Question

 
 
 
Since the previous questioner launched into a text about your positive influence, I wanted to add a small anecdote. Even if this isn’t really a question—forgive me in advance.
I’m Haredi, a yeshiva graduate. You could say I’m settled in life, make a living, learn Torah, married with a child—and still I decided to enlist.
A lot of that was under your influence.
If we analyze it, it’s mainly in the context of the legitimacy of standing up against norms that aren’t accepted in society, and acting according to the truth you’ve arrived at—despite the price.
When I arrived to report at Tel HaShomer, the Holy One, blessed be He, immediately gave me an opportunity to use another strategy you taught.
Let me preface this by saying that once someone asked you: what do you answer in an ideological discussion with someone who is absolute and closed off in his views?
You answered: you won’t succeed in persuading him. What remains is to expose the inconsistency and hypocrisy in what he says.
 
When I got close to the entrance gate of the office,
a group of young men from the Jerusalem Faction immediately swarmed around me.
They’ve set up a permanent “Chabad stand” there whose purpose is to persuade Haredi recruits not to go in.
“You know that if you go in—there’s no deferment. It’s enlistment!” they opened.
I answered: Indeed, I intend to enlist, because that is what the great rabbis of Israel instructed.
With a surprised look they asked, “What do you mean?”
I answered, “Great rabbis of Israel like…” — here I started making up names that don’t exist, or names of rabbis from Religious Zionism (I think I even quoted your name. They don’t know it anyway). All of them—great Torah scholars, in their way—ruled that one should enlist for an obligatory war.
“But they’re not our great rabbis of Israel—they’re yours!” they answered, while pointing at my white shirt and suit.
I answered: “You know, when I was a young teenager I thought this whole matter of ‘the great rabbis of Israel’ was very clear, binding, and uniform for everyone.
Until one day reality slapped me in the face. Then the Jerusalem Faction arose and decided—against all the great rabbis of Israel—to choose its own ‘great one.’
Back then I couldn’t digest that.
Today I understand it completely.
In the end it’s your choice. You yourself can decide which ‘great one’ seems more convincing to you logically—and follow him.”
A brief silence.
The one who seemed to be the main one among them asked, “So because of us you’re enlisting?”
Me: “Yes, because of you!”
Another silence.
“Well, if you have nothing more to add, I’m going. Keep safe, good luck,” I said, and walked through the gates of the office.