Who Is the “Olam HaTorah”?

 A Letter to Mishpacha Magazine that was not published

Like many others, I have had several heated discussions with friends and family about the growing crisis between the Chareidi community—which often refers to itself as the “Olam HaTorah”—and the rest of Israeli society.

One of my relatives sent me an article by Eli Paley in Mishpacha, telling me that it had “finally, once and for all, presented the truth of the Chareidi side of the argument.” I read the article carefully and concluded that it required a serious response, which I submitted to Mishpacha as a letter to the editor.

Aside from an initial acknowledgment, I have received no indication that the magazine intends to publish it—which, I must admit, did not come as a great surprise.

Here, then, is my response in full, together with detailed notes and sources. I offer it in the hope that it will speak to the hearts and minds of the many people who are deeply pained by this issue and who believe that the present situation demands a more honest and balanced discussion.

To the Editor:

Eli Paley’s “A Manufactured Deadlock” raises important concerns that deserve serious consideration. There certainly are people and organizations in Israel who look upon the Charedi community with condescension, fail to appreciate the extraordinary value of Torah learning, or would like to weaken Charedi religious and educational autonomy. Those attitudes should be challenged. Nor should the spiritual concerns that Charedi parents and rabbanim have regarding army service be dismissed. The army has not always earned the community’s trust, and any serious effort to increase Charedi service must provide genuine safeguards regarding tefillah, kashrut, Shabbat, tzniut, Torah learning, and the religious character of the units in which Charedi soldiers serve.

Nevertheless, I found the central framing of Mr. Paley’s article deeply troubling.

He portrays the present crisis largely as the result of a long ideological campaign against lomdei Torah, intensified by courts, progressive organizations, secular hostility, wealthy philanthropists, and people determined to undermine the Torah world. He presents the Charedi community as having offered practical solutions, only to have those solutions rejected by institutions more interested in confrontation than cooperation.

Not Only Those Who Are Learning

There may be elements of truth in that account. There unquestionably are hostile voices. But Mr. Paley leaves out one of the most important parts of the story: The dominant position of mainstream Charedi leadership has not merely been that a limited number of exceptional Torah scholars should be protected, nor even that every sincere full-time yeshivah student should be exempt. Increasingly, it has become categorical opposition to the compulsory enlistment of Charedi young men as a community—including many who are not learning seriously or are not learning at all.

This is not an accusation invented by hostile secular activists. Former Sephardic Chief Rabbi Rav Yitzchak Yosef stated explicitly that “it is forbidden to go to the army, even for one who is idle.” More recently, recordings of Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch revealed that he regarded the proposed draft legislation primarily as a way to “buy time.” Asked whether young men outside existing yeshivah frameworks would eventually enlist, he answered, “God forbid.” Regarding proposed enlistment targets, he asked, “Do they think we will want to meet the target? Of course, we will not want to.” Rav Dov Landau was equally categorical: “Whether the authorities agree to it or not, not a single yeshivah student, not even one, will go to the army.” [1]

Those statements cannot simply be ignored while the public is told that the disagreement concerns only the protection of lomdei Torah. A young man who is not learning is not being exempted because of his Torah learning. He is being exempted because he is Charedi. That is no longer an exemption for exceptional Torah scholarship; it is a communal exemption.

Nor is the problem merely theoretical. Research based upon reported employment records found substantial work participation among men formally registered in Charedi yeshivot between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. By age twenty-five, approximately one-third were employed in an average month, and 45 percent had reported employment at some point during the year. The researchers noted that their figures included only reported employment and therefore may understate the reality. [2]

Employment does not necessarily mean that a person is not learning seriously, and not every student whose learning has weakened should be disparaged. But these figures make clear that the legal category of “yeshivah student” cannot simply be assumed to mean that every individual is wholly devoted to uninterrupted Torah study. Yet mainstream leadership has generally opposed enlistment even for those outside that ideal.

Who Were the Volunteers the Army Rejected?

The response to actual draft orders also tells a story very different from the one suggested by Mr. Paley’s phrase “Willingness Nobody Wanted.” At the conclusion of the 2024–2025 draft year, an IDF representative reported to a Knesset committee that only approximately five percent of Charedi recipients of draft notices had appeared as required. Earlier figures showed that, of 18,915 men who had received notices, only 232 had enlisted through that process. [3]

That does not look primarily like a large population of willing draft-age Charedi men being rejected by an army that does not want them. It looks much more like a deeply rooted culture of institutional resistance, reinforced by communal and rabbinic leadership.

Mr. Paley points instead to more than 6,000 working Charedi men who approached the IDF after October 7 through the Shlav Bet framework and says that most were never absorbed. Their willingness to contribute is admirable and deserves recognition. These men stepped forward at a moment of national catastrophe, and the IDF may indeed deserve criticism for bureaucracy, lack of preparation, or failure to make effective use of some of them.

But this example does not establish what Mr. Paley appears to suggest. These were primarily older, working Charedi men, many already beyond the ordinary age of compulsory service, seeking entry into an abbreviated training program leading to reserve, support, professional, Home Front, or emergency roles. They were not thousands of eighteen- or twenty-year-old yeshivah students presenting themselves for ordinary military service and being rejected because the army did not want Charedim.

Earlier official figures showed approximately 4,000 applicants during the first months of the war. Most were found medically or otherwise unsuitable for the available program; approximately 880 were found fit, and roughly 600 were recruited. [4] That may still leave legitimate questions about whether the army could have absorbed more. Perhaps it failed to recognize the skills, motivation, and potential contribution of many applicants. If so, that failure deserves criticism. But it is far from proof that the IDF rejected thousands of qualified Charedim because it did not want Charedi participation.

More fundamentally, Shlav Bet does not answer the question dividing the country. Older men volunteering after they have passed the normal draft age can make an important contribution, and their service should be welcomed and expanded. But abbreviated training for older volunteers does not replace the need for younger soldiers who can undergo full training, serve for years, perform combat and combat-support duties, and then remain available for decades of reserve service.

From Limited Deferment to Communal Exemption

The question tearing Israeli society apart is not whether older working Charedim should be permitted to volunteer. It is what responsibility should be borne by the tens of thousands of Charedi men of ordinary draft age—particularly those who are not among the exceptional Torah scholars and those who are barely learning or no longer learning at all. Mr. Paley’s own institute has explained that its proposal is directed primarily toward working men beyond the ordinary exemption age and does not address yeshivah students or the central draft controversy. It may be a worthwhile additional program. It is not a solution to the principal dispute.

There is also an important historical issue that should not be overlooked. The idea now advanced in many Charedi circles—that Torah learning itself creates a categorical, effectively community-wide exemption from military participation, even during a milchemet mitzvah—is not an ancient and uncontested national tradition reflected in the experience of the State’s founding.

