Q&A: The Morality in the Haredi Worldview
The Morality in the Haredi Worldview
Question
A. Suppose it were somehow proven to you that Haredi Torah study really does protect the people, and that if the Haredim enlisted there would be more deaths and more failures. Would you still argue that Haredi draft evasion is morally flawed, or in that case would their conduct actually be justified?
B. If a compulsory draft law were abolished and the IDF became a professional army, do you think there would still be something immoral in a Haredi norm of not volunteering for the army (similar to what in fact happens in other countries)?
Answer
A. Even if it turned out that all of us going to the beach were the optimal way to protect the Jewish people and the army only caused harm, then of course I wouldn’t demand that everyone enlist. What kind of stupid question is that?
B. As long as it’s not an obligation, and not volunteering, but rather a career, then such decisions can be made. But whether it’s an obligation (as today) or voluntary service, it is definitely immoral to run a policy against serving.
Discussion on Answer
It’s a completely stupid question because the answer is trivial. Obviously, if they think study helps and enlistment doesn’t, then evasion is justified. What’s the question? That’s a tautology.
The question that should be discussed, if you really want to discuss something, is this:
1. Do they really believe that study helps? For some reason, in other areas they are very careful to make proper practical efforts and don’t make do with study.
2. Beyond that, are they really convinced that only uninterrupted lifelong study is effective—meaning that if they stop for two years for military service, the study stops helping? Otherwise, they can study all their lives and enlist for two years, like the hesder arrangement. Each person would enlist in turn, and meanwhile the rest of those studying would vigorously protect us.
3. And what about those who don’t study? Are they also protecting us? Why should they be exempt? The demand to exempt them shows that they are lying when they say the reason is that study protects.
That’s it. I think we’ve exhausted this nonsense.
So basically your claim is that the Haredim don’t really believe that their Torah study is a justified reason to exempt them from enlistment, and the reason they want to be exempt is simply that it’s inconvenient for them to enlist, and therefore it’s immoral?
Obviously.
It sounds strange to me that specifically the Haredi public, which is bursting with ideologies and pays no small price for them, refuses to enlist just because it’s inconvenient. The Haredi lifestyle is not exactly the best recipe for a comfortable life. Why isn’t it simpler to assume that this is ideology?
(The fact that they contradict themselves is not a major difficulty. Almost all ideologues in the world contradict themselves at one stage or another. There are various explanations for that.)
Sorry for jumping in here, Michi, but in your eagerness to make Benjamin’s question sound stupid, the verse was fulfilled in you: “With a fool, you become foolish,” and you yourself were unwittingly made foolish in your answer to him. In answer number 2 you wrote your puzzlement about the Haredim’s belief in protection as depending on continuity of study, and you offered a foolish answer: that they should study continuously except for two years when they go to the army (while others take turns in the meantime by studying on their behalf during their service). And why is this a foolish answer? (If the penny still hasn’t dropped for you—alas, Michi, that I have seen you like this)—because if according to our Torah claim, an hour of study protects and is incomparably more valuable than an hour of the 12-day operation in Iran carried out by the most successful “wagon driver” (fighter pilot, in foreign jargon) in the IDF, then what kind of foolish suggestion is this—that the great protector should leave his protection for two years and instead move to protection on the very lowest rung of the scale? You made me laugh. Your suggestion is like someone proposing to an F-35 pilot that instead of investing years in defending the country by flying in the skies, he should divide his time, and besides his investment in the squadron, also spend a year peeling potatoes in the army kitchen with the commandos, and a year turning on sprinklers in the back garden of the Kirya, and a year doing his part as a warm-up act for the army’s protective singers Noa Kirel and Anna Zak, like the hesder yeshivot.
Another case where I’m debating whether to delete a message for excessive stupidity. Added to the crushing Haredi arguments that flounder somewhere in the depths of absurdity.
A. It’s not a stupid question, because from what you say it follows that according to the Haredi public’s view—that their study really does protect the people—they are right to refuse enlistment, and your argument with them is only about the actual assumption that study protects. That is, the argument is not about morality but about facts.
B. If we’re talking about voluntary volunteering, isn’t it reasonable for a certain public to prefer not to volunteer because it prefers to invest in other values? As long as it’s not an obligation, seemingly there shouldn’t be any moral flaw in preferring one value over another.