GROW UP, POLITICIANS – AND GET TO WORK!

With a little mutual respect and true Ahavas Yisroel, the national-religious community would be more connected to us. Rather than cursing one another, there could be more outreach activities with this sector, many of whom identify with the ultra-Orthodox in a joint effort to neutralize destructive political forces. However, none of this was done. They chose instead to focus their energies on a religious civil war. Anyone who didn’t conform to the messages conveyed by Torah Judaism party leaders became an enemy of the Torah and Judaism.

Translated by Michoel Leib Dobry

1. What haven’t the ultra-Orthodox Knesset Members said during the last few weeks about their counterparts from the national religious sector, and vice versa? One side accuses the other of treason, while the other counters with charges of aiding and abetting the political left. Curses, scorn, and contempt have become routine among those expected to act with leadership. It seems that everything that could be said – has been said. There has never been as deep a schism between the chareidi and “knitted kippa” communities as exists today. The resolute and wholehearted support of the Bayit Yehudi Party for the enlistment law managed to ire the Shas and Yahadut HaTorah legislators with unrestrained fury, to the point that they could no longer hold their tongues. In the meantime, most rank-and-file citizens of Eretz Yisroel are sitting back and waiting for this storm to pass. They hope that as cooler heads prevail, the current partisan disputes will fail to drag other sectors into an all-out, no-holds-barred ideological war. 

It would be advisable for the ultra-Orthodox community to set up an organized system for issuing public statements by rabbanim and askanim. This would serve as a means of clearing them before they are published in the chareidi news agencies. Meanwhile, the public at-large wakes up every couple of days to another barrage of outrageous imprecations as they fire their verbal attacks like slings and arrows. 

Their wrath is quite justified. There can be no rationalization for the Bayit Yehudi Party’s steadfast backing of the recently passed legislation on mandatory conscription for yeshiva students with their accompanying criminal sanctions – a devastating blow to the soul of the ultra-Orthodox sector. All the MKs from the “knitted kippa” party – save for one honorable soul, MK Yoni Chetboun – supported the bill to put Talmudic scholars behind bars, raising their hands against this generation’s most prominent Torah giants.

“What’s the big deal?” asked people in Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett’s inner circle. “Half of every ultra-Orthodox graduating class will have to enlist, and the yeshivos will just have to wait a while…” This novice politician has failed to understand that when the main issue at hand is yeshivos – or “the world of Torah” in chareidi terminology, this is a red line, just as uprooting settlements is to the national religious sector. 

In any case, it’s clear that this struggle could have been conducted in an entirely different manner. With a little mutual respect and true Ahavas Yisroel, the national-religious community would be more connected to us. Rather than cursing one another, there could be more outreach activities with this sector, many of whom identify with the ultra-Orthodox in a joint effort to neutralize destructive political forces. However, none of this was done. They chose instead to focus their energies on a religious civil war. Anyone who didn’t conform to the messages conveyed by Torah Judaism party leaders became an enemy of the Torah and Judaism.

2. This is also the reason why the tremendous prayer rally in Yerushalayim, attended by half a million people, left no real impression beyond those from the ultra-Orthodox communities. It’s now quite clear that the prayer rally was for internal consumption – relevant only to chareidim. The average Israeli watching the rally felt no connection to the intensity of the t’fillos emanating from hundreds of thousands of broken hearts. Maybe it was the sea of black seen in the newspaper headlines and on the television screen, maybe it was the Yiddish or Sephardic accented prayer services. The bottom line is that the organizers didn’t even try to gear this rally to the general public in Eretz Yisroel. If they had wanted to turn this rally into an informational event to solicit greater support among the overall population, they should have conducted themselves as did the settler leaders in Gush Katif.

During the fight to save Gush Katif, the settler leadership designed all events for the Israeli public at-large. An example of this was the rally attended by tens of thousands in Kfar Maimon. The Yesha Council leadership had one objective: hitting the eight o’clock evening news and applying all their efforts from that national forum. This is also what happened with the youth in Neve Dekalim during the implementation of the disengagement. Reciting Slichos, taking out the Torah scrolls, the hysterical prayers of the girls and young women – all were designed to reach the Israeli public sitting at home and bring them to tears. They tried to arouse their natural sense of sympathy and turn it into an emotional feeling of identity. The organizers of the major prayer rally in Yerushalayim against the enlistment law missed the opportunity to utilize this effect. They established no connection between the public watching at home and the hundreds of thousands pleading for their way of life. 

3. During these times, when the rift within the Jewish People is growing continually larger, we as Chabad Chassidim have a vital role in uniting Am Yisroel around our holy Torah. “Unity” means that the Torah truly belongs to all Jews – without exception. There is no difference between the Torah studied by a student in Ponovezh Yeshiva, a student in hesder yeshiva, or a young Israeli coming to a Chabad House for a shiur in basic principles of Judaism. The Torah is a Jewish inheritance and it is the cure for the split in the Jewish People today.