The Rambam famously writes regarding a milchemet mitzvah: “Everyone goes out—even a groom from his chamber and a bride from her wedding canopy” (Hilchot Melachim U’Milchamoteihem 7:4). There are, of course, important halachic discussions concerning the application of these laws, the spiritual role of Torah learning, and which individuals might properly remain devoted entirely to Torah. A letter to the editor cannot resolve those questions. But neither can one simply assume that there has always been an undisputed Torah principle exempting an entire community of yeshivah-age men, including those who are not learning, from participation in national defense.

Ben-Gurion indeed approved deferments for approximately 400 yeshivah students in 1948. The original arrangement was a limited measure, adopted after the destruction of the great European yeshivot and intended to preserve a small remnant of intensive Torah scholarship. It was not an unlimited exemption for an entire community. Later arrangements still required active yeshivah study and contemplated military service for those who left yeshivah. In 1967, the number of annual exemptions was capped at 800. The decisive change came in 1977, when the Begin government removed the numerical limits. From that point, a narrowly bounded arrangement intended to preserve an elite cadre of Torah scholars gradually developed into the basis for a mass—and ultimately near-community-wide—exemption. [5]

Thus, I am not claiming that deferments were invented in 1977. They were not. I am saying that the present model, under which nearly every Charedi male may be protected from service merely by remaining formally associated with the yeshivah system until reaching exemption age, is historically new. It is largely the product of political decisions made and expanded during recent decades, not an unchanging arrangement inherited from the founding of the State.

Nor did the Charedi community universally regard Torah study as categorically incompatible with wartime participation in 1948. Charedi residents and yeshivah students took part in the defense of Jerusalem and other communities. The Gdud Tuvia framework organized yeshivah students to perform dangerous fortification work in besieged Jerusalem. [6]

Even Rav Chaim Kanievsky, who later became perhaps the outstanding symbol of total devotion to Torah in our generation, participated in wartime defense. According to a biographical account, when he was a twenty-year-old student in the Lomza Yeshivah in Petach Tikva, he was taken with other yeshivah students to an artillery area and assigned to guard a hill. Famously, he brought a Gemara and continued learning while fulfilling his assigned duty. [7]

The point is not to exaggerate the nature of his brief service or suggest that the conditions of 1948 and today are identical. The point is that even one of the greatest and most dedicated Torah scholars of modern times was not understood to be categorically removed from every form of national defense merely because he was a yeshivah student.

What Would Genuine Cooperation Look Like?

Mr. Paley writes that, traditionally, those who devoted themselves to full-time Torah learning remained outside military service, while those who entered the workforce could be integrated through practical arrangements. Were that truly the operative position of Charedi leadership today, the debate would look very different.

Imagine Charedi roshei yeshivah and political representatives approaching the army and saying: We recognize the desperate national need and the extraordinary burden being carried by soldiers, reservists, wives, children, parents, employers, and communities. We believe that a limited number of outstanding Torah scholars should be permitted to devote themselves entirely to learning, and we insist that all Charedi servicemen receive serious and enforceable religious protections. But we also recognize that many Charedi young men should serve, and we are prepared to work honestly and creatively to build appropriate frameworks for them.

Such an approach would not eliminate every disagreement. There would still be difficult questions concerning numbers, standards, accommodations, military culture, length of service, and trust. But it would transform the national conversation.

Unfortunately, that has generally not been the message. Too often, the message has been: under no circumstances—not only the exceptional iluyim, not only those learning with extraordinary diligence, not only everyone formally registered in yeshivah, but even those outside serious learning. It is therefore unfair to place primary responsibility for the resulting deadlock upon the courts, secular Israelis, or organizations supposedly hostile to Torah.

Economic Pressure Is Not Hatred of Torah

Mr. Paley also recounts a private meeting at a Jewish Funders Network conference in Phoenix during the judicial reform controversy. He writes that two influential philanthropists told him that they did not wish to lower the flames of public conflict but wanted to “make them burn even hotter.” If accurately remembered and understood, the story is disturbing. But it is also an anonymous and unverifiable anecdote. Readers are not told who made the statements, precisely what they meant, what political strategy was under discussion, or whether those two individuals represented any broader philanthropic network. Most importantly, the meeting occurred during the battle over judicial reform, not the present draft dispute.

It is an enormous leap from two unnamed individuals expressing a confrontational political strategy during that crisis to the conclusion that opposition to broad Charedi exemptions is driven by hatred of Torah. Even when philanthropists or advocacy groups support economic sanctions connected to the draft, that does not establish that their objective is to cause Charedi families hardship for its own sake or to damage Torah learning.

Many Israelis have concluded—rightly or wrongly—that decades of voluntary targets, unenforced promises, political postponements, and appeals for gradual change have failed, and that meaningful economic consequences are the only measures likely to bring about actual change. That position may be criticized. Particular sanctions may be excessive, inequitable, harmful to innocent family members, or counterproductive. But it is unfair simply to characterize economic pressure as evidence of hatred toward Torah. Indeed, recent data suggest that economic consequences may affect enlistment, although sanctions alone cannot produce broad change without appropriate military frameworks and a change in communal leadership. [8]

The Opposition Is Not Limited to Peleg Yerushalmi

There is another painful omission. The road-blocking demonstrations associated with Peleg Yerushalmi are often dismissed as the conduct of an extremist fringe that does not represent mainstream Charedi society. There is truth in that distinction. It would be unfair to say that all mainstream leaders approve of every roadblock, abusive slogan, or incident of violence. Rav Dov Landau, for example, ordered the cancellation of a major demonstration that was expected to paralyze important roads.

But Peleg Yerushalmi cannot be used as a convenient alibi, allowing the rest of the Charedi leadership to claim that the entire phenomenon belongs to someone else. The same demonstration had previously received Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch’s approval. Mainstream spiritual leaders have called upon military police not to arrest Charedi draft evaders, political leaders have visited jailed evaders and honored their resistance, and the massive anti-draft rally of October 2025 brought together participants from across much of the Charedi spectrum. [9]

Thus, while there may be disagreements over tactics, the underlying message of categorical opposition to meaningful compulsory enlistment is hardly confined to Peleg Yerushalmi.

What has largely been missing is a comparably powerful, collective, and sustained declaration by mainstream Charedi leadership saying that blocking ordinary citizens from reaching work, hospitals, airports, or their families is wrong; that harassing soldiers and police is wrong; that calling Jewish soldiers Nazis, murderers, or enemies of Torah is intolerable; and that young Charedi men who choose to serve honorably in appropriate religious frameworks must not be shamed or treated as though they have abandoned Torah.

Individual voices have condemned particular incidents. But there has not been a forceful, united repudiation comparable in strength and visibility to the repeated declarations that no Charedi young man will serve.

Who Is the “Olam HaTorah”?

