military aid is only granted not with strings but with chains, Israel does have the capability and the obligation to protect our interests.

Israel cannot prevail with this type of US support, the kind that demands – as Antony Blinken unctuously intoned, words then read verbatim by his water-carrier Schumer – that Israel’s “priority number one” must be the protection of Gaza’s civilians. No, no, no. That is depraved, preposterous, and defeatist. The fate of Gazan civilians should not be in the top ten of Israel’s concerns – or as much as the fate of enemy civilians was America’s concern in Germany, Japan, or Vietnam. In truth, but for Israel’s excessive concern about enemy civilians, we would have fewer dead soldiers and the war would be over by now. The stated war objectives are destroying Hamas’ terror capability, liberating our hostages, and ensuring that Gaza is never again a center of terror. Gazan civilians – the ones whose homes all had tunnels and were used as weapons depots – are not our problem. Months ago, they should have been resettled elsewhere – perhaps in the US, which annually admits millions of people who have identical problematic pasts.

Despite Blinken’s blathering, our concern should prioritize our civilians – those who were murdered, those who were kidnapped, and those who remain homeless because of the predations of our enemies. Blinken never mentions displaced Jews – only displaced Gazans. His priorities are skewed and should never be ours. We must never intentionally target civilians – and we never do – but that is wholly different than prioritizing their safety at the cost of victory.

What are we missing? Why is Schumer, like a lapdog with a bone, suddenly obsessed with a Palestinian state? What do the Democrats – and the Israeli left – not understand? Why do even genuine supporters continue to speak of coexistence as if, with just a little more goodwill, it is right over the horizon?

There is a missing piece to this puzzle.

In a private conversation some thirty years ago as the Oslo debacle unfolded, I spoke with a former State Department official, a former ambassador, and someone gung-ho about the prospects for peace in the Middle East (always just a few more Israeli concessions away). I asked him one simple question: “what if this is all a ruse? What if the real objective of the Arab countries is to destroy Israel, and all the peace process does is incrementally weaken Israel until it is ripe for conquest?”

His answer was telling and frightening. He said: “We do not factor in that possibility at all. If we did, we could never have a peace process.” It emerges that the likeliest explanation for all the terror, the missiles, the invasions, the wars, the bombings, the stabbings, the ramming, and the incitement – that many Arabs reject Israel’s very existence and always will – is never a consideration in the halls of diplomacy. It is this missing piece, this willful blindness, that shapes international diplomacy and now has produced the wailing for the “two-state delusion.” Would it not endanger Israel’s existence? No, say the grand poohbahs of diplomacy, because they have categorically ruled out that Israel’s existence is in danger and that our enemies want us dead.

Think of how we could change the world as we know it if we just ignored inconvenient facts. Why, human beings could fly… if we ignore the effects of gravity. And perhaps with enough international goading, and the magical words uttered by the right people that produce the ostentatious signing ceremony, Israel can be convinced that it can really fly, far and high.

Two months ago, my wife sat on a plane next to an American Israeli woman from a leftist kibbutz in the south who was also returning to Israel. Asked if she supports the “two state delusion,” the woman demurred. Everyone else on her kibbutz did before the Hamas massacre, but she did not. Why not? She explained that she studied just a few years earlier for a graduate degree in London, and there befriended some classmates who were from Gaza. Talking about politics, she questioned them about the two-state delusion, and, as she described it, they laughed at her. “We don’t want two states. We will not rest until we destroy Israel. You have no right to live on any part of that land – our land. And we don’t care how long it takes.”

So many of Israel’s devoted defenders have publicly repudiated the accusation that Gaza was “occupied,” and that the “occupation” was the cause of the invasion, because, indeed, Israel (foolishly) abandoned Gaza in 2005. All true – but it misses the point.

To our enemies, Gaza is occupied, as are Ashkelon, Beer Sheva, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Yerushalayim, Tzfat, and Kiryat Shemonah. That is the sum and substance of the “river to the sea” chant. Why do we ignore what they are saying? Why do we act horrified when we point out “that means no Israel!” Duh – that is exactly what they mean. Why do we pretend otherwise? We do so because we are loathe to consider the implications, but that does make it any less true.

