Rabbi Pruzansky's Blog

(First published at Israelnationalnews.com)

We have learned that it is easy to put aside all the discord and strife in Israeli society; a ruthless enemy enables us to prioritize our common heritage, fate, and destiny. But we have also learned that it is not easy – not possible – to put aside Jewish history and our place in it. For those who fancied themselves in a post-Jewish history, post-Zionist world, the Simchat Torah massacre and the war with Hamas should have refocused their thinking and changed the way we all look at the world.

Certainly, all Jews anticipated that the establishment of the State of Israel relegated the horrific scenes of the massacre of Jewish men, women and children, the elderly, and the infants, to the bloody pages of our history. No longer would we have to behold the anguished spectacle of Jews murdered in cold blood, women raped by marauders, Jews carried off by inhuman abductors to an unknown fate in captivity, their homes destroyed, their possessions ransacked. It was all ancient history, even if “ancient” meant eighty years ago. A Jewish army and a Jewish government would protect us. But the laws of Jewish history have not been repealed, we have not yet arrived at its most glorious and concluding chapter, and so we were forced to witness images drawn directly from the tochachah, the rebuke and retribution of a straying people, that is recorded twice in the Torah.

That the government and security establishment presided over a colossal catastrophe is indisputable, and surely the day of reckoning will come. And we do have a military whose soldiers are courageous and dedicated, motivated now by a righteous zeal that is unmatched in our annals. Nonetheless, we are still ensnared in a pattern of weakness, to an extent an obsequiousness, to foreign powers, that I fear will stay our mighty hand.

It was only last week when Israeli government ministers spoke of a “zero assistance” policy, “not one drop, not one watt” to Gaza until all our hostages are released. That staunchness has already waned because of concern over the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and the so-called “rules of war.” Every Israeli should respond to the term “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” unequivocally: “there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. There are almost two hundred hostages being held in deprivation and agony in gross violation of the so-called ‘rules of war.’ So not one drop, not one watt, until all the hostages have been released. That is the only humanitarian crisis that concerns us at the moment.” That will take a steely will, of which our soldiers seem to possess more than do our politicians.

Besides, enough talk about the “innocent citizens of Gaza.” People with short or intentionally foggy memories do not seem to recall that the innocent citizens of Gaza elected Hamas to power in 2006. Hamas only began to rule when it violently expelled Mahmoud Abbas and the PA in 2007, as the PA was disinclined to accept the election results. But these innocent civilians voted into power Hamas, then as now a group of genocidal maniacs. Forgive me if my sympathies for them do not run deep. Indeed, has any group of Gazans – even a single Gazan resident – denounced the massacre and ravages, expressed shame that such monsters lived among them, even called them unrepresentative of and a disgrace to Islam? Not that I have heard. If anything, the vile images of the massacre have provoked glee, celebrations, and support, across Gaza, the PA, and much of the Muslim world. We have yet to hear the sobbing demands for soul-searching, so common among Jews. And the West has still, after all these decades, failed to internalize that martyrdom is a supreme religious value for these fanatics. They venerate their “love of death” (the words of Nasrallah himself) and see our love of life as pathetic weakness.

Sure, the children are innocent, but children always pay a price for the folly of their parents. As do citizens for the folly of the politicians and leaders. In our haste to dispatch Gazans to the southern portion of the Gaza Strip, aren’t we also allowing Hamas terrorists to go there and regroup? Aren’t we allowing the hostages to be dragged there as well? In resupplying the south of Gaza (which is just a few miles from the north, after all) aren’t we resupplying the enemy in the north as well?

And spare me as well the crocodile tears about the “rules of war.” Note that the Geneva Conventions were first adopted in 1864, updated several times, and supplemented in 1929 and 1949. The Hague Conventions are more than a century old. Not one Convention saved even one Jew during the Holocaust. Today, the international laws of war are abused in order to protect the wicked from the might of the righteous. Supporters of Hamas cynically use them to shield the evildoers from the consequences of their evil. They are employed as rhetorical weapons to constrain the power of good and decent people to eradicate evil. And they are wholly unrelated – even remotely – to the Torah’s morality of warfare.