This brings me to what I found perhaps most painful in Mr. Paley’s article: the repeated use of the expressions “the Torah world” and “Olam HaTorah” as though they were synonymous with the Charedi world.

By what authority does any one community claim exclusive ownership of the title “Olam HaTorah”?

Israel contains a vast and magnificent Torah world outside the Charedi community. There are hesder yeshivot, yeshivot gevohot, kollelim, rabbanim, roshei yeshivah, serious talmidei chachamim, and thousands of deeply committed yirei Shamayim whose students and graduates proudly serve in the IDF.

Their batei midrash are filled with serious Torah learning. Their roshei yeshivah have produced major works of halachah, Tanach, Gemara, and machshavah. Their students learn intensely, leave the beit midrash to defend the Jewish people, and return—sometimes after many exhausting and dangerous months—to continue learning.

Since October 7, that Torah community has paid an almost unbearable price. Yeshivah students, rabbanim, graduates, and fathers of large families have served repeated deployments. Some have fallen. Others have returned wounded in body or spirit. Their wives and children have carried extraordinary burdens.

I personally know a Rav and businessman, the father of five young children, who recently reached one thousand days of military service since October 7. He has not abandoned Torah. His service is not evidence that Torah is unimportant to him. His willingness to place his life, livelihood, and family stability at risk for the Jewish people is itself an expression of Torah values.

Their Torah is not second-class Torah. Their mesirut nefesh is not a concession to secular values. They are also the Olam HaTorah.

Indeed, many of the strongest critics of broad Charedi exemptions are not secular enemies of religion. They are rabbanim, talmidei chachamim, religious soldiers, roshei yeshivah, parents of soldiers, and families who have buried sons raised in Torah homes. The disagreement is not simply between “the Torah world” and those who oppose Torah. It is a profound disagreement within the Torah world concerning what the Torah requires when the Jewish people are at war.

Honoring Torah—or Constitutionalizing Exemption?

The same problem appears in Mr. Paley’s discussion of the proposed Basic Law: Torah Study.

No believing Jew needs to be persuaded that Torah learning is a foundational value of the Jewish people. Of course it is. Torah is the heart of our national identity and spiritual existence, and the State of Israel should honor, support, encourage, and celebrate serious Torah learning.

But the controversy was never merely about issuing an innocent declaration that Torah study is important. Earlier versions of the proposed legislation went considerably further. They provided that those undertaking long-term Torah study would be regarded, regarding their rights and obligations, as performing meaningful service for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. Legal analysts, therefore, understood the proposal as an attempt to create constitutional support for draft exemptions and prevent those who do not serve from losing government benefits. [10]

Since Mr. Paley’s article appeared, the most explicit provisions have been removed, leaving only the declaration that Torah study is a foundational value in the heritage of the Jewish people. That change is significant and welcome. Nevertheless, Mr. Paley’s own article makes clear that his argument was never merely symbolic. He describes the proposed Basic Law as providing a constitutional foundation for legislation protecting lomdei Torah from repeated judicial invalidation and calls for a framework protecting yeshivah students from criminal and economic sanctions. Thus, the concern raised by critics was not imaginary. Mr. Paley himself connects constitutional recognition of Torah study directly to preserving exemptions and protection from sanctions.

That raises a serious question of fairness. Israel does have Basic Law: The Military, but that law primarily establishes the status and command structure of the IDF, its subordination to civilian authority, and the legal basis for conscription. It does not elevate military service, national sacrifice, equality of burden, or defense of the country as a foundational constitutional value comparable to the constitutional recognition sought for Torah study. [11]

Why should one form of contribution receive special constitutional elevation precisely when that status is intended to justify exemption from another form of contribution—one involving years of service, repeated reserve duty, separation from family, damage to careers and businesses, physical danger, injury, and sometimes death?

Rav Yaakov Medan’s fierce criticism of the original proposal cannot honestly be dismissed as hostility toward Torah. Rav Medan is a major rosh yeshivah and talmid chacham. He stated explicitly that he had no objection to recognizing Torah study as a foundational Jewish value or encouraging those who learn. His objection was to using Torah as a mechanism for avoiding responsibility. He wrote that he could not recall another Israeli law so “filled with chillul Hashem, degradation of Torah, and distortion of Torah,” and emphasized that Torah learning does not exempt a Jew from the mitzvot taught by the Torah—including obligations toward fellow Jews and participation in defending them from enemies. [12]

Whether one agrees with every word of his criticism or not, it is profoundly unfair to portray his position, or that of the many Religious Zionist rabbanim who share it, as evidence that Israeli society has turned against Torah. They are not opposing Torah. They are disputing the use of Torah as a constitutional shield for a broad communal exemption.

Partnership Requires Two Partners

Nor is every demand for legal equality evidence of a campaign against Charedi life. The Supreme Court may be criticized, and particular rulings, legal doctrines, and sanctions may be debated. But the courts did not repeatedly strike down draft arrangements simply because judges disapproved of Torah learning. Their stated concerns involved severe inequality and the failure of successive arrangements to achieve their own declared goals of meaningful participation. [13]

One may disagree with those decisions. But it is a terrible accusation to transform every demand for equality, every call for meaningful enlistment, and every objection to blanket exemption into evidence of hatred toward Torah.

There is certainly a need for greater respect toward Charedi society and greater understanding of the incomparable value of Torah learning. There is a need for military frameworks in which Charedi young men can serve without sacrificing their religious identity. There is also a need to recognize and welcome the admirable willingness of older working Charedim who wish to contribute.

But partnership requires honesty and movement from both sides. It requires the IDF to admit past mistakes, earn trust, enforce its religious commitments, and provide serious—not cosmetic—religious protections. It also requires Charedi leadership to acknowledge that the present burden is unsustainable; that not every young man is an exceptional Torah scholar; that men who are not genuinely learning cannot honestly be exempted in the name of their Torah learning; and that the lives, families, Torah, livelihoods, and spiritual commitments of those who serve are not less precious than those of the community they defend.

Mr. Paley concludes by calling for partnership rather than polarization. I share that hope. But partnership cannot begin by describing nearly every demand for shared responsibility as an attack upon lomdei Torah. It cannot begin by placing all blame upon courts, secularists, philanthropists, and ideological activists while overlooking the categorical refusal of much of Charedi leadership to encourage meaningful service by draft-age young men, including many who are not learning. And it cannot begin by claiming, explicitly or implicitly, that one community alone is “the Olam HaTorah.”

Moshe Rabbeinu’s question remains:

“Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”

That question was not asked by a progressive NGO, a secular journalist, an anti-religious philanthropist, or the Supreme Court.

It was asked by Moshe Rabbeinu.

It deserves an answer—not an accusation that those asking it are enemies of Torah.