Freed from the illusion that peace will ever be possible with enemies who will never stop and never give up, our entire statecraft should change. Our strategies, our public presentation, and our narrative cannot be the same. We would not just be managing the conflict. Our settlement policies would be efficient and coherent, not protracted and reactions to terror. We would not worry about antagonizing our enemy because they cannot already be more antagonized.

We no longer have the luxury to fantasize that our enemies do not mean what they say. We must somehow get it through our skulls that too many Arabs – in Gaza, Judea, Samaria, Lebanon, Syria, and even among Israeli Arabs, not to mention the Iranians – want to smother us and strangle our reborn state. And there is not much we can do to change that. We can through strength, vigilance, and fierce determination convince them that in the short term, their dream is dead. They will not defeat us and we should prove that by re-claiming Gaza and dispossessing them. But we should not allow continued residence in the land of Israel to those who harbor these genocidal fantasies. No one should live here – from the river to the sea – who does not want to dwell in the Jewish state of Israel.

To be sure, the Abraham Accords demonstrated that there are Arabs and Muslims throughout the region who respect our existence and sovereignty. There have always been such voices in the Arab world, although many have been muted, silenced, and killed over the last century. Time will tell if this friendship is based on love of Mordechai (the Jew) or hatred of Haman (the Persian). But if we refuse to acknowledge this basic truth – that those who are our enemies will never be reconciled to our existence – that nothing will change, even if Hamas is destroyed in Gaza.

If we ignore this reality, painful as it is, we will wake up the day after to still more rockets, bombs, stabbings, and shootings. We will be lamenting how hard it is to be a Jew in Israel rather than lamenting how hard we make it on ourselves to be a Jew in Israel because we choose to ignore reality. Perhaps it will take new leaders untainted by conceptions, fantasies, and illusions, and willing to tell the truth to our citizenry, to recognize what has been obvious for most of the last century. There is a reason Arabs have rejected the two-state delusion consistently from 1937-2024. They do not want us here and they will never abandon that dream. The fact that we do not mind having some of them here – we welcome co-existence if they recognize our rights and our sovereignty – does not alter the reality that many of them do not want us here. And they prove that almost daily through acts of terror and violence, through the propaganda and incitement they feed their children in school and their worshippers in the mosques, and through their explicit statements.

But this is why Schumer can say what he says, and Biden and Blinken can carry on as they do, and Israel’s left can continue to foster the illusion that if only they were in power, we would be the darlings of the Middle East, eating hummus in Damascus because they would know how to make peace with our enemies who feel religiously compelled to destroy us. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the Oslo crowd is resuscitating itself before our eyes hoping we have short memories.

Perhaps it is time that our leaders spoke frankly to us, to the Americans, and to the world, about our intentions in the land of Israel. We are fools if we again relinquish Gaza having conquered it for the third time, fools if we indulge the diplomatic delusions of Americans and Europeans, fools if we worry about enemy civilians more than we do our own, and fools if we pay no attention to what our enemies say and mean.

Perhaps we would benefit if we, a “wise and understanding people” as the Torah describes us, started acting like it, with pride and confidence in our national mission.

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Biden’s Zionism

Posted on March 13, 2024 | 1 comment

(First published yesterday at Israelnationalnews.com)

President Joe Biden laid down the gauntlet and I accept. In his State of the Union address (what Sen. Marco Rubio indelicately called a “proof of life speech”), he declared: “I say this as a lifelong supporter of Israel, my entire career. No one has a stronger record with Israel than I do. I challenge any of you here. I’m the only American president to visit Israel in wartime.”

I accept the challenge. Indeed, Biden was the first president to visit Israel in wartime, a brief visit in which he expressed support, said some positive things, and promised to aid Israel’s war effort. The flow of weapons has been critical to the success of the war. It is also true that Biden’s repeated references to being “the only American president to visit Israel in wartime” bears some similarity to his visit to the United States’ porous southern border: he visited the southern border so that he could say he visited the southern border, and he visited Israel in wartime so that he could say he visited Israel in wartime.

