Question

Hello Rabbi, with your permission I have two questions. 1) In the yeshiva world it is our custom to go on outings to rivers and the like, but usually there are secular people there and there is immodesty. Usually it is impossible to avoid the first glance, but the second one can be avoided. So the question is whether, in a case where there is no other way, it is permitted to go knowing with certainty that there will be a first glance. And another thing that needs clarification is whether the fact that I want to go to the river is considered “there is no other way.” If the thing is forbidden, I would ask a social question: how did this practice become accepted among the entire community of Torah students? 2) On another matter, I know that the Rabbi’s view is that Haredim should enlist. I’m only asking out of curiosity: if the Rabbi’s opinion were that enlistment is completely forbidden, which path should a person choose—like the people of the Jerusalem Faction, who engage in extreme demonstrations at the draft office and the like, or the usual Lithuanian approach, which ignores the issue and makes do with the leadership’s instruction not to report for induction? Thank you in advance