Rabbi Yehuda L. Oppenheimer

Sources

[1] Statements by Leading Chareidi Rabbanim Regarding Enlistment

For Rav Yitzchak Yosef’s statement that “it is forbidden to go to the army, even for one who is idle,” see: “Ex-Chief Rabbi on Haredi Draft: ‘Even Those Who Are Idle Are Forbidden from Going to the Army,’” The Times of Israel, December 15, 2024.

For the recordings in which Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch described the proposed draft legislation as a means of gaining time and rejected the idea that Chareidi leadership would seek to meet the proposed enlistment targets, see: Stav Levaton and Times of Israel staff, “New Recordings Indicate Haredi Rabbis See Conscription Law Merely as Way to Buy Time,” The Times of Israel, January 22, 2026. “‘No One Will Go to the Army’: Recordings of Haredi Rabbis Revealed,” Israel National News, January 21, 2026. This report includes Rav Hirsch’s statements: “Do they think we will want to meet the target? Of course we will not want to,” and, regarding young men outside existing yeshivah frameworks, “God forbid.”

For Rav Dov Landau’s declaration that “not a single yeshivah student, not even one, will go to the army,” see: “Top Haredi Rabbi Vows No Yeshiva Student Will Be Drafted to IDF,” The Times of Israel, February 12, 2026.

[2] Employment Among Men Formally Registered as Yeshivah Students

Gabriel Gordon, “Workforce Participation of Haredi Yeshiva Students Under the Exemption Age,” Israel Democracy Institute, July 16, 2024.

The study examines reported employment among men ages eighteen through twenty-five who were formally registered in Chareidi yeshivot. It notes that the data include only officially reported employment and therefore may understate actual workforce participation.

[3] Response to Draft Notices

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, April 23, 2025:

Official Knesset report concerning 18,915 draft notices and 232 enlistments.

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, July 15, 2025:

Official Knesset report stating that approximately five percent of Chareidi recipients of draft notices had appeared as required during the relevant draft year.

See also:  Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, “A Year Since the Supreme Court’s Conscription Ruling,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 25, 2025.

[4] Shlav Bet Applicants and the Scope of Paley’s Proposal

Knesset Research and Information Center, report issued April 3, 2024:

Official Knesset Research and Information Center report concerning military-service eligibility and enlistment rates by population group.

The report states that approximately 4,000 Chareidi men applied through Shlav Bet between October 7, 2023, and the end of February 2024. Most were apparently over age twenty-six. Approximately 3,120 were found unsuitable, generally for medical reasons; approximately 880 were found fit; and approximately 600 were recruited. The report also records approximately 540 Chareidi men under age twenty-six entering ordinary compulsory service during the same period.

For the stated scope of Paley’s own proposal, see: “Executive Program: 2030,” Haredim for Israel’s Security / Institute for Strategy and Haredi Policy.

The program states expressly that it “is not a substitute for the Draft Law and does not apply to yeshiva students.” It is directed toward working Chareidim beyond the exemption age who are not designated for compulsory military service.

[5] Historical Development of the Torato Omanuto Arrangement

Yuval Shany and Mirit Lavi, “Development of the Haredi Exemption Law,” Israel Democracy Institute, March 7, 2024.

The historical chronology records approximately 400 exemptions in 1948; the 1958 requirement of active yeshivah study and provisions requiring varying forms of military service for those who left yeshivah; the establishment in 1967 of an annual limit of 800 exemptions; and the removal of numerical limits by the Begin government in 1977.

This history supports the distinction drawn in the letter between the limited original arrangement and the later development of a mass, effectively community-wide exemption.

[6] Chareidi and Yeshivah Participation During the War of Independence

Nati Gabbay, “The Haredi Soldiers Who Served in Israel’s War of Independence,” National Library of Israel, July 9, 2024.

The article draws upon archival documents and describes Gdud Tuvia, in which yeshivah students performed fortification work in besieged Jerusalem while continuing their Torah studies. It also discusses the agreement under which exceptional students received exemptions while other yeshivah students participated in the war effort under religiously appropriate conditions.

[7] Rav Chaim Kanievsky During the War of Independence

“Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, 94, Revered Torah Authority,” Chabad.org, March 21, 2022.

This biography states that Rav Chaim, then a twenty-year-old student at the Lomza Yeshivah in Petach Tikvah, was drafted during the War of Independence and served near Jaffa.

See also: “The Life of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, zt”l,” Aish.com, March 2022.

[8] Economic Sanctions and Their Possible Effect

Yohanan Plesner and Gilad Malach, “The Dramatic High Court Ruling on Economic Sanctions Against Haredi Draft Evaders,” Israel Democracy Institute, April 28, 2026.

The authors argue that existing economic consequences contributed to an increase in Chareidi enlistment from approximately 1,700 to approximately 2,800 during the preceding year. They also emphasize that sanctions alone are unlikely to produce a broad transformation without appropriate military frameworks, comprehensive legislation, and a change in the position of Chareidi communal leadership.

[9] Anti-Draft Demonstrations and Mainstream Chareidi Leadership

For the cancellation of a major planned demonstration after opposition from Rav Dov Landau, following earlier approval associated with Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, see: “Massive Haredi Anti-Draft Protest Planned for This Week Said Canceled,” The Times of Israel, June 2026.

For the breadth of participation in the October 2025 mass anti-draft rally, see: Shira Silkoff, Charlie Summers, and Sam Sokol, “Roadblocks and School Closures: What to Expect During Thursday’s Haredi Anti-Draft Rally,” The Times of Israel, October 30, 2025.

For statements by spiritual leaders associated with Shas and Degel HaTorah urging Military Police personnel not to participate in arrests of draft evaders, and for reports of Chareidi political leaders visiting jailed evaders, see: Sam Sokol, “Haredi Spiritual Leaders: Those Who Arrest Draft Dodgers Could Face Divine Retribution,” The Times of Israel, February 10, 2026.

[10] Proposed Basic Law: Torah Study

Benjamin Porat and Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, “Explainer: Basic Law: Torah Study and Its Implications,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 10, 2026.

The article reproduces the original proposal’s provision that those undertaking long-term Torah study would be considered, regarding their “rights and obligations,” as performing meaningful service for the State of Israel and the Jewish people. The authors explain why they believe that the provision was intended to provide constitutional support for continued exemptions and protection from economic consequences.

For the revised bill, after removal of the explicit provision equating Torah study with meaningful service, see: “House Committee Approves Basic Law Proposal: Torah Study for Final Readings,” Knesset, July 11, 2026.

See also: “Haredi Parties Give a Little Ground: Basic Law Won’t Explicitly Put Torah Study on Par with IDF Service,” The Times of Israel, July 9, 2026.

[11] Basic Law: The Military

Knesset, Basic Law: The Military — unofficial English translation.

The Basic Law establishes the legal status of the IDF, its subordination to civilian authority, its command structure, and the principle that military-service obligations are prescribed by law. It does not declare military service, equality in bearing the burden, or national sacrifice to be foundational constitutional values.