It is also true that his interactions with Israel since the first week of the war have been schizophrenic. He helps with his right hand and harms with his left. He praises and castigates. He smiles and he scowls. He provides weapons to Israel and demands that we feed and fuel our enemy, something that is unprecedented in wartime. He may have helped to thwart a Hezbollah attack from the north back in October – but they attack every day now. He supports our war effort – as long as we don’t win. He has financially penalized Israeli citizens without charge or trial. He backed our war against Hamas – but then has attempted to place so many restrictions on our conduct of the war that he has prolonged it and impaired our effort to liberate our hostages. (It is odd that he noted the presence of hostage families at the address but then did not mention their names or introduce them to the audience, the traditional custom in that venue.)

He “demands” an end to civilian casualties in Gaza and massive provision of aid to the enemy population – and then kills five of them by clunking them in the head with airdropped American aid. And then he says we “must” find a different way to defeat our enemy who invaded, murdered, raped, marauded, and seized our citizens as hostages. But he does not suggest another way – so he evidently prefers stalemate and the survival of Hamas.

Is Biden the reason for the delayed invasion of Rafiach? Note that because of Biden, Israel telegraphs every move to the enemy. They knew exactly when we would enter Gaza City and Khan Yunis. They knew when we would search Al Shifa Hospital and when we would uncover the Hamas headquarters underneath. It should be no surprise then that wherever our soldiers go they do not find hostages and the Hamas leadership. What are the odds that there are still hostages or Sinwar in Rafiach? Slim, and that is no way to win a war. For that we can blame Biden – and blame our leaders for going along with it.

Biden is at least consistent. He distinguishes between Hamas and the people of Gaza, even though those same people voted for Hamas and cheered – and some even joined – the massacre on October 7. Similarly, Biden now distinguishes between the Netanyahu government and the people of Israel – the same people that elected the Netanyahu government to power and overwhelmingly support the war objectives of the government. Perhaps he doesn’t understand how democracy works or accept its results unless they accord with his own preferences. But elections have consequences, as do invasions.

Biden’s failure to realize that, as well as his gross and unacceptable interference in Israel’s domestic affairs, undermines whatever good will he gained by his visit. He may not like the electoral choices of the Israeli people but it is the essence of hypocrisy even for a politician to try to manipulate Israel’s elections and then complain (falsely, as it turned out) that Vladimir Putin interfered in America’s elections. Is sauce for the goose not also sauce for the gander? Alas, we break no new ground here by using “hypocrisy” and “politician” in the same sentence.

Are his contentions accurate? Has he been a “lifelong supporter” of Israel? Is there no one in the Senate or in the US government, past or present, who does not have a “stronger record”? Can Biden’s challenge be met? Of course.

Biden’s support for Israel paralleled that of traditional Democrats when he began serving in the Senate in 1973. Back when support for Israel was overwhelmingly bipartisan (unlike today), Biden showed his support mainly by voting for the annual foreign aid budget for Israel and a host of other countries. That was normal, nothing exceptional. Back then, Democrats always voted to give money away – some to Israel and other countries but mostly to their own favored projects (it is true today, as well). It is the simplest thing to do; it is not their money, it is the people’s money, and yet the politicians including Biden reap the reward of directing other people’s money to the favored causes.

Is it true that “no one has a stronger record with Israel” than Biden? Hardly. I lived in New York for more than two decades while Biden first served in the Senate. My Senators were Jacob Javits, Daniel Patrick Moynahan, and Al D’Amato. All three were far more supportive of Israel than was Joe Biden. They never tried to dictate policy to Israel and they never threatened Israel as did Joe Biden.

In one well known Biden outburst in 1982, he hectored then Prime Minister Menachem Begin about Jewish settlements in, of all places, Judea, and threatened to halt all aid to Israel unless Begin froze construction. Begin famously responded: “Don’t threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.” And when Biden lost his temper and banged on the table, Begin added: “This desk is designed for writing, not for fists. Don’t threaten us with slashing aid. Do you think that because the US lends us money it is entitled to impose on us what we must do? We are grateful for the assistance we have received, but we are not to be threatened. I am a proud Jew. Three thousand years of culture are behind me, and you will not frighten me with threats.”

We could use a few more such “proud Jews” in our government today. Biden is currently trying to destabilize the Netanyahu government and force new elections. He wants now to come to Israel and address the Knesset to try to browbeat Israel into accepting the two-state illusion and the delusional diplomatic gambit that partitioning the land of Israel again and giving it to our enemies will save us, not destroy us. Proud Jews should inform him that, no, thank you, such a visit is unnecessary now and will not be necessary in the future until proper respect is shown to our elected government and all of its ministers.