There is no moral or logical reason whatsoever for one side in a deadly conflict to restrain its use of force to “acceptable” norms when the enemy has no restraints, no norms, and no inhibitions. It is a formula for suffering and defeat. Such asymmetrical warfare has been the bane of the West for decades. Israel has always paid the price for the ruminations of these armchair moralists who sit far from the carnage and are in no danger at all. It is intolerable that those who boast about their contempt for the “rules of war” should utilize them as a shield against the victims of their aggression. There should be no immunity for Hamas.

We should be grateful to President Joe Biden for his strong words of support and some of his helpful actions while still being mindful of the fact that his commitment to the two-state illusion, his desire to protect, preserve and strengthen the PA, and his reluctance to allow the destruction of Hamas will soon work to Israel’s detriment. He has said nice things and done nice things, but we forget at our peril that his kindnesses come accompanied by military shackles and diplomatic fantasies. He (or his advisors) will champion Israel’s destruction of Hamas, until pictures of dead civilians emerge. His impending visit will be a public show of support and a private display of pressure. (I hope I’m wrong.) He unequivocally supports Israel’s right of self-defense, but like much of the squishy left in Europe and America, he is less keen on Israel’s exercise of that right. Israel can try as it always does to avoid civilian casualties, but such are impossible when many of those civilians are not really civilians and even genuine civilians are used as human shields.

At this time, we need to recall some basic facts of our history. The first several commentaries of Rashi on Breisheet present the Torah’s narrative in a nutshell. We are taught of G-d’s creation of the world to remind us – us, not the nations – that G-d granted the land of Israel to the Jewish people. And the Torah starts with Breisheet, the first, the beginning, because both the Torah and the Jewish people are referred to as reisheet. In other words, G-d’s plan for His world was to establish the Jewish people, give them the Torah and the land of Israel, from which would emanate G-d’s moral law for mankind.

History teaches us that mankind has generally found that to be unacceptable and has hatefully and violently rejected it. There are those who reject G-d’s word, those who reject G-d’s messenger, and those who reject the sovereignty of the Jewish people in G-d’s land. Most of our enemies have rejected all three principles. This essential aspect of our story has never changed.

The great medieval commentator Rabbenu Bachye noted (Devarim 33:29) that one prerequisite for maintaining the land of Israel is the recognition that “no other nation (ummah) can reside there except for the Jewish nation.” It does not mean that individual Gentiles cannot reside in Israel; they can. But there cannot be another nation that claims sovereignty and rights. We have seen for the last century that such claims turn violent, weaken our grasp on the land, and are unending – this is the greatest challenge to Israel’s existence. Those claims will continue as long as we tolerate them and doubt, even partially, the justice of our cause. And that remains the real substance of the current strife – the denial of Israel’s right to exist.

      Anything we do to encourage the fantasy of Israel’s disappearance is self-destructive. Talk of Israel conquering Gaza only to turn it over to Mahmoud Abbas, the Holocaust-denying terrorist in a suit, and the PA, is not worth the life of one Jewish soldier. It is not only that he literally pays people to murder us. It is that we have seen this horror movie before. It began 30 years ago with the Oslo delusion – and we have just witnessed its macabre and bloody climax. As many have stated, it is insane to do the same thing repeatedly and expect different results.

       Yet, that is what the West will try to foist upon us. We can and must resist and, for once, seek to resolve a problem instead of kicking the can down the road. We have suffered a grievous blow – but the people of Israel are strong, resolute, united, and courageous. Indeed, “we have no other land,” we have no other Torah, and we have the One G-d of Israel.

     The spirit of Israel is inspiring and contagious. Let us strengthen our leaders and each other, eschew half-hearted, temporary measures that will only embolden the murderers who (temporarily) reside near us, resist the fools’ errand of convincing our enemies and their supporters to love us, and remind the world – both friend and foe – that Jewish blood is not cheap. We endured a mini-Holocaust of one day. Let us transform that into a catalyst for victory and redemption. There are chapters yet to be written in the great book of Israel – chapters on faith and kindness, on heroism and courage, on unity and strength. Together, let us write those chapters without fear or foreboding but with trust in G-d and the eternity of the Jewish people.