[12] Rav Yaakov Medan’s Criticism of the Proposed Basic Law

Rav Yaakov Medan, “חוק גדוש בחילול השם” — “A Law Replete with Chillul Hashem,” Arutz Sheva, June 9, 2026.

This is Rav Medan’s own article, not a journalistic summary. Rav Medan states that he has no objection to recognizing Torah study as a foundational Jewish value or to encouraging Torah learning. His objection is to the provision treating long-term Torah study as equivalent to meaningful national service.

He writes that he cannot recall another law in Israeli history so “filled with chillul Hashem, degradation of Torah, and distortion of Torah,” and argues that Torah study does not exempt a person from the obligations commanded by the Torah, including the obligation to defend fellow Jews from an enemy seeking to destroy them.

[13] Legal Basis of the Supreme Court Decisions

Suzie Navot, “A Sharp, Unequivocal, and Unanimous Supreme Court Decision to Draft Haredim,” Israel Democracy Institute, June 26, 2024.

The analysis explains that the June 25, 2024 ruling did not decide the ultimate merits of every possible future exemption law. Rather, the Court held unanimously that, after expiration of the previous statutory arrangement, the government lacked legal authority simply to decline to apply the Defense Service Law to Chareidi yeshivah students.

For a broader historical review of the Court’s previous decisions concerning equality and the effectiveness of earlier legislative arrangements, see: Yuval Shany and Mirit Lavi, “Development of the Haredi Exemption Law,” Israel Democracy Institute, March 7, 2024.

For an independent legal summary of the later enforcement ruling, see: Library of Congress, “Israel: High Court Imposes Sanctions on Individual Haredi Men Avoiding Draft,” Global Legal Monitor, July 1, 2026.

Shall Your Brothers Go to War While You Sit Here?

In this week’s Sidrah, Matos, the tribes of Reuven and Gad approach Moshe with what must have seemed to them like a reasonable request. The land east of the Jordan was particularly well suited for their livestock. Why not allow them to settle there rather than receive their inheritance together with the other tribes in Eretz Yisrael?

Moshe’s immediate response (Bamidbar 32:6) is devastating:

הַאַחֵיכֶם יָבֹאוּ לַמִּלְחָמָה וְאַתֶּם תֵּשְׁבוּ פֹה

“Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” 

Moshe does not begin by discussing military manpower or asking whether the other tribes can manage without them. He raises a much more basic moral question: How can you allow your brothers to place themselves in danger while you remain safely behind?

That question is impossible to read today without thinking about the crisis tearing Israeli society apart.

The issue is not whether Torah study is important. Its importance is beyond dispute. Torah is the heart of the Jewish people, and Israel must nurture great Torah scholars, Rabbanim, Dayanim, teachers and serious students who will preserve and transmit our spiritual inheritance.

The question is whether Torah supports the wholesale exemption of an entire and rapidly growing community from the burden of defending the Jewish people. Can it truly be maintained that virtually every young man enrolled in a Haredi yeshiva is exempt by Torah law, even during a prolonged national emergency? Can the declaration that “we will die rather than enlist” really be defended as the authentic voice of Torah?

And what of the thousands who are not learning full-time, or who are barely learning at all? Should they also be exempt simply because they are part of Haredi society?

I find that very difficult to accept.

The Argument from Shevet Levi

One of the main sources cited in support of exemption is the Rambam’s description of Shevet Levi. The Levi’im were separated from ordinary national pursuits so that they could serve Hashem, teach His ways and serve in the Mikdash. They did not receive a territorial inheritance and did not participate in war in the same manner as the other tribes.

The Rambam then adds that anyone whose spirit moves him to separate himself from worldly concerns and devote himself entirely to knowing and serving Hashem may attain a similar spiritual status (Hilchot Shemittah VeYovel 13:12–13).

These are magnificent words. But it is a very large jump from the Rambam’s description to a blanket exemption for every Haredi young man.

The Rambam is describing an exceptional person who gives up personal ambition and worldly calculation in order to devote himself wholly to Hashem. He is not describing an automatic status granted to every member of a particular community, regardless of whether he is actually learning seriously or living with that level of self-sacrifice.

More fundamentally, it is not clear that the Rambam intended to exempt even Shevet Levi from a war necessary to defend the Jewish people. The Mishnah states that in a Milchemet Mitzvah, everyone goes out, even a bridegroom from his chamber and a bride from her canopy (Sotah 8:7). The Rambam codifies this in Hilchot Melachim 7:4.

Important Torah authorities have therefore understood Shevet Levi’s special status as relating to ordinary national warfare, territorial conquest, division of spoils, or exemption from certain taxes and civic responsibilities. That is very different from saying that they could remain uninvolved while the entire nation faced mortal danger.

At the very least, the claim that the Rambam clearly and indisputably exempts today’s yeshiva population from defensive war is much weaker than is often suggested.

(Moreover, one may reasonably question how consistently the Shevet Levi argument is actually applied. When matters of great importance to the Haredi community arise, there is no hesitation to leave the beit midrash and engage vigorously in practical hishtadlus. Enormous efforts are made to bring out the vote for Haredi parties, fundraising (even by senior elderly Roshei Yeshiva), organizing mass demonstrations against proposed legislation and to secure the release of arrested yeshiva students. On a personal level as well, people understandably work hard to find the best doctors, suitable apartments, and appropriate shidduchim.

Except for a very small number of exceptional individuals, the Haredi world does not generally maintain that one should simply remain in the beit midrash, learn Torah, and trust that Hashem will arrange everything else without human effort. On the contrary, it strongly believes in taking practical steps to secure the things that matter.

One must therefore ask why, when the issue is the physical security of our brothers and sisters, and the country is convulsed by a frightening national emergency, the argument suddenly becomes that yeshiva students must remain exclusively in the beit midrash and that their Torah learning alone will protect everyone else. Why is vigorous hishtadlus considered necessary in virtually every other area of communal and personal life, but not when Jewish lives and the security of the nation are at stake?

There is much more that could be said along these lines, but that would take us beyond the present discussion.)

Torah Study and National Survival

There was a powerful historical reason for the original limited yeshiva exemptions.

After the Holocaust, the Torah world lay in ruins. The great yeshivot of Europe had been destroyed together with their Rabbanim and students. Rav Yitzchak Herzog and the Chazon Ish, among others, pleaded for the preservation of the small surviving remnant. At that time, drafting a few hundred remaining students was feared to endanger the rebuilding of Torah scholarship itself.

That was an extraordinary response to an extraordinary catastrophe. It does not follow that the same argument justifies exempting tens of thousands of young men generations later, when the Torah world in Israel has grown beyond anything they could have imagined.