Biden in his State of the Union speech then proclaimed: “I challenge any of you here” to show a “stronger record” on Israel. That would have been a good time for some heckling because every present Republican member of the Senate (except maybe for Rand Paul) is far more supportive of Israel than Joe Biden ever was – Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham, Jim Risch, Marco Rubio, Tom Cotton, even the underdressed Democratic Senator John Fetterman, and a host of others. This was just another empty Biden boast that is deflated on faint reflection.

What is it then? How can the same person harbor such inconsistencies – friendship and hostility, generous and menacing words? How can Biden proclaim – as he does repeatedly to Jewish audiences in his stock speeches – that he is a Zionist?

The answer is that Biden is a certain type of Zionist. He is the type who believes that Jewish history began in 1948, maybe 1933, but not before 1897. To Biden, Israel’s sole purpose is as “refuge from a Holocaust.” Such a refuge need not be strong, should not be aggressive, should always be accommodating to its enemies, and should certainly not settle the entirety of the land of Israel.

Biden is not a “Zionist” who has any knowledge of or interest in Jewish destiny, in the grand return to Israel after millennia of exile as foretold in the Bible, or in the great mission of the Jewish people. That is why he is so solicitous of our enemies, stipulating that we feed and fuel them, release their murderers from our jails, and consistently construes our land as their land.

What exacerbates his myopia and makes it especially grating is an ignorance of American history. He touts his Scranton roots, oblivious to the fact that Scranton was built on the land of the Lenape Indians who were killed or driven off. He then moved to Delaware, which was also Lenape territory. Biden grew up on occupied lands and still lives there, proudly, unabashedly – and yet lectures us about Judea and Samaria, the biblical heartland of Israel.

He also doesn’t seem to realize that Americans marching west to fulfill their “manifest destiny” was entirely based on the concept that “might makes right,” and nothing more elegant than that. But Israel is the only nation on earth that has a real “manifest destiny,” recorded again and again in the Bible that Joe Biden purports to covet, that connects us to this land – G-d’s land – like no other nation is connected to any other land on earth (see Keepgodsland.com). Moreover, again to quote Menachem Begin, our residence in the land of Israel is based on “right makes might.” The “right” came first and with the blessings of Divine Providence our generation was rewarded with the might to conquer the land and retain all those areas that we have not foolishly surrendered to our enemies.

Joe Biden is a “refuge” Zionist – not a “destiny” Zionist or a Biblical Zionist. That is why he can endorse whatever little Israel needs to do to retain the “refuge” but nothing more than that. But the age of those Zionists is long gone and can only hinder our destiny going forward. Thus, he sees no inconsistency in demanding a cease fire, in halting our march to victory, or in courting the radical Arab vote in America. It should be alarming to American Jews that Biden’s recent turn against Israel is motivated, many say, by a desire not to lose the “Arab vote” in the fall election. Apparently, he does not fear losing the Jewish vote! Will American Jews see the writing on the wall? It is there, in neon lights.

We should realize that for all his support – and it has been needed and welcome – Biden is ultimately contemptuous towards Israel’s government and, by extension, the people that voted for that government. He is a “lifelong supporter” of a certain type of Israel – docile, concessionary, secular, and deferential to American interests, however flawed, misguided, or fanciful those interests are.

In the Rabbinic axiom, “kabdehu v’chashdehu,” we should respect him and suspect him. He has done some good things and some terrible things – but his geo-strategic vision is so limited that it endangers our future. In his own mind, he has a strong record of support for Israel, and he will not be convinced otherwise. We should keep him at arm’s length.

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Haredim and the Living Torah

Posted on March 7, 2024 | 7 comments

(First published yesterday at Israelnationalnews.com)

The endless debate over Haredi conscription into the IDF contains several especially vexing aspects. Neither side’s arguments are entirely convincing or easily discounted, even though each side thinks its contentions are dispositive and should end the discussion. There is merit on both sides, which should not preclude a decision. Politicians across the board are not necessarily seeking a resolution to this matter as their benefit accrues from stoking the flames and appealing to their respective bases. They enjoy the issue as a political football and the Haredim as convenient bogeymen, even as Haredim enjoy their status as defenders of the faith. Perhaps most intractable is that the two sides generally talk past each other as each possesses world views that are not only irreconcilable but also lack a common language.