The headline alone should send chills down the spine of every sentient Jew: “Left wing protestors disrupt Yom Kippur services.” It is hard to fathom a more lowly, despicable, and shameful act, save for the fact that what would be denounced as Jew hatred if it happened anywhere else in the world, here in Israel finds no shortage of media defenders and secular apologists. Free people can debate which group is more disgraceful and more hateful. 

Yom Kippur, a divine gift that bestows upon all Jews forgiveness and is a day of national reconciliation, in Tel Aviv and elsewhere sadly turned into an orgy of Jewish Jew-hatred, but more accurately Jewish self-hatred of a scale heretofore unknown. Who could have imagined in their most dystopic nightmares that Jews would destroy mechitzot, prevent public prayer, shout crazed inanities at a chazan, and interfere with and insult worshippers, and carry on like hooligans on such a holy day? This is more than secularism; it is a hatred born of a contempt for Judaism, Torah and G-d. Can people do soul-searching if they do not believe in the existence of the soul?

When I heard about these sickening events, my first thoughts were: what parents raised these miscreants? What schools educated these boors? Both parents and educators should be embarrassed by these failures, just as the people of Israel were embarrassed before the entire world by this sorry display. This is the product of a particularly vile strain of anti-Jewish secular progressivism. It is painfully obvious that these thugs are not just devoid of Jewish values; they are devoid of any values. Their fabricated fear of hadatah (“forced” religion) has stripped them even of common decency. Would that they would allow even little of the Torah’s light to penetrate their hardened shells; at least they would have some values.

The secular progressives rationalize this thuggery by claiming that they are defending their latest cause – a fierce opposition to sex segregation in public places, even when the participants want it and no one else is inconvenienced by it. In essence, Jews who came to pray and wanted the mechitzah were driven out by people who did not come to pray but only to cause trouble. The public square, to their thinking, cannot accommodate religious Jewish worship (of course, they had no objection when Muslims in Yaffo put up partitions to accommodate Muslim prayer during the Eid just three months ago, and approved by the same municipality now horrified by prayer on Yom Kippur).  To call them “hypocrites” is almost a compliment so far removed are they from any semblance of morality, decency, and mutual respect. 

They claim to be defending democracy. But on January 2, 2020, the Daf Yomi Siyum at MetLife football stadium in New Jersey attracted over 90,000 people, and there was separate seating for men and women. American democracy somehow survived that great affront. How? It is known as tolerance, a lost virtue in modern life. 

Laughably, they further claim that they were just enforcing the law, itself the product of a distorted and tendentious system. But civilians have no right to enforce any law; that is the province of the authorities. It is literally taking the law into your own hands. In any event, these secular progressive hooligans’ commitment to law and order is quite selective; they do not mind violating the law and blocking highways, trains, and airports when it suits them. Perhaps other Israelis who find themselves inconvenienced when roads are blocked and the police are passive, well, perhaps we should learn from them about self-enforcement of the law.

We take for granted that they have no interest in Israel as a Jewish state and only sporadically pay lip service to that notion. To be sure, their “Jewish” state is purely ethnic and as such anachronistic and obsolete. They reject the Torah which provides our only true claim to this land. They thus cannot justify why “ethnic” Jews have any other cogent or legitimate claim to the land of Israel, which would explain why they otherwise spend much of their time trying to dismember the land of Israel and surrendering it to the enemy. But more pointedly, under the guise of “preserving democracy,” they are actively waging war against the idea of Israel as a democracy. It cannot be repeated enough that they are trampling on the core tenet of democracy: that the people have the right and authority to rule through majority vote as determined in free and fair elections. It seems indisputable that their support for democracy is conditioned on them being in the majority, which sounds like a hollow commitment to democratic principles.

They do not believe in Israel as a Jewish state. They do not believe in Israel as a democracy. They do not believe in the Torah. What do they believe in besides violence, brutality, mob rule, and anarchy?