Nor does military service necessarily mean the end of serious Torah learning. The hesder and broader Religious Zionist yeshiva worlds demonstrate that every day.

Their batei midrash are filled with serious and sometimes extraordinary Torah learning. Their students learn intensely, leave the beit midrash to defend the country, and then return after months of exhausting and dangerous service. Their Roshei Yeshiva have produced major works of halacha and Torah thought.

Since October 7, Religious Zionist communities have paid an almost unbearable price. Yeshiva students, graduates, Rabbanim and fathers of large families have served repeated reserve deployments. Some have fallen. Others have returned wounded in body or spirit. Their wives have held families together alone for months at a time.

A close friend of mine, a Rav and businessman with five young children, recently marked his 1,000th day of service since October 7. While he was away, his wife and children continued to carry the burden and worry about him from afar.

It is impossible to look honestly at such sacrifice and claim that military service and greatness in Torah are incompatible. These religious soldiers have also had a remarkable effect on comrades from nonreligious backgrounds, who have seen their faith, courage and self-sacrifice up close.

Their Torah is not second-class Torah. Their mesirut nefesh is not a concession to secular values. It is Torah lived under fire.

But these families are being pushed beyond what can reasonably be demanded of them. The army’s desperate need for manpower has led to longer and more frequent reserve duty and the extension of initial service for younger soldiers. Too much is being demanded from too few.

That cannot continue indefinitely.

The Spiritual Dangers Are Real

At the same time, the spiritual concerns of the Haredi community should not be mocked or dismissed.

The IDF in its early years often displayed a serious anti-religious bias. While matters are far better today, military life can still present real religious challenges. Questions of modesty, interaction between men and women, standards of kashrut, time for tefillah and Torah study, and exposure to a very different culture are all legitimate concerns.

Parents and roshei yeshiva are not irrational for worrying that a young man raised in a protected environment may be changed by military service.

But the existence of a problem does not prove that no solution is possible.

The army already contains hesder units, Haredi-oriented programs and other forms of religious accommodation. Some have worked better than others, and mistrust has accumulated on both sides. Still, there is no reason in principle why strictly male units could not be developed with uncompromising standards of kashrut, proper time for tefillah and Torah study, and commanders trained to respect the religious commitments of their soldiers.

None of this can be developed seriously, however, if the Haredi position begins and ends with “under no circumstances.”

What would happen if leading Roshei Yeshiva and Haredi representatives came to the army with a true spirit of collaboration and a genuine desire to find a solution? They could say: We recognize the need. We recognize what is being asked of reservists and their families. We want to share responsibility, but we must build a framework that protects our young men spiritually.

They might also acknowledge how painful and infuriating it will be when Bein Hazmanim arrives and thousands of yeshiva students are vacationing, hiking and swimming, while other young men continue serving in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere under dangerous conditions.

The army, for its part, would have to respond honestly as well: We are not trying to remake your sons. We need their help, and we are prepared to construct appropriate frameworks together with you.

That would not settle every disagreement. It would, however, be a beginning.

Before Tisha B’Av

Soon we will sit on the floor on Tisha B’Av and mourn the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash. Speakers throughout the Jewish world will explain that the Second Temple was destroyed because of sinat chinam. We will lament Jewish division and speak about the need for greater ahavat Yisrael.

But we must ask whether our conduct in the weeks before Tisha B’Av matches those words.

Blocking roads used by parents, workers, elderly people and emergency vehicles does not increase love of Torah. Hurling ugly epithets at soldiers and police officers does not sanctify Hashem’s Name. Calling those who carry the physical burden of defending us persecutors of Torah creates resentment not only against Haredim, but against Torah itself.

The demonstrators may believe they are protecting the Beit Midrash. But when the defense of Torah is expressed through contempt for other Jews, it can produce exactly the sinat chinam we will soon sit and mourn. It also creates a terrible Chilul Hashem.

And the resentment is not confined to secular Israelis. Many observant families have watched sons, husbands and fathers disappear, hundreds of whom will never come back, thousands who come back injured, and some "merely" into reserve duty again and again, while another community insists that its sons must remain completely untouched.

These families are reaching the breaking point. So is Israeli society.  It is no longer unthinkable that there will be a civil war, רח"ל. 

A Question That Cannot Be Avoided

Moshe did not deny Reuven and Gad the right to live where they wished. Once they promised to cross the Jordan and fight until the other tribes had received their inheritance, he accepted their proposal.

The lesson was not that every Jew must live in exactly the same way. It was that no tribe may create a comfortable arrangement for itself while leaving danger to everyone else.

There may properly be exemptions for a limited number of exceptional Torah scholars whose uninterrupted learning is truly a national necessity. There must be exemptions for those who are medically or psychologically unable to serve. There can be different forms and lengths of service, including important roles outside combat.

But a categorical exemption for an entire community is becoming morally, socially and militarily impossible to sustain.

The Torah world must help formulate a solution rather than declare every solution forbidden. The government and army must offer genuine safeguards rather than empty promises. Both sides must move beyond slogans, insults and political gamesmanship.

A catastrophe looms — not only a security catastrophe, but a rupture within the Jewish people.

Moshe’s question cannot be shouted down, blocked on a highway or dismissed as anti-Torah:

“Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?”

We need an answer that is faithful both to the Torah we learn and to the brothers whose lives defend our ability to learn it.

Published in the Jewish Press July 10, 2026

Parshat Shlach: The Time for Grasshoppers Is Over

The tragedy of the Meraglim did not begin with a lie. That is part of what makes the story so frightening.

When the spies returned from Eretz Yisrael, much of what they said was factually true. The land was powerful. The cities were fortified. The inhabitants were formidable. They had seen real danger, and they reported it. But then the report changed. It became interpretation. It became fear and smelled of defeat.

The turning point comes near the end of their words:

וַנְּהִי בְעֵינֵינוּ כַּחֲגָבִים וְכֵן הָיִינוּ בְּעֵינֵיהֶם

“We were in our own eyes like grasshoppers, and so we were in their eyes.”

Famously, the Kotzker Rebbe is said to have asked: it is bad enough that you were like grasshoppers in your own eyes — but what business is it of yours what you were in their eyes?

That question exposes the depth of the failure. The spies did not merely fear the giants. They allowed the imagined gaze of the giants to define them. They looked at themselves through the eyes of the people they were supposed to confront. Once that happened, the battle was already lost.

A person can face danger and still have courage. A nation can recognize difficulty and still move forward. But when a person begins to see himself through the contempt of his opponent, his strength collapses from within. The problem is no longer the enemy’s size. The problem is his own smallness.

This is why the report of the Meraglim was so destructive. They did not simply say, “The challenge is great.” They said, “We are small.” They did not merely describe giants. They turned the hostile eyes of others into the mirror in which they saw themselves.

