Q&A: Haredim and Morality
Haredim and Morality
Question
Hello Rabbi Michael,
I’ve seen that in your columns on the site you deal quite a bit with patterns of thought and behavior in Haredi society and analyze them—for example, how it can be that a rabbi reasons with great wisdom and brilliance in the Talmud and yet says things that have no connection to reality whatsoever, and so on…
So I wanted to direct the following question to you. I saw an article about a Haredi yeshiva head who erupted in outrage at one of the students in the yeshiva who had stolen food supplies from the kitchen without permission (https://www.kikar.co.il/haredim-news/sze7eb), or alternatively about members of Rabbi Edelstein’s household who made a very great effort to repay a debt of two shekels to a taxi driver from 23 years earlier (https://www.bhol.co.il/news/1667960)
I assume these stories about this kind of meticulousness are a product of the education in the yeshivot of the Mussar movement of 19th-century Europe, and there’s no shortage of such stories… But my question is: how can it be that on the one hand there is this meticulousness in interpersonal matters (even of a kind that sometimes seems a bit excessive), while on the other hand there is their conduct (especially that of the rabbis and the activists) around public issues, and particularly on the issue of military conscription? After all, they know (most of them) about the losses and the price that soldiers’ families—especially reservists’ families—are paying.
I’m interested in how you explain this phenomenon.
Answer
They are like children who were taken captive. They have no understanding that they are acting against morality and against the Torah. Moreover, the cases you mentioned involve a simple obligation of Jewish law. Their public conduct does not seem to them to violate direct clauses of Jewish law. Morality is less relevant from their perspective, certainly when it runs against the “pure worldview.”