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Q&A: Rabbi Feivelson’s Defense of Haredi Society

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Originally published:
This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

Rabbi Feivelson’s Defense of Haredi Society

Question

I’m interested to know whether you’ve seen this conversation (Rabbi Feivelson on Tamir Dorstel’s podcast) and what you think about it.
Rabbi Feivelson explains there a Haredi position regarding the state and the Jewish people in general, and the issue of military conscription in particular.
What he says connects very strongly with the criticism underlying your recent columns, and if you haven’t seen it, maybe it would be worth your while to watch/listen and tell your readers what you think.

Answer

I’ll listen if I get a chance.

Discussion on Answer

Aharon Eliav (2025-10-21)

Rabbi Feivelson gave a deep analysis there, and in my opinion one that was more honest and genuine than “our Torah protects the situation.” I listened and enjoyed the enlightening and in-depth analysis. You can perhaps disagree with it, but it definitely addresses the issue seriously.
I’d be glad to hear your response, Rabbi Michi.
By the way, I’ll note that on the podcast “What Is Judaism,” Rabbi Feivelson presents 5 principles, and when he gets to one of them he talks there about Michi Abraham’s point that you can’t derive binding principles from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), because the Hebrew Bible is open to highly flexible interpretation.
In short, he’s a very fascinating and very deep person, and he also addressed points that you, Rabbi Michi, have spoken about.

Nehorai (2025-10-21)

Aharon, I didn’t understand what you found there. From what I picked up, in the end he presents the familiar claims: the Haredim need separation in order to keep the flame alive, there will be dropout, the Haredim preserve Judaism, those who want conscription really want to undermine religion and therefore haven’t found solutions. In my opinion, all of that is just empty talk. At the end of the day, there has to be a different solution from the current situation, in which the religious and the secular support the Haredim the way a bird feeds its chicks and protect the Haredim the way a cat protects her kittens. The Haredim have had, and still have had for decades, very significant political power, and any reasonable solution they could have proposed and advanced for this problem was within their power to implement. So what did they do? Absolutely nothing—just kept continuing, deepening, and expanding, with astounding brazenness, the exploitation. That’s why all this “depth of the issue” talk seems empty to me. All the stories are acceptable after he proposes a solution (and if there’s also compensation for the past, we won’t object). But if he doesn’t propose a solution and uses “depth of the issue” talk in order to rob, extort, steal, and exploit, then those words should be thrown in the trash.

Aharon Zeidman (2025-10-22)

Brother, just watch the series with Tamir Dortel and you’ll understand. If you didn’t get that it’s a bit deeper and more serious, and it just seemed to you like yet another defense brief from a Haredi apologist—then I don’t think anyone else will be able to help you.

Nehorai (2025-10-22)

Maybe you didn’t understand my argument. My argument is that as long as he hasn’t persuaded the others (religious and secular), he—meaning Haredi society—is not allowed to steal money and protection through the force of democracy, just because the others have no choice (the other political side seems even more harmful to them), or because they don’t want to use much greater force against the Haredim. No internal justification can justify that kind of conduct. If his claims are good and correct, then he should persuade those who sustain him economically and militarily, and then I’ll give him great honor. As long as he hasn’t persuaded them, then he—the Haredi society in general—is a thieving and insolent baby.

Shmuel (2025-10-22)

Nehorai, it’s clear between the lines of what you wrote that you came in already full of resentment and prejudice, and are blocked from the outset from accepting even a substantive argument. So I’ll ask you honestly: why do you assume that a solution must exist? Think about the possibility that at the moment there is no solution from our perspective. As things currently look, it’s one of two options: if we agree to your solution, that means we become secular (even if from your side that’s a mistaken analysis—you haven’t succeeded in convincing me in all your articles, Michi, that I’m wrong; and likewise, even if from your perspective and from Michi’s perspective being secular is blessed and moral, clean the wax out of your ears that is clogging them and hear that from our perspective it is a disaster and out of the question), whereas from your side we have to help you kill as many Arabs as possible, etc. etc. This is a head-on clash with no solution in the foreseeable future. So keep shouting and slandering and demonstrating—it didn’t help in the past, and I hope it won’t help in the future either. “We hereby announce” that we have no intention whatsoever of becoming secular in the Land of Israel (a Haredi person in Michi’s format is, from our point of view, a fake; you might as well suggest that we join the Reform movement—it’s all the same to us). If you’re some genius at solutions, then please start by giving a solution to the Palestinian problem of peace and concessions, which is the aspiration of left-wing people. After you succeed there, come back to us with an official tax-deductible receipt, and we’ll maybe glance in your direction. According to your method, Michi, I need to provide a solution. I don’t agree with you on that either, and I declare, based on my familiarity with the people opposite us—most of whom, as is well known, have cast off the yoke—that I have no solution that will calm the nobleman. (The more realistic solution on the horizon, the one that actually seems more realistic, is that instead of me becoming secular, you and all the secular people should kindly repent. If that’s called a solution in your eyes, then by all means carry it out.) Until then, you are requested, at my modest request, to live and let live. It’s also important to stress that according to my view, you are not the one funding me, nor are you the one carrying me. All those statements come from a place of condescension and patronizing, in my view. You get much more from me than I get from you. For now, I understand that the solution you’re proposing to me is the “final solution,” so time will do its work and we’ll see what becomes of your dreams.

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