Is it obligatory for the Haredi individual to enlist?
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about recruiting Haredim.
I agree that from a moral and halakhic perspective there is a duty to enlist, and I would like to ask whether it is possible to make a distinction between the general and the individual.
I have a 16-year-old eldest son who is educated in a very conservative yeshiva, and he received a summons.
For him, enlisting is completely absurd from a religious perspective, but also from a social and family perspective. He will lose everything he has today, and in the future (matchmaking…), if he enlists.
I assume that even a secular person who was forced to make such a sacrifice would not enlist.
Do you think that in his situation, he has a duty to enlist?
Do I, as a father, have an obligation to influence him to enlist?
In principle, there is room for considerations of profit and loss, although these losses stem from the desire to belong to such a distorted society, and therefore it is doubtful whether it is justified. For example, I told several married questioners that I believe that if their wives do not agree, they should not enlist, since they married them on their own accord.
Why is there room for such considerations? If it is an obligation, then what room is there for other considerations? Is there an asterisk in the Torah that a mitzvah is nullified if it is inconvenient?
How does this relate to the commandments? Who talked about the commandments? It's a public matter and the public decides how to handle it and share the burden.
I think that if this was a private problem of one person who had to pay a large price for the draft, then there is definitely room for consideration. But since this is a problem for everyone in the Haredi community and it is certain that the Haredim should enlist, then as long as the price is standard in relation to the Haredi, then it is not exempt from the draft.
By the way, I am a yeshiva student who has the same problem, so I go to a designated track for Haredim in the technological units where they serve in civilian jobs in a regular office building and return home every day so that no one should know that you are serving.
Leave a Reply
Please login or Register to submit your answer