That weakness led quickly to despair. If we are grasshoppers, then we cannot enter the Land: we should never have left Egypt. That is how spiritual collapse works. It begins with fear, but it ends by rewriting the entire past.

Faith does not mean there are no giants.
Faith means the giants are not the measure of who we are.

The lesson is painfully current.

The Jewish people today also live under the gaze of others. Every action is judged. Every act of self-defense is placed before the court of world opinion, often by people who showed little moral clarity when Jewish blood was spilled, Jewish families were shattered, and Jewish hostages were dragged into darkness.

Of course, we must act with morality. Torah never gives us permission to become cruel. But morality is one thing, and dependence on the approval of hostile nations is another. There is a deep difference between asking, “What does Hashem demand of us?” and asking, “How will those who hate us describe us?”

The Meraglim teach us that the second question can become poisonous.

A recent example was the uproar over Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the detained flotilla activists. These were not innocent tourists who wandered into the wrong harbor. They came as part of a deliberate political provocation, to embarrass Israel and feed the world another image of Jewish guilt. They came to shout “Free Palestine,” to portray Israel as cruel, with little concern for Jewish blood, Jewish hostages, Jewish families, and Jewish survival.

Then Ben-Gvir appeared before them with an Israeli flag. Hatikvah was played. Their chants were stopped. They were made to understand that they had not arrived in a powerless country, but in the sovereign State of Israel.

A proud nation does not collapse in shame because anti-Israel activists discovered that Israel has a flag, an anthem, and a backbone

Was it everyone’s style? No. Was it delicate? No. Could one debate the optics or the tone? Certainly. But the wave of Jewish outrage that followed was itself revealing. We were told that all decent Jews should feel embarrassed. We were told that this was shameful, disgraceful, reprehensible, “not the Jewish way.”

Well, boo hoo.

What exactly was the great moral catastrophe? They were not beaten nor tortured. They were not innocent bystanders being humiliated for no reason. They came to provoke the Jewish state, and they were forced to confront the fact that the Jewish state is not required to bow its head before them.

If they felt humiliated, cry me a river.

A proud nation does not collapse in shame because anti-Israel activists discovered that Israel has a flag, an anthem, and a backbone. A proud nation does not apologize for refusing to let hostile provocateurs turn its ports, soldiers, and sovereignty into theater for the world’s condemnation. A proud nation can insist on humane conduct and still say, without apology, that those who come to weaken us, accuse us, and deny our rights have no claim on our national self-respect.

This is not cruelty. This is not moral blindness.
This is the refusal to live as grasshoppers.

The same issue appears, in a different and more painful way, inside Israeli society itself. Since October 7, tens of thousands of reserve soldiers, including many religious men,  have left homes, wives, children, jobs, and ordinary life to carry the burden of defending the Jewish people. Families have lived with uncertainty, fear, exhaustion, grief, and absence. The country sees this. The country feels this. And the country has largely run out of patience with a situation in which so many demand to play no role in national defense while still expecting the rest of society to carry the military, economic, and emotional burden.

But here too, the deeper problem is fear.

The leaders of Haredi society have been afraid to engage in a serious, honest conversation with the army and the government about how Haredim can participate in national service while remaining fully faithful to Torah, mitzvos, kashrus, tefillah, and their own religious standards. Everyone knows that there are thousands of young men who are not truly learning full-time. Everyone knows that the Haredi community is growing rapidly and will be an increasingly large part of Israel’s future. Everyone knows that something must change.

Yet the conversation is often trapped in old fears: if we enter the army, we will be destroyed; if we participate, our children will be pulled away; if we compromise at all, everything will collapse. These fears may have roots in real concerns, but fear cannot be allowed to become the permanent policy of a growing part of the Jewish people.

This is not a call to empty the batei midrash. A Jewish state should have room for genuine talmidei chachamim whose lives are fully dedicated to Torah. Their learning is precious, and it is part of the strength of Klal Yisrael. But that cannot justify a system in which everyone is treated as if he is learning day and night, when everyone knows that many are not. Courage and vision would mean building serious frameworks for those who are not full-time scholars — frameworks that allow them to serve the nation without being asked to abandon who they are.

It is a question of will. It is a question of leadership. It is a question of whether we are capable of thinking larger than the fears of the past.

This too is part of the failure of the Meraglim. They saw danger and concluded that the future was impossible. They took a real concern and turned it into paralysis. But Jewish leadership cannot be built on paralysis. It must be built on faith, responsibility, and courage.

This is especially important in our generation

For many centuries, the Jew in Golus often had no choice but to keep his head down. He lived under foreign rule, dependent on the goodwill of others, often tolerated but rarely secure. The instinct to be careful, quiet, and cautious was not cowardice. Often, it was survival.

But we are not living in that same historical moment.

We have not yet reached the final redemption. Mashiach has not yet come. The world is still broken, Jewish suffering has not disappeared, and we still await the day when Hashem’s presence will be fully revealed. But neither are we the powerless Jew of the dark galus. Hashem has granted us the unbelievable privilege of living in a time of Jewish return, Jewish sovereignty, Jewish defense, and Jewish rebuilding. We have the State of Israel. We have a strong army. We have a flourishing world of Torah. We have seen Jewish life rise again and return to its Land with strength, creativity, courage, and faith.

That is what I have called the Isaac Covenant: the stage of Jewish history in which we are no longer merely surviving as wandering strangers, but beginning to live again as a rooted people in our Land. Yitzchak Avinu does not wander in the same way as Yaakov. He digs wells. He plants. He remains in the Land. He represents the covenant of rootedness, continuity, and strength within Eretz Yisrael.

That covenant brings responsibility. It demands that we stop thinking like fugitives when Hashem has given us the tools of nationhood. It demands that we stop apologizing for existing, stop apologizing for defending ourselves, and stop apologizing for having a flag, an army, and a country.

No, this does not mean triumphalism. It does not mean that every policy is correct or that every leader is beyond criticism. It does not mean that Jewish power is automatically holy. Power must be guided by Torah, by wisdom, by restraint, and by moral seriousness.

But it does mean that Jewish weakness is not a virtue. Fear is not humility. Self-erasure is not morality. And the habit of seeing ourselves through the contempt of others is not the Jewish way.

Against the collapse of the Meraglim stood Calev. He did not deny the facts. He did not pretend there were no giants. He said:

עָלֹה נַעֲלֶה וְיָרַשְׁנוּ אֹתָהּ כִּי יָכוֹל נוּכַל לָהּ

“We shall surely go up and inherit it, for we can surely do it.”

Calev did not speak the language of fantasy. He spoke the language of faith. Faith does not mean that there are no giants. Faith means that the giants are not the measure of who we are.

The Jewish people need morality, but we also need pride. We need compassion, but we also need courage. We need to care deeply about what Hashem demands of us, but we must stop trembling before the eyes of those who despise us.