Indeed, there are three world views that are represented in the debate: those who value army service but not Torah study, those who only value Torah study and not army service, and those who value both as proper expressions of being a complete Jew in the Jewish state. The discussions often have a ping- pong quality to them, contentions bouncing off each other but never fully countered. Each side assumes the righteousness and rectitude of its positions. There are Israelis who constantly complain about “kefiyah datit,” religious coercion, oblivious to the fact that their counterparts might perceive mandatory army service as “kefiyah chilonit,” secular coercion. In a perfect world, in my view, every Jew would spend time as a soldier and every soldier would spend time learning in a yeshiva – the former to teach us how to fight, the latter to teach us what we are fighting for.

What the Haredim tend to minimize in their commitment to full time Torah study is not just that such has almost never existed in Jewish life, at any time. Nor is it just blatant disregard of the Gemara’s declaration (Yevamot 109b) that “he who says he has only Torah does not even have Torah.” Learning Torah that is then not practiced – mitzvot, acts of kindness, concern for the welfare of others – is a most constricted and usually corrupted form of Torah. It is not a living Torah. But it is more than that self-imposed limitation. While secular Israelis trumpet the imperative of “shivyon banetel,” equality of burden that each citizen should embrace, religious Zionists have taken to advocating for “shivyon bizechut,” the equality of merit. Rav Shlomo Aviner has often noted that at least four mitzvot are fulfilled via military service – protection of Jewish life, settlement of the land of Israel, sanctification of G-d’s name, and not standing idly by while your brother’s life is endangered.

Rather than perceive IDF service as a burden it is far more edifying to perceive it as meritorious, a religious obligation that the State of Israel (and, I suppose, our bloodthirsty enemies who seek our destruction) has enabled us to fulfill for the first time in millennia. But what are the major arguments on both sides – and how can we find a harmonious way forward?

The major argument of the pro-draft contingent is quite simple and drawn from the Torah. When the tribes of Reuven and Gad wished to remain in Transjordan, presumably eluding the battle for the conquest of Israel, Moshe rebuked them: “Shall your brothers go to war, and you shall sit here?” (Bamidbar 32:6). Chastened, the tribal leaders responded that of course they would join the battle. Notice, though, how they did not tell Moshe that they would be learning Torah full time and thus should be exempt! Moshe would not have warmed to that idea – as he himself went to battle, as did Avraham, as did King David, as have many great Roshei Yeshivah and Torah scholars today.

I have yet to hear a cogent response to Moshe’s challenge, perhaps because if Moshe himself raised it, there is no cogent response. How can an entire group of people sit back and watch others fight, sacrifice, die – and not be ashamed? This is self-centeredness wrapped in the mantle of Torah. And if they do not fight, for whatever reason, how could they not want at least to do national service – even to teach Torah in places where such is lacking? When I learned in yeshiva in Israel almost fifty years ago, many of us joined the “civilian guard.” We were given rifles, rudimentary training, and went on anti-terror patrols once a week from 11:00 PM to 6:00 AM. Why did we join, American students all? We were expected to show up for minyan and seder the next morning, and our contribution to Israel’s security was probably slightly more than negligible. So, why? Because how could we not! How can one live in a society and not give back, not contribute to the common weal, not inconvenience oneself for the greater good?

In this context, the Gemara (Menachot 99a-b) states that “sometimes the dereliction of Torah is its foundation,” citing Moshe’s shattering of the tablets of law that G-d entrusted to him. But Rashi notes that the person who ceases his Torah study to perform acts of kindness is fulfilling the Torah on a broader level, and even “receives reward as if he is sitting and bolstering the Torah.” Nothing we did can compare to army service but what we did enhanced our Torah learning and did not detract from it.

If this is so obvious, then why isn’t it so … obvious? It is because the Haredi claims have merit as well and should not be cavalierly dismissed. They should, however, be analyzed and contextualized.