While the politicians are fighting among themselves, each one seeking to protect his own Torah, we must create greater unity with the light of His Torah. There is no reason why the ultra-Orthodox politicians fight only for Yeshivat Chevron and Yeshivat Slobodka, while the “Bayit Yehudi” MKs only concentrate on the hesder yeshivos.

In this ideological battle, Chabad Chassidim find themselves torn between the desire to be part of the Jewish People in general and the desire to be a part of ultra-Orthodox Jewry. On the one hand, it is forbidden to separate oneself from the rest of the community. On the other hand, however, a sizable portion of the messages emanating from this struggle are highly objectionable to Chabad Chassidim. For example, during the anti-enlistment prayer rally in Yerushalayim earlier this month, several of the pronouncements dealt with the polarization between the ultra-Orthodox sector and their “brothers,” Bennett and Lapid, as in “Save me, please, from the hand of my brother.” While this rally was a display of amazing unity, we must remember that not all of the Jewish People were there with us. Without a doubt, it was a united assembly – but they were united in force against another sector of the population. True, these politicians are fighting against G-d and His Torah, however, they too are part of the People of Israel. 

Last week, chareidi journalist R’ Aharon Granot said that if the number of knitted kippas at the prayer rally in Yerushalayim had been matched nine years ago by an equal number of chareidim at anti-disengagement demonstrations, the Gush Katif expulsion could have been stopped. That perhaps is the most powerful message to come from the events of recent weeks. There’s no “their Torah” and “our Torah.” Why shouldn’t the ultra-Orthodox be fighting against the abandonment of Eretz Yisroel, just as the national religious sector should be joining the struggle against the degradation of all that is holy in Israel? We are all children of one Father, and the time has come to remove the barriers and work together for the sake of all Jews. We all have one objective – although our methods may appear slightly different.

4. One tzaddik stood at the Knesset rostrum before the final adoption of the compulsory enlistment legislation and gave the speech of his life. This was Knesset Member Yoni Chetboun (Bayit Yehudi), who declared that although he is a member of the coalition, he will vote against the proposed law. Chetboun bore full responsibility for his bold and gutsy decision, and he was even punished with sanctions by his parliamentary faction for his violation of party discipline. Yet, he agreed to pay the price as a means of preserving the honor of Torah by refusing to be a partner in the fight against the ultra-Orthodox sector.

On the day after MK Chetboun’s courageous speech before the Knesset plenum, journalist Avishai Ben-Chaim wrote the following in praise of his actions: “Knesset Member Yoni Chetboun yesterday emerged as the most responsible person in Israel. It’s been some time since the relations between the ultra-Orthodox and Israelis in general have been such a potential powder keg. After the criminal sanctions and the court rulings against them (Tal Law, Beit Shemesh, budget allocations), they saw this as proof that they could no longer participate in Israeli society through the democratic process. During my commentary yesterday on Channel 10 News, we wrote the following: ‘A chareidi loss in Beit Shemesh will create despair, to the point of [inciting] ultra-Orthodox civil disobedience against the new enlistment law.’ Yesterday, the chareidim were lying wounded on the ground, but to our good fortune, Chetboun came along. The last time (l’havdil) that Chetboun saw wounded lying on the ground was at the Battle of Binat Jabil during the Second Lebanon War, earning him a special citation from the IDF Chief of Staff. While he wasn’t able to save the chareidim in their battle, he was still the only person around who understood that if you see someone wounded on the ground, you should at least try and give him a hand.”

5. We often hear complaints about the concept of “factional obedience” or “coalition discipline,” which places a veto upon a Knesset Member’s ideological viewpoint, forcing him at times to vote against his conscience. Even the Rebbe related to this ridiculous concept, calling it a form of dictatorship worse than Russia. In a sicha from Zos Chanukah, 5746, the Rebbe said: “And if this ‘explanation’ is not enough – they bring the issue up for a vote, as it were, for this is a ‘democratic country’… Yet, what happens? All party members have to vote in a certain way, and they aren’t embarrassed to declare publicly that while there are some party members whose personal conscience obligates him to vote another way, nevertheless, the party compels them to vote according to the party’s command and instruction – contrary to one’s personal conscience!

“Such a ‘dictatorship’ – under the guise of ‘democracy’ – can’t be found anywhere in the world, not even in Soviet Russia! It’s catastrophic that we have reached the point where we have to bring proofs from them – that even ‘the most depraved nations’ don’t act that way!

“I was in Soviet Russia myself, and I know their manner and their conduct: When they force you to do a certain thing – they explain that the ‘conscience’ obligates conduct according to the Communist system, the ‘Marxist’ approach, the rules of ‘justice and honesty,’ the prohibition against harming worker’s wages, and the like. Then, they add that if someone expresses his personal opinion some other way – they’ll imprison him or send him to Siberia… However, to declare openly and officially that someone will vote against his conscience – no leader in the Kremlin would do such a thing!

“Yet, the situation today in Eretz Yisroel is quite different: They declare openly and officially that if someone’s conscience obligates him a certain way – he should give it no consideration, rather he should vote against his conscience – not because his conscience should obligate him another way, but due to the command of his party!”