Q&A: After the Holidays
After the Holidays
Question
I met on the Sabbath a friend whose daughter is a lookout soldier at Nahal Oz. He said that already a week before Rosh Hashanah, his daughter had reported increased Hamas activity on the border and noted that they had been told that now was not the time for operations and that the matter would be handled “after the holidays.”
I also read about the malfunctioning surveillance balloons that they promised would be fixed “after the holidays.”
Battalions around the Gaza envelope were on reduced activity during the holiday period…
Hasn’t the time come to recognize the fact that we are not fighting an enemy that observes Torah and commandments, and that if we value life, the army needs to operate 365 days a year at the same level of alert?
Maybe there should be a halakhic ruling saying that anyone who enlists must treat his Sabbath like a weekday until discharge, because any other situation of trying to observe the Sabbath more stringently with only specific exceptions for cases of danger to life leads to a mindset that the army is basically shut down minus exceptions, and in practice completely shut down?
Even if the military rabbinate were to permit every specific case individually (from experience, they don’t), senior officers who don’t know all the finer points of Jewish law will assume from the outset that things are forbidden (see for example the Fast of Hezekiah and the Fast of Jehoshaphat, when the hesder yeshiva boys tend to rest) and won’t even ask.
Answer
None of this has the slightest connection to Sabbath observance. On the operational level, the Sabbath is exactly like a weekday, and no new permission is needed for that. The army simply sends soldiers home on leave for the Sabbath, and that is the meaning of the difference. It has nothing whatsoever to do with religion or Jewish law.
Discussion on Answer
This is just casuistry. As far as I know, there is no issue of extra stringency in the laws of the Sabbath in the operational sphere. And if there is, please turn to the military rabbinate or the officer in charge and they will take care of it. There is no need for any change in policy.
As for drill scrambles, I don’t know whether that is the situation (I am not familiar with the facts). If so, then such scrambles can also be permitted on the Sabbath. But that is a specific issue.
Not casuistry — a practical question.
If an enemy is planning a surprise attack on Israel, which day of the year is best for him to choose?
A. Yom Kippur
B. The seventh day of Passover
C. Simchat Torah
D. There is no difference; all the days of the year are identical
If you didn’t choose answer D, how would you explain that?
And what should be done about it?
I don’t know what was unclear in what I wrote. The answers are A-C. What needs to be done is to raise alertness to the normal level. The link to Jewish law and the rabbinate is casuistry.
The rule on the Sabbath is that whatever is not permitted is forbidden.
And an officer who is not expert in the finer points of Jewish law will add from the holy onto the ordinary…
For example: halakhically it is permitted to repair a surveillance balloon on the Sabbath and holidays, but the average secular officer will assume that it is forbidden.
I don’t know what Jewish law says about drill scrambles on the Sabbath, but in my time it was forbidden.
If the rules haven’t changed, then by the surprise-test paradox you could add that soldiers are never tested by surprise on the Sabbath, and therefore you can sleep peacefully.
It seems the terrorists are aware of that fact, and therefore attacked on a holiday.