A Jew may not be cruel. But a Jew may stand tall. A Jewish state may not abandon its conscience. But it also may not abandon its backbone.

The time for grasshoppers is over

We are not yet at the end of history. We still await the final redemption. But Hashem has brought us into a new chapter, and we must have the courage to live in it. We must act with dignity, strength, and faith. We must defend Jewish life without apology. We must honor those who carry the burden. We must demand responsibility from all parts of the nation. And above all, we must stop asking, “How are we in their eyes?”

The only eyes that can define us are the eyes of Hashem.

Parshas Beha’aloscha: Bringing Kedusha Home

There is a striking shift in Sefer Bamidbar.

For much of the beginning of the sefer, everything appears ordered, dignified, and full of promise. Klal Yisrael has left Mitzrayim, received the Torah at Har Sinai, survived the debacle of the Golden Calf, and built the Mishkan. Each shevet has been counted and has taken its place around the Mishkan with its own flag and renewed sense of purpose. The Leviim are counted and prepared for their sacred role. The trumpets sound, the camp begins to travel, and the nation seems ready to move forward toward its future in Eretz Yisrael.

Then come the upside-down nuns, framing the familiar words of “Vayehi Binsoa Ha’Aron,” and suddenly the tone changes. The journey that had begun with such promise starts to unravel. The people complain. They grumble. They long for the watermelons and onions they imagine enjoying in the “good old days” of Mitzrayim. Moshe Rabbeinu reaches a point of anguish and cries out that he can no longer carry the burden alone. The people gorge themselves on quail, and many die. Soon afterward comes the painful episode of Miriam, followed in the next parsha by the tragedy of the Meraglim.

What happened?

On the surface, the complaints are about food, discomfort, and the hardships of travel. But the Torah often asks us to listen beneath the surface. When complaints become constant, there is usually something deeper taking place. The words people use are not always the whole story. Sometimes the frustration we hear is only the outer layer of a more painful sense of loss.

One of the major transitions taking place in these parshios is the replacement of the Bechoros by the Leviim. The Torah states this explicitly in Parshas Beha’aloscha:

כִּי לִי כׇל־בְּכוֹר בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל בָּאָדָם וּבַבְּהֵמָה בְּיוֹם הַכֹּתִי כׇל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם הִקְדַּשְׁתִּי אֹתָם לִי׃
וָאֶקַּח אֶת־הַלְוִיִּם תַּחַת כׇּל־בְּכוֹר בִּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל׃

“For every firstborn among Bnei Yisrael is Mine, among man and animal; on the day I struck every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them to Me. And I took the Leviim in place of every firstborn among Bnei Yisrael.”

Originally, the Bechoros carried a special kedusha. They were sanctified at the time of Yetzias Mitzrayim, when Hashem struck the firstborn of Egypt and spared the firstborn of Klal Yisrael. Before the Mishkan was established, the Bechoros were associated with bringing korbanos and serving Hashem in a unique way. They were, in a sense, the spiritual representatives within each family.

That model is very significant. Kedusha was not meant to be limited to one central institution or to one special group. Every family was meant to have within it a representative of holiness. Every home was meant to include someone who embodied a higher calling. The sacred was not meant to live only in a distant sanctuary. It was meant to be woven into family life itself.

But then came the Eigel HaZahav.

Rashi explains that the Bechoros had originally belonged to Hashem, but “טעו בעגל” — they erred with the Eigel. At the moment of crisis, when Moshe Rabbeinu called out, “Mi LaHashem Elai — whoever is for Hashem, come to me,” it was Shevet Levi that stepped forward. The Bechoros, who had been entrusted with a special spiritual role, did not rise to the moment in the same way. From that point onward, the Leviim took their place.

The Sforno adds a powerful layer. He explains that the firstborn of Mitzrayim were struck because they were the most honored members of society. They were the ones others looked up to, and therefore the responsibility of the nation rested upon them. They should have protested. They should have led. They should have used their stature to resist evil.

Although Am Yisrael had also sunk to the forty-ninth level of tumah, to the point that the angels famously wondered why they were more worthy of being saved than the Egyptians, the Bechoros of Klal Yisrael were nevertheless spared and sanctified. But that sanctity came with responsibility. According to the Sforno, they were initially made holy in a way that would have removed them from ordinary work entirely, much like the firstborn animal is restricted from ordinary use. At the same time, Hashem commanded that they be redeemed, allowing them to return to ordinary life.

In other words, the Bechor is redeemed, but not simply ordinary. He is padui, redeemed, and yet still marked by kedusha. He returns to the world of family life, business, and daily human activity, but he is meant to carry a memory of holiness into that world. His kedusha is not erased. It is transformed into a mission.

This is a remarkable idea. The original ideal was not that the holy person should be detached from the family. It was that every family should have holiness within it. Every home should contain someone whose life reminds the family that a Jewish home is not merely a private household. It is a place where Hashem’s presence can dwell.

After the Eigel, however, that model changed. The Bechoros lost their role, and the Leviim were chosen in their place.

This may help us understand the emotional undercurrent of Sefer Bamidbar. The Bechoros did not merely lose an honor; they lost a mission. A role that had once belonged inside every family was now transferred to one shevet. Avodas Hashem became more centralized. The Mishkan stood at the center, and the Leviim surrounded it as its guardians and servants.

Of course, this was necessary. After the failure of the Eigel, Klal Yisrael needed structure, boundaries, and a more protected form of avodah. But something was also lost. The ideal had been that every home should contain its own point of kedusha, its own living reminder that Jewish life is meant to be elevated from within.

Perhaps this is part of what lies beneath the grumbling in Beha’aloscha. The people complain about this and about that, but underneath there is a deeper discomfort. They are struggling with displacement. They are struggling with a new reality in which some have been moved aside, others elevated, and the original dream has been diminished.

The tragedy is that instead of asking, “What did we lose, and how can we grow from it?” they asked, “Why were we pushed away?” Instead of reflecting on what led to the change, they complained about the change itself.

That mistake is painfully human. When we lose a position, an opportunity, a role, or a sense of importance, our first instinct is often to focus on the pain of displacement. We wonder why someone else was chosen. We feel overlooked. We feel the sting of no longer being needed in the same way. But the deeper question is not only, “Why did this happen to me?” The deeper question is, “What is Hashem asking of me now?”

The story of the Bechoros and Leviim is not only about ancient roles in the desert. It is about the ongoing challenge of bringing kedusha into real life. The formal centers of holiness are essential: the shul, the beis midrash, the yeshiva, the places where Torah and tefillah are protected and nurtured. But they were never meant to replace the Jewish home.

The sacred was not meant to live only in a distant sanctuary. It was meant to be woven into family life itself

The home remains the place where kedusha is tested most honestly. It is in the home that patience is practiced. It is in the home that children learn what matters. It is in the home that Shabