Q&A: A Bride from Her Wedding Canopy
A Bride from Her Wedding Canopy
Question
After all, in an obligatory war even a bride from her wedding canopy is supposed to be drafted. How does that fit with the Religious Zionist approach when women are exempted?
Answer
These strange questions are part of the price paid for equally strange arguments against the Haredim based on source citations, concepts like an obligatory war, and so on.
One should enlist not because there is this or that Mishnah, but because we are in a situation of danger to life. In such a situation nobody is exempt, neither someone who studies nor someone who does not. Still, a society manages its manpower burden and the division of its tasks as it sees fit and according to its constraints. When women are needed too, then of course they will draft even a bride from her wedding canopy. We still are not in that situation, although thanks to the Haredim we have come very close to it.
Discussion on Answer
I understand from you that you do not demand this. From your perspective, the Torah remains a spade to dig with, to defend your way of life without taking practical responsibility to uphold it.
But in any case, from a universal standpoint war is a male matter, and women have generally refrained from taking part in it unless there was an immediate necessity. Even the IDF, despite all the feminist voices, is hesitant to put women into the actual combat arena itself (and this is without taking anything away from the heroism of the women fighters in the Simchat Torah pogrom).
Then you understand incorrectly. I am far from being Haredi and never was one; I am not even Religious Zionist. Just a Zionist. I really cannot demand anything of anyone anyway. Is my blood redder than his? We are dealing with matters of life and death, and it is a great responsibility to decide. And still, a broad-based army is an obligation, except that it is complicated, and that is what I was raising: whom will you rely on to decide who should and who should not?
And anyway, in an obligatory war everyone, absolutely everyone, is supposed to enlist, right? Even the older men and women! So really one should sort through all the citizens of the State of Israel, and maybe also strongly encourage all Jews of the Diaspora to immigrate to the Land of Israel. And from among all of them choose those who are most suitable!
I do not understand these insistences. I explained very clearly that if there were a need, they would draft women too. We are not there yet. That is all. Even in an obligatory war, not everyone goes out indiscriminately, but according to the needs. Resorting to sources is misleading, though not really; the sources themselves also do not say what you are claiming.
And I have written more than once that the practical difference is with regard to Diaspora Jewry. If this is danger to life, then those obligated to go out and fight are the inhabitants of the Land of Israel (not necessarily only Jews). If this is an obligatory war, the obligation rests on every Jew anywhere in the world.
Agreed. But those in Religious Zionism who demand that the Haredim enlist in the name of an obligatory war and saving Israel from the hand of the enemy are justified in demanding that the Haredim enlist, and that Haredi girls enlist too. But by the standard of practicing what you preach, they need to do that first.