Q&A: The Hesder Program
The Hesder Program
Question
Hello Rabbi, what is your opinion of hesder yeshivot and the students’ shortened regular-service track there? Is it justified that a secular soldier serves three years while hesder soldiers serve a year and a half? I thought of a few points:
1. Someone who joins a hesder program with a combat profile has to serve in combat, and if I’m not mistaken most combat soldiers are Religious Zionist; and even if not, then presumably relative to the population that enlists, the majority go into combat.
2. In hesder yeshivot the reserve-duty rate is the highest, even 200–300 days for example in the current war, so it seems that the length of the regular service is “made up for” by reserve days. I, for example, was at a shibutz not long ago, and the instructor told me that everyone in fourth-year shiur had already gone back to reserves.
3. I just want to say to the religious public, if any of you are reading this question, that you are the salt of the earth.
Answer
I’ve been asked about this more than once. In my opinion there is no problem with it at all. Hesder soldiers contribute to the public through their learning, and they also serve in the army and in the reserves. The fact that in practice they do a year and a half of regular service rather than three pays for itself in two respects: 1. Contribution through Torah study. 2. The contribution they make as available organic units, and also the percentage who enlist and serve in combat is much higher than in the general public. It is worthwhile for the public to give up half of the regular service for this. When there is a war and a manpower shortage, they are the first to arrive and certainly are not absent from the battlefield. Routine security work suffers a bit because of this, but as stated, there is a contribution that offsets that lack.
Discussion on Answer
I am not inclined to believe in metaphysics. The contribution is in the commandment of Torah study and in Jewish identity.
Regarding the contribution to society through Torah study—is this something metaphysical, or something long-term, in the sense that more people maintain a Jewish way of life according to Jewish law?