Haredim originally argued that a cadre of Torah scholars was necessary to replenish the Torah world after the Holocaust, but that is no longer essentially true. Torah scholarship has flourished here and it is one of the unique blessings of the State of Israel. Today, the arguments run that Talmud Torah is the “equivalent” of all other mitzvot (Peah 1:1); that Torah study “protects and saves” from misfortune and danger (Sotah 21a); that even Gentiles exempt clergy from military service; that Haredim are not the only ones in Israel who shirk military service – plenty of secular youth seek and receive “psychological” exemptions on dubious grounds; and that the controversy is usually contrived for ignoble political purposes, including now. All these arguments are true.

Added to that is the intentional exclusion of a larger group of Israeli citizens from military or national service – Israeli Arabs. What seems self-understood should actually give us pause. After all, India, founded in 1947 (one year before Israel’s independence) is a majority Hindu country with a 20% Muslim minority population, whose primary adversary is Muslim Pakistan – and yet, Indian Muslims are drafted into the military and fight against their co-religionists if necessary. That we assume Israeli Arabs are not sufficiently loyal to fight in our military carries implications that should be addressed, seriously, and soon. But it is puzzling why the greatest detractors of the yeshivah student’s exemption from military service seem untroubled by the exemption of Israeli Arabs from any type of service. They too benefit enormously from living in Israel.

The Haredi claims are not implausible but they deserve a response for the honor of Torah. Certainly, Talmud Torah is the equivalent of all the mitzvot but we do not therefore exempt the Torah scholar for the performance of all other mitzvot. “Keneged kulam” can also mean that Torah study reflects on all other mitzvot; the more we learn, the better our performance is apt to be. To dismiss the practical contributions to security of an army and to attribute our protection to the Torah alone is to confuse the proximate cause with the ultimate cause. The Torah mandates – and Ramban codified this as one of the 613 commandments – that we fight, conquer, and settle the land of Israel. We do not passively wait for assistance from Above, just like we seek out physicians for our medical problems, and just like we do not wait for manna to fall from heaven to feed us but work to sustain ourselves and our families. The Torah protects but it will not protect the person who sits down in the middle of a highway to learn. We must do our share. This is normative – this is the living Torah. It is true that the Torah protects; but such a belief is also unfalsifiable, and thus demands that we live in the physical and political reality of life.

This idea is corroborated by the experience of King David and Yoav, his Chief of Staff. The Gemara (Sanhedrin 49a) states that “were it not for David [and his Torah study], Yoav could not have been successful in battle, and were it not for Yoav [and his military prowess], David would not have been able to learn Torah.” But this is discussing an older King David, not the King David who frequently went to battle and saw no contradiction between the scholar and the soldier, whose life was the exemplar of the full Torah personality and is the model for the Messiah. Ideally, the two objectives are complementary and not mutually exclusive, and can be contained in the same person.

What must be uprooted is the mutual condescension that adheres to this issue, each side thinking it is superior to the other (because of the greatness of Torah study on the one hand and the necessity of military service on the other hand), and each side thinking the other is inferior (either because of the devaluing of Torah or the perceived selfishness in not serving). Yet, with all the value of prayer and Torah study, who is on a higher level – the one who donates a kidney or the one who prays that a sick patient should receive a kidney, the one who gives money to the poor or the one who learns Torah in the merit of the poor? The living Torah is a practical, not a mystical, plan for life.

What remains particularly inexplicable is the reluctance in much of the Haredi world to recite the prayer for the IDF, a disinclination for which I have never received a satisfactory explanation. That lacks in many things – ingratitude, for one – but also in an inability to share in the struggles of others. Those who have started saying it during the war are treated as if some cosmic breakthrough has been achieved rather than just behaving in a way that is normal. It is not helpful when certain Roshei Yeshivah speak contemptuously of the IDF, as if an army is unnecessary, as if any kind of support is “glorifying” the soldiers. This is poor theology and poor midot.

What compounds the problem even more is the new normal that Israeli society has adopted in the last year – that those who protest raucously and even violently, blocking roads and highways, acquire some measure of social and legal immunity, as if strident demonstrations convey automatic legitimacy to the cause that is the subject of the protests. Well, at least that was true for anti-government demonstrations; I wonder if it will be true for Haredi demonstrations. I think not.

