There is a story told about the great Mirrer rosh yeshiva, Rav Chaim Shmulevitz, zt”l. During the Six-Day War a bombshell landed near the yeshiva, just missing it. No one was injured. Rav Shmulevitz decided to make a seudas hoda’ah, a festive meal thanking God for this nes nistar (hidden miracle) that spared his students any injury.
During the course of the seudah, Rav Chaim spoke of two armies in Klal Yisrael: the physical army represented by the Israel Defense Forces and the spiritual army represented by the bnei Torah who learn with tremendous dedication. He told all the b’nei Torah at the seudah that both armies deserved hakaras hatov and that both were needed to protect the Jewish People.
This is the mark of a true gadol. He recognized the truth. He understood the important and vital contribution of a physical army just as he did the importance of a spiritual one. And he did not single out only the religious soldiers. He spoke of the entire army – each and every soldier.
Nevertheless, Rav Shmulevitz’s comments caused some controversy at the time as some of the attendees from other yeshivas could not countenance any positive reference to any institution of the secular state. Unfortunately, theirs seems to be the prevailing attitude today in our increasingly polarized Torah world. This is a very disheartening situation for me. I do not understand this kind of stridency, especially during a war for the very survival of the Jewish nation and its people.
On Friday, August 4, I saw a segment of NBC’s “Today” show that nearly brought me to tears. Michael Oren is a writer (Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East) who is a secular American oleh. He moved to Israel right after the Six-Day War. He was a paratrooper with the IDF in 1982 during the first Lebanon campaign. He is now in the reserves, is married, and has three children. Two of them are currently serving in the IDF. His youngest son, 16, is thinking about his own service in two years. His oldest son is in one of the combat units in Lebanon.
Mr. Oren and his wife were asked why they continued to stay in Israel during the fighting rather than move back to the U.S. Mrs. Oren responded that she could not conceive of herself and her family living anywhere other than in a Jewish state.
Yes, she worried about the safety of her children and of her husband, who had just been called up for duty. But she was dedicated to her people and would have it no other way. Her husband agreed – even with the obvious dangers facing him and two of his children serving in an army at war. In fact, he had written an article for The New Republic explaining why he thought Israel should mount a more serious, albeit more dangerous, ground campaign in Lebanon.
To see someone willing, at age 50, to once again participate in a war – and to advocate a dangerous mission in which his oldest son would face great and immediate danger to life and limb – is to see someone with a lot more courage than I have. As I wrote above, it just about brought me to tears to hear a secular Jew willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country and his people.
Contrast that with a statement by the Edah Hacharedis, the Jerusalem-based haredi rabbinical and kashrus organization. In a recent article in the Jerusalem Post, a spokesman for that organization said they would never say prayers for the IDF, even during wartime. He said that doing so would be tantamount to recognizing the Jewish state. Instead, he said they were praying for all of Israel.
To reject tefilos for the physical army whose members are putting themselves in harm’s way – some of them fated to pay the ultimate price and others to sustain life-altering injuries – is the height of insensitivity. It is wrong and it is a chillul Hashem, at least in my eyes.
Rav Moshe Sternbuch, identified in the Jerusalem Post article as the head of the Edah Hacharedis, advocated keeping yeshivas open during bein hazmanim (the summer vacation period) during the war. Rav Sternbuch understands the importance of the spiritual army and he wanted his “soldiers” to be doing their part.