Who would think that Jews could sink to such depths? Well, the Talmud (Pesachim 49b) realized this possibility long ago when it stated that “the hatred of an ignoramus (am haaretz) for a Torah scholar is greater than the hatred of a Gentile idolator for a Jew.” In our context, it means that the hatred of the Jew without Torah for those Jews who honor, respect, love, learn and observe the Torah exceeds the hatred of the worst of our persecutors towards us. (How sad that yesterday’s assaults on Jews at prayer recall the British and Arab destruction of the mechitzot at the Kotel almost a century ago.) Both hatreds are irrational, but the hatred of the wayward Jew is more intense as he or she is willfully rejecting something that is part of their birthright. They could have it but their fear of the Torah they do not know is profound. Ironically, two of the groups whose prayer services were disrupted yesterday – Rosh Yehudi and Tzohar – are among the most moderate, welcoming, and amicable religious movements in all of Israel. And they were attacked!

It would be wonderful if the rioters could reflect on how far they have fallen but, at this point, given their level of passion and irrationality they presently lack the capacity for self-reflection. 

Rav Avraham Yitzchak Kook wrote (Orot Hateshuvah, Chapter 13) that a Jew cannot cleave to the yesod hale’umi, the national foundation of Israel, except by purifying his soul through repentance. What is our national foundation?

Rav Yaakov Filber commented that the “national foundation” of other nations is not based on ethics or a religious lifestyle. It is understandable then why the nations of the world would support a separation of religion and state in their own countries. The national bond is primarily historical and geographic; their national identity is unrelated to any moral aspirations. But the “national foundation” of Israel is conditioned upon the fulfillment of the Torah, and anyone who severs his connection to the faith of Israel sooner or later will be completely cut off from any national values. Such a person will be prone to intermarriage, and even the Jewish homeland itself will be expendable. And now we see that such people will lack even a fundamental respect for Torah and the right of a Jew to worship as he or she sees fit. Inevitably those who are distant from Torah must hate the people who learn it and observe it and that is what we are seeing today, whatever pretext they concoct to rationalize their misconduct.

And with all that, these errant people are our brothers and sisters. We are bidden to love them and bring them closer to Torah. We cannot fight them as they fight us. We are constrained by the Torah and even by a functioning moral compass. What we can do – what we must do – is show resilience and courage moving forward. The most appropriate response is for the government to pass all the proposed judicial reforms as quickly as possible, including the Knesset override bill (require a vote of 67 Knesset members for any Supreme Court usurpation of Knesset legislation to be invalidated). A government that cannot do that – and cannot keep the public highways clear of demonstrators or protect Jews at prayer on Yom Kippur – has forfeited its right to lead. Nothing cries out more the need for judicial reform than the Yom Kippur disgrace that was sanctioned by the legal establishment. Opponents will scream for a week and then life will go on and we can then rebuild Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.

That is the short term. In the long term, it is vital for Israel’s future that the secular school system restore some meaningful Jewish content to its curriculum. A system that has reared people with such an intense hatred for Torah, mitzvot and religious Jews is an abject failure.

The Talmudic sages taught (Succah 27b) that “all of Israel is worthy of sitting in one Succah together.” We are all part of the same nation and the same faith, in which everyone has a share. We can all sit in one Succah – except, of course, if the secular progressive haters demolish it. We can only pray that we have hit rock bottom and can henceforth only grow in Torah, mitzvot and love of Israel. May the light of Torah permeate every Jewish heart! Chag Sameach!

“Esther Hayut has made her decision; now let her enforce it!”  This potential reaction should give pause to Israel’s Supreme Court as it poises to (again) overrule the Knesset, Israel’s legislature, and invalidate the “reasonableness clause,” the first and mildest prong of the judicial overhaul that the government has promised to execute.

This quotation is a paraphrase of what Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, allegedly declared in response to a decision of the US Supreme Court with which he vehemently disagreed, nearly provoking a constitutional crisis in a democracy that was less than fifty years old. In the 1832 case of Worcester v. Georgia, Chief Justice John Marshall (in a 6-1 decision) ruled that the Cherokee Indian tribe was a sovereign nation which meant that the laws of the State of Georgia did not apply there. This contradicted President Jackson’s policy of limiting Indian territorial expansion and applying state law to these areas.

