Our country once again finds itself embroiled in major controversy concerning the conscription of haredi yeshiva students. Whether this will cause the government to fall and call for elections remains to be seen. Yet we all know that even if a temporary solution is found, it will not be long before the matter explodes again.
I had the privilege of serving for a short period in the Israeli army, while married and with children.
But before I continue, let me introduce myself.
I was born in 1946 and am the child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. I converted when I was 16, and my mother followed many years later. I come from a completely secular background with no Jewish education, though with a strong grounding in secular philosophy, where Kant, Hume, and Wittgenstein reigned supreme.
When I first ventured to Gateshead Talmudical College – the most famous haredi yeshiva in England, and indeed in Europe – with the intention of studying Talmud, I had no idea what awaited me. I imagined a kind of Jewish university where enlightened teachers and students would discuss the latest issues in theology and Talmudic historiography. Nothing could have been further from the truth. This was not even Yeshiva University. There were no secular studies, no talk of Plato’s theory of immortality or Leibniz’s famous theodicy. This was another planet entirely.
There was only one supreme endeavor: to serve God – to refine oneself through the study of Talmud, together with Rabbi Aryeh Leib Heller’s Ketzot Hahoshen and Rabbi Yaakov Lorberbaum’s Netivot Hamishpat, two brilliant Talmudic classics.
There were 300 of us. In the winter we slept in our overcoats in what some called a bedroom, where the temperature dropped far below zero. Our neigel vasser – the water jug beside our beds to wash our hands upon awakening – was frozen solid in the morning. There was no common area to relax, no cafeteria, no comforts. We knew that the food we ate was practically taken from the mouths of our yeshiva rabbis.
Our menahel ruhani (spiritual mentor), Rabbi Chizkiyahu Eliezer Kahan, was as poor as a church mouse but looked like a king in his spotless frock coat and long, carefully combed white beard. A “Novardoker” – a student of the legendary Novardok Yeshiva of pre-Holocaust Lithuania – he embodied strict discipline and unfailing devotion.
The non-Jews in the town of Gateshead knew that when Rabbi Kahan, who walked as upright as a soldier, passed by in the afternoon – it was exactly 4 p.m. not a minute later or earlier – it was time to tip their hats to this remarkable man, this majestic tzaddik.
When one entered the yeshiva, one no longer knew in which century one lived — the 5th, the 12th, the 17th, or the 20th. It was a world unto itself. There was no stepping out for fresh air, no trips to a kosher restaurant or falafel stand, no encounters with the young women of the nearby Gateshead Seminary. Though 150 of them studied just around the corner, they might as well have been on another planet.
To walk the streets was not only dangerous – filled as they were with drunken people – but considered bitul zman, a waste of time. There was one goal only: shtaigen in lernen, to grow in Torah. The yeshiva heads displayed integrity, deep religiosity, and a total absence of personal agenda. There was no competition, no scandal, no quarrel – only Torah, in all its splendor. To study the Talmud was to relive the revelation at Sinai.
Living beyond time
This monumental text lifted us beyond time. It was not only intellectual brilliance; it was an emotional ascent. In the musar talks, we heard not Kant’s abstract ethics but spontaneous outbursts of love for God and man. Through the rhythmic chanting of their words, our teachers lifted us to heaven. Nothing in the world comes close to those experiences.
I spent 12 years in haredi yeshivot, and later completed a PhD in philosophy. Today, when I speak with people who reject or ridicule the yeshiva world, I often agree with many of their criticisms, but I know they fail to grasp the inner music of that world. They do not understand that this introverted yet extraordinary reality lifted Jews out of misery throughout history and gave them the strength to survive under the most intolerable conditions.
It was this denial of time that made the Jews eternal. The yeshiva world, though once small, was the pride of the Jewish people. The Talmud gave Jews wings – to fly to other worlds, to revisit the past, and to imagine a future yet unborn. It became the Jews’ portable homeland, their indestructible fortress. Through it they survived the tortures of exile and ultimately created the State of Israel 2,000 years after their banishment – a miracle unprecedented in human history.