With the abundance of valid contentions on all sides, what is the bottom line? It is the unspoken and primary reason for the Haredi reluctance to serve: the notion that they do not feel fully part of this polity and that the average Haredi could not survive spiritually outside the bubble in which they live. That is a sad admission, a failure of education and parenting, and tantamount to proclaiming that the Torah cannot be applied in the modern world. That is both false and embarrassing. Sure, the number of religious Zionists who go off the derech in the IDF is not insignificant and there is the persistent sense going back to the beginning of the State that the left’s interest in Haredi enlistment is less for the necessity of conscription and more for the necessity of assimilation.

Nevertheless, there are plenty of genuine bnai Torah who learn Torah, observe the mitzvot, serve with distinction, and are positive role models for those with whom they serve. Too many have been killed in combat in the last five months, still carrying their sefarim with them. Their Torah was also precious and their loss to our nation is grievous. The idea that we cannot remain pious Jews unless we live in an insulated community that guards us against interactions even with other Jews is preposterous and an indictment of the Torah. And even that fear can be assuaged by the establishment of separate Haredi units, such as already exist with Netzach Yehudah.

Weighing all considerations, on balance Haredim should serve because it is right that they serve! Sevara hu, lama li kra? It is so rational that a verse is unnecessary. How could they not? “Shall your brothers go to war, and you shall sit here?” Failure to serve is the repudiation of a living Torah. We are no longer evading the Czar’s draft. Obviously, coercion will not succeed – no one benefits from having reluctant, disinclined, and unenthusiastic warriors. Jailing offenders also will not work; one can learn Torah in prison as well. What must happen is that the Haredi rabbinic leadership, whoever they are and regardless of their stature vis-à-vis their predecessors, must speak of the State of Israel, the people of Israel and the army of Israel as values, worthy of being embraced by all. IDF service should not have to be concealed from their public and is not an indication of second-rate spiritual status. On the contrary, it is a sign of a first-rate spiritual and Torah sensibility.

We cannot expect goodwill from all sides; too many have a vested interest in prolonging this dispute. But there is a problem if Yoav Galant can declare that the Torah protected us “in the exile,” as if the Torah doesn’t protect us here. There is a problem if Haredim and others, for sundry reasons, have been unable to convey the immense value of Torah to the general society – of Torah study, mitzvot, the prophetic vision of our return to Israel, the providential nature of the modern State of Israel, and the redemptive process underway before our eyes. If we roughly categorize our society by three groups – “secular,” “religious nationalist,” and “Haredi,” each group has its virtues and challenges, each group has what to contribute to society, and each group has what it can learn from the others. And each group has shared obligations to preserve and nourish the spiritual and national destiny of the Jewish people.

As Haredim multiply in number, kain yirbu, it is natural and proper that their national lives will take on a greater focus and their societal contributions increase commensurately. We are not in the position to hire Hessians or even the Wagner Group to defend us. We must all share the merit of building and sustaining our national home. That is the objective of the living Torah.

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The Ramadan Ruse

Posted on February 28, 2024 | 1 comment

(First published today at Israelnationalnews.com)

Is there anything more preposterous than abruptly halting Israel’s war against Hamas in order to allow Muslims to observe Ramadan? Well, rewarding our invaders with an independent state so as to facilitate another massacre leaps to mind as equally absurd, but still. The assumption is that our enemies will use Ramadan as intended, as a month of fasting, charity, prayer, contrition, and reflection. For sure, many pious Muslims do, but it is equally true that Ramadan has frequently been celebrated with an upsurge in violence.

Those with long memories will remember that Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur 1973 – during the month of Ramadan. In many circles, it is still called the “Ramadan War.” Somehow the prayer, contrition, and reflection did not inhibit that sneak attack that ultimately claimed about 2700 Jewish lives. Neither did the fasting; as I recall from the period, apparently Muslim soldiers are exempt from fasting during Ramadan because, presumably, they are engaged in the religious duty of killing the infidels.

Those with short term memories – which excludes many individuals in the Biden White House and State Department – can easily ascertain that our enemies have long used Ramadan in order to murder Jews. In 2016, Hamas gleefully labeled the murderous attack on the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv the “Ramadan Operation” and celebrated the “First Attack of Ramadan.” Other terrorist attacks on Jews soon followed, making that Ramadan a particularly bloody month in Israel. It is not even limited to Jews. In 2016 and 2017, ISIS twice bombed a popular street in Baghdad during Ramadan, killing hundreds of Muslims. During that same 2016 Ramadan, a radical Muslim attacked the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, murdering 49 people. These are not isolated examples. Arabs have historically fought vicious wars against each other during Ramadan.