Marshall defied Jackson, who held that federal law in any event superseded state law, and this retort was attributed to Jackson: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” It meant that Jackson was not inclined to enforce a ruling of the Supreme Court that he felt exceeded the Court’s authority. Whether or not Jackson actually said it is immaterial, as indeed he took no measures to enforce the ruling, nor did the State of Georgia abide by the ruling, and Jackson proceeded with his policy of Indian removal. It is even more interesting, and relevant to our current situation in Israel, that Chief Justice Marshall opposed Jackson’s candidacy for president in 1828 and deemed him unfit for office. But Jackson was elected anyway, the people’s choice, and his visage still adorns the $20 bill.

As Marshall died in 1835, the case had no practical, lingering consequences but it is instructive on how democratic societies deal with branches of government that overstep their authority. A stable, functioning democracy relies on checks and balances between the branches. While there are ample checks on Israel’s legislative and executive branches – the primary ones being the collapse of the coalition and new elections – there is absolutely no check on the Supreme Court. It is unbounded by any limitation on its authority and any propriety on the scope of its jurisdiction over the policies, decisions, and legislation of the government, as well as over the lives of Israel’s citizens. It is unelected, essentially self-appointed, and has unilaterally, illegally, and undemocratically set itself up as the ultimate authority in society.

In a democracy, the people rule, and in a representative democracy, the people rule through their elected representatives and the government formed by those representatives. It is seemingly lost on the demonstrators – energized by their signs, slogans, and costumes – that a democracy that can only endure by relying on an undemocratic institution is not a true democracy. Indeed, it is not just a feeble or flawed democracy but one which does not really exist, and more akin to the plethora of “People’s Republics” or “Democratic Republics” that proliferated under Communism. There, the people voted, but absolute power was vested in an undemocratic entity – the dictator, also known as “the people’s choice.” In Israel, where absolute power is vested in another undemocratic entity known as “the Supreme Court,” the differences are marginal. Here, too, the people don’t really rule.

If only the protesters thought beyond their slogans – “Titnagdu,” “Oppose!!” – and realized the implications of their protests. They are fighting against democracy under the guise of trying to preserve democracy.

The Court’s invalidation of the “reasonableness clause” would signal that it will not tolerate any limitation on its power and, as such, would render futile and meaningless any further judicial reforms. That is probably the point of this entire endeavor, which features the judicial farce of a chief justice whose tenure expires next month and is therefore rushing this matter to decision in order to spearhead that decision. Added to the farce is the reality that Chief Justice Hayut has already announced her opinion in the case, which in a normal judicial setting should lead to her disqualification or recusal. No judge should ever sit on a case in which he or she has already made up his/her mind before hearing any arguments in the matter. No civil society and no democracy committed to the rule of law should accept such a mockery of justice. That it is considered normal in Israeli jurisprudence itself cries out for reform.

Given the peculiar circumstances, and the rush to judgment, it would be unsurprising if the Court voided the “reasonableness clause,” and, in a real show of judicial tyranny (call it a judicial coup), declared that the Prime Minister is unfit for office as morally incapacitated and legally compromised. Such leads me to conclude that the latter will not happen, in a risible show of sham objectivity, while embracing the former and putting the brakes on any judicial reform, ever. And then what? Who will say, “Esther Hayut has made her decision; now let her enforce it!” 

We tend to bandy about the word “crisis” pretty freely, and few things unrelated to security matters are genuine crises. But this would be a crisis. A Court that invalidates a Basic Law, having itself declared that Basic Laws are the structure of a constitution and thus beyond the Court’s authority, would be a Court that is out-of-control and running roughshod over the people and its government.

It is discouraging that there are politicians and other officials who have openly stated that if the Court exceeds its authority and is challenged by the government, they will support the Court and not the government. But Israel’s Supreme Court – like the Supreme Court in every country in the world, democracy or autocracy – is not sovereign. The people are sovereign, and the people’s will is reflected in the government, not the Court.

As the powerful never relinquish their power without a fight, expect the Supreme Court to fight, aided by an opposition and a media establishment that despises the current government. The test of democracy is not measured by heeding an illegal Court decision but by the extent to which the government represents the people and enacts the laws under which we all live. That also means establishing appropriate checks on the Court’s power through changing the nomination procedures, limiting the Court’s jurisdiction to legal matters – cases and controversies that reflect conflicts of laws – and reining in the unlimited powers of the government’s legal advisors, who have usurped so much power that they see themselves as still another and also unelected branch of government.

Nothing points out the dire need for judicial reform more than the stark reality that the government’s “legal advisor” refuses to represent the government in these matters but is her own authority, the “legal advisor’s opposition to the commission that intends to investigate illegal spying on Israeli citizens, as well as the High Court’s continued preclusion of the government’s intention to expel the thousands of illegal migrants who are now also rioting in the streets. Something is way out of whack.

A real democracy affirms the sovereignty of the people, whose representatives are answerable to the people and can be voted out of office, as well as the independence of the judiciary that limits government encroachment on the people’s defined and legislated rights. That would be normal. What we need is both a Court that humbly accepts its limits and an Andrew Jackson who can forcefully remind the Court of its limitations. Count those among the blessings of the New Year for which we should pray.

(This is the fourth year that I am answering questions in the Jewish Press forum entitled “Is It Proper?” All the rabbinic responses and more can be read at Jewishpress.com)

Is Torah-true Judaism inherently aligned with conservative politics, liberal politics, a combination, or neither — or is this the wrong way to think about the Torah? 

Of course the Torah is a conservative treatise!

Nonetheless, it is unequivocally wrong to evaluate the Torah along political lines. The Torah is the Dvar Hashem, the word of G-d, and thus the Torah is trivialized if we try to squeeze it into a man-made ideological construct. The Torah was not intended to strengthen conservatism or weaken liberalism, or vice versa, but rather to make us better, more moral and rational people who respond promptly and enthusiastically to G-d’s commands and propagate His ethical norms across the world.

Having said that, a cogent analysis of the question requires us to adopt some definitive framework of conservatism and liberalism. As the definitions and emphases differ, the conclusion may shift as well. But let’s take one common expression of the differences between conservatism and liberalism.

Conservatives believe in personal responsibility, limited government involvement in society, free markets, low taxes, the right to bear arms, accountability for one’s misdeeds, and traditional marriage and morality, and cherish loyalty, respect for authority, stability, and sanctity.

Liberals believe in big government that provides citizens with every conceivable need or desire, controls and regulates the economy to achieve desired social outcomes regardless of talent, effort, or fairness, individual liberty that allows even for the shattering of moral norms, high taxes to feed the government behemoth, rejection of traditional morality in favor of personal autonomy, strict gun control so that – ideally – government has a monopoly on force, and vitiating personal responsibility and excusing bad behavior by attributing it not to the criminal but to the society and community. Liberals generally reject biblical morality (at best, it is a private matter; at worst, morality is completely subjective) and perceive reason as the primary source of good conduct. Liberals inherently distrust authority and cherish openness to new experiences, diversity and change.

The Torah prizes personal responsibility (I wrote two volumes on “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility”), free markets tempered only by limitations on unfair competition and an individual’s obligation to assist the downtrodden, and obviously an objective morality that is based on G-d’s word. There are liberal elements to the Torah but it is overwhelmingly the source of conservative ideas and values.

Is it appropriate to discuss politics at the Shabbos table?

“Our speech on Shabbat should not be the same as our speech during the weekdays” (Shabbat 113b), both in terms of content and tone. To insert the tawdriness of politics onto the holiness of the Shabbat table is self-defeating and a waste of time. That includes such matters as the unseemly conduct of most politicians, their shenanigans and vanities, their deceitfulness and corruption.

Nevertheless, from a technical perspective, politics is generally defined as a set of activities associated with making decisions or distributing resources in a group, society, or nation. That is politics, which then essentially is the implementation in public affairs of the policy preferences of a particular group. Those policy preferences usually reflect the values of the decision maker or allocator of resources, which brings us to a most worthy and appropriate topic for a Shabbat table.