For two millennia, the Talmud taught Jews to see life sub specie aeternitatis – from the perspective of eternity. It allowed them to transcend time and thus survive within it. Like the academies of Sura and Pumbedita nearly 1,500 years ago in Babylon, the yeshiva world gave our people a tool of endurance that no other civilization possessed.
Without it, there would be no Jewish people, no State of Israel, no Jews – religious or secular – living in this land.
Whether they realize it or not, all Israelis owe their existence to the wondrous world of Torah and its students.
Reentering history
With the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews were forced to reenter history. But after 2,000 years of living in meta-history, can we truly do so? To compress two millennia into 70-odd years is almost impossible.
In truth, the very existence of the State of Israel is too miraculous to fit the norms of history. Israel constantly violates the rules of history. Its radical distinctiveness – its ahistoricity – shines through. Much of the world’s hostility toward Israel stems from this. The nations sense, if only subconsciously, that Israel does not play by the normal historical script, and it unnerves them.
We now stand in an unprecedented and precarious situation. Israel is increasingly isolated, “a nation that dwells alone” as the non-Jewish prophet Balaam declared (Numbers 23:9). Yet at the same time, Israel is more influential than ever – scientifically, technologically, spiritually – often in ways unmatched by any other nation.
Still, everything remains in flux. The question is whether we can afford to enter history fully and be bound by its rules, or whether doing so would destroy us. Perhaps we must continue, as before, to stand with one foot in eternity.
A former Chinese premier reportedly said, when asked about the impact of Caesar’s wars on modern Europe: “It’s too early to say.” So, too, with the birth pangs of the State of Israel – we cannot yet see what the baby will look like. It is too early to know.
To paraphrase British Jewish philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin, we have had too much eternity and too little geography. Yet to replace eternity with mere geography would be another form of suicide. Both extremes are fatal.
The task of the haredi world
It is the task of the yeshiva community to represent the eternal dimension of our nation. Its existence is essential to all of us. Just as in the past the yeshiva world preserved the flame of faith through deep religiosity, Talmudic genius, and moral integrity, so must it do today.
Whether or not all its students should serve in the army can only be decided when Israeli society fully understands the spiritual significance of this world. At the same time, the yeshiva world needs to put its house in order.
The first duty of the haredi leadership is to inspire its students to realize that they carry the responsibility of representing the ahistorical and eternal mission of the Jewish people – a mission vital to our spiritual and physical survival. A huge number of people have donned the robe of haredi student while not living up to its mission. This must be stopped.
The haredi world must again become a model of moral purity, holiness, and distinction. Every trace of corruption or dishonesty must be eliminated. Conformity, while comforting, can also dull the soul. The community must cultivate independent thinkers and halachic authorities of stature as it once did, especially in an age when the secular world fails to provide tools for moral and spiritual endurance.
What the haredi leaders must do is to “cook up a storm” that will turn Israeli society pale. In a completely unprecedented shift, they should lead the ship of Torah with full sails into the heart of Israeli society, causing such a spiritual shock to the state that it will take days, weeks, or months before it is able to recover.
The haredi leaders should not merely be “honored,” “valued,” or “well respected.” Like the prophets of old – with “knives between their teeth” – they must be known for their uncompromising integrity. Their presence should create a moral earthquake, an ethical-religious uproar, that will scare the moral wits out of secular and religious Israelis and weigh heavily on their souls. As men of truth and courage, they should be feared and loved. Israelis should be quaking in their shoes at the thought of meeting them, yet be unable to stay away from their towering and loving personalities.
Their followers, too, must embody refinement and dignity. They should be “a light unto the nation” within the Chosen People. Just as the haredi organizations United Hatzalah, ZAKA, and Yad Sarah serve all of Israel and have become beacons of haredi concern for their fellow men, so must every haredi individual endeavor to spread the wings of hessed (loving-kindness) to every corner of Israel. Haredim should organize large prayer gatherings not for their own needs but for the well-being of all our soldiers and all Israelis.
This is the sacred task of the haredi leadership and its community.
The gravest sin for a haredi Jew is to forget what he represents. ■