Q&A: The Column on the Third Identity
The Column on the Third Identity
Question
After everything we’ve been through over the past two years, and after the disproportionate participation of conservative Religious Zionism (and even the Hardal camp) in the war, especially among students of the line yeshivot, do you still agree with the quotations brought below?
Is there really almost no practical difference or real-world consequence?
“Today there is no significant difference between Religious Zionists and Haredim in their attitude toward the state, aside from reciting Hallel on Independence Day and the color of the kippah… Even clear differences, such as the question of army enlistment… have been narrowing in recent years, as Haredim are already enlisting.”
And also:
“At least on the practical plane, there is an identity between Haredim and Hardalim in their attitude toward questions of modernity and liberalism. The practical difference between the two groups lies only in the question of their attitude toward Zionism—for example, in the principled holiness they attribute to the state and its institutions, in reciting Hallel on Independence Day and Jerusalem Day, and in their attitude toward the Whole Land of Israel. But almost none of this has practical implications nowadays.”
Answer
The question of enlistment does not depend on one’s attitude toward the state and Zionism, but on the desire to remain separate. What the Haredim say today about the state is only a tool in their struggle for separateness.
The differences in enlistment numbers always existed; they were not born only in this war. The Hardalim separate themselves from modernity just like the Haredim do. But they are less separate from the state. Less afraid of contact with the outside.
Discussion on Answer
Anyone who sees the enlistment rates among the national-Torah camp as compared to the Haredim, especially after the latest war, and still claims that there is no significant difference, or no difference on the practical plane, between the groups, is either stupid, a liar, or just a coward who doesn’t know how to admit his mistake. I tend toward the last option, because it’s hard for me to believe that you don’t know what the word “significant” means or what the phrase “on the practical plane” means.
You can also just start making excuses with all kinds of nonsense.
That doesn’t make the embarrassment any easier while reading the nonsense.
Another thing: a large portion of Hardal / Torah-oriented rabbis do think Haredim should enlist. That’s another lie and bit of nonsense you just wrote.
A person can run an ultra-triathlon, climb Everest, or do a hundred pull-ups in a very short time.
All of that is much easier than simply saying, “I was wrong.”
It is no accident that the Hardalim support the Haredim in their struggle to exempt those who study Torah. And they also don’t really sharpen the point that those who do not study should be drafted—just like the Haredim themselves, who blur that point and prefer to talk about those who do study.