What are the values that society and its laws should reflect? What values are imparted by the weekly sedrah that should inform our society’s decisions? What values (and thus policies) should we seek in our elected leaders? What is the Torah’s view of the ideal society, how do we get there, and who can get us there? How does the Torah prefer we allocate society’s resources? These are edifying questions for discussions at the Shabbat table and far superior to mundane chitchat – and perhaps even Divrei Torah that children bring home from yeshiva and read (often, with less than complete comprehension).

Additionally, time should always be devoted to how a Torah society in Israel can be constructed. Throughout the two millennia of exile, Jews were often sought-after advisors to Gentile kings and rulers. That perspicacity has not always been on display in our self-governance in Israel. What is the politics of Torah? That, too, is a commendable topic for Shabbat discussion.

Should a parent encourage a child who wants to join the U.S. Army?

Throughout the exile, Jews have always served in the military of our host country (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes coerced). In its ideal expression, service in the US military repays the United States for the hospitality and graciousness it has shown to the Jewish people, particularly in allowing massive Jewish immigration at the turn of the 20th century. This provided Jews with a haven when Europe became even more threatening and inhospitable. We must always appreciate the malchut shel chesed (the kingdom of kindness) that welcomed millions of Jews in a way that other nations did not while ensuring our freedoms and rights. Contributing to its security conveys our gratitude in an honorable way.

Certainly, there will be hardships for Jews in the American military – Shabbat, Kashrut, etc. – so the recruit will need tremendous spiritual fortitude to withstand those challenges.

But young Jews who wish to become soldiers are better advised to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. Notwithstanding America’s kindnesses, why fight to prolong the exile when you can fight to defend Jewish sovereignty in our divinely ordained homeland? Indeed, the IDF soldier fulfills three mitzvot that cannot be fulfilled by the soldier in any other army: the settlement (Yishuv) of Eretz Yisrael, preserving Jewish life (Pikuach Nefesh), and Kiddush Hashem, the sanctification of G-d’s name implicit in the Jewish people exercising sovereignty over our homeland. And mitzvah observance in the IDF is much easier.

The fulfillment of those mitzvot transforms our lives. It is common today for young American Jews to enlist in the IDF, especially after their year or two learning in Israel. Parents should encourage interested children to join the Israel army if they are inclined to join a military. Nevertheless, we appreciate their service in any military that is a force for good in the world.

Is it proper to send your kids to sleepaway camp if they receive tuition assistance?

This is a loaded question that routinely comes up in tuition assistance application forms. The simple answer is that chinuch must be the number one priority of every Jewish parent. It is true that there was a time when parents did not buy homes or take vacations because their earnings were first spent on their children’s yeshivah education. That has changed, which led one of my members who was active in local schools to tell me more than once that “we don’t have a tuition crisis; we have a priorities crisis.”

There is something wrong, even immoral, with parents who rely on scholarship assistance (read: other people’s money), and yet go on vacation during yeshivah break (because they too need to relax) or have the grandparents take them to an expensive hotel for Pesach (because it’s the grandparents’ money and they have a right to spend it as they please.) They do, but still…

From this perspective, sleepaway camp for children who receive tuition assistance is an extravagance, and justly raises the ire of other parents and the scholarship committees.

Nonetheless, that is the simple answer, and reality does not always accord with the simple. There are cogent arguments to be made for sleepaway camp even in such circumstances: camp is also educational, it is important socially, and what else are working parents supposed to do with their children during the summer? They need to be supervised in a productive setting.

It is a real conundrum. Is it proper? It is a bad look, to be sure, but sometimes it is necessary. As such, it must be resolved on an individual case by case basis, with the predominant obligation always that parents are primarily responsible for their children’s tuition. That is their priority in parenting.

And, one offer, as Elul has begun. You might enjoy, and even find inspirational, my book “Repentance for Life,” available from Kodeshpress.com, at Amazon, and at fine stores. Chodesh Tov!