Several years ago, the Institute for National Security Studies titled a report: “With Ramadan Approaching, the Fear of Escalation,” referring to increased terrorist attacks in Israel before and during Ramadan. Even our current Defense Minister pays too much deference to Ramadan. Thus, for years, we have been routinely warned to be extra cautious during Ramadan because Muslim emotions are very sensitive during that month, they are even more prone to violence, and that nothing should be done to provoke them.

Obviously, to a Jew, such sentiments sound bizarre, because they are bizarre. I do not recall ever becoming so agitated on Rosh Hashana or the Aseret Y’mei Teshuvah or Yom Kippur that I felt the urge to run out and attack innocent Gentiles, or even guilty ones. Nor have I ever heard of that passion afflicting any Jew. For that matter, it is inconceivable to any Jew – or any normal, moral, right-thinking person – to yell “G-d is great” as a prelude to murdering, raping, marauding, beheading, exploding, stabbing, shooting innocent people, for whatever reason. Perhaps good Muslims should use this Ramadan for soul searching and how best to uproot this savage evil from their midst. The problem is that in the parts of the world where this soul searching would be most needed, many Muslims live in fear, petrified that these radicals will turn on them, as has happened across the globe.

Nevertheless, in George W. Bush’s felicitous phrase, it is “the soft bigotry of low expectations” that so-called security experts, politicians, diplomats, and statesmen nod their heads and say, “well, of course, tensions always run high during Ramadan, and as such Jews should keep a low profile, because Muslim violence must be anticipated.” Such a sentiment insults the majority of the world’s Muslims, as well as our intelligence. It is the very definition of surrendering to bullies rather than confronting them and vanquishing them.

As such, it is hard to take seriously Biden’s demands for a “Ramadan” cease fire. It is tantamount to acquiescing to Hamas’ survival and what for it would be a victory in this conflict. Hamas would be getting away with murder. No person who genuinely wants to see the destruction of Hamas and the eradication of the evil that it represents could be pressing today for a cease fire. It is important to note that nothing inherently connects a hostage deal and a cease fire. Israel could agree – foolishly and dangerously, as many believe – to exchange innocent Jewish hostages for murderous, bloodthirsty convicted Arab terrorists, but such need not be accompanied by a cease fire that lasts any longer than the few hours it takes to make the exchange.

The pressure has only one goal, and it is not to allow all to celebrate Ramadan in peace. It is to deprive Israel of victory and preserve Hamas. That is the opposite of common sense, decency, morality, and stability.

Some will plead that the poor Gazan civilians deserve to observe Ramadan in dignity. One problem is that many Gazan civilians are indistinguishable from members of Hamas because quite often they are members of Hamas. Most Hamas terrorists do not wear uniforms (in gross violation of the much-heralded international law that is designed to only inhibit us) and thus look like civilians. When they are smoked out of their tunnels, caves, and ratholes and killed, they die in their civilian garb, allowing our enemy to claim they are civilians. It is certainly a clever scam that has worked on Biden and others but, more egregiously, on our government, which repeatedly fails to underscore the parity of Hamas terrorists and many of the civilians on whom is constantly bestowed what is called humanitarian aid. It is a mistake for which we are paying a terrible price and must be rectified immediately. The innocent Gazan civilians are not all so innocent. Our hearts need not bleed for them. Their newfound opposition to Hamas has evolved not because they are suddenly horrified by Hamas’ massacre of Jews but because they are horrified by the consequences to them of Hamas’ massacre of Jews.

The Ramadan cease fire request is just another ploy to thwart our war aims, restore the status quo ante, and again leave us vulnerable. A good deal of Muslim soul searching and an abrupt change of behavior and values will be necessary before such proposals are taken seriously.

Indeed, we should show as much concern for Ramadan as our enemies showed for our Simchat Torah this year or, for that matter, our Yom Kippur of 1973. It is a ruse and it should be treated, and dismissed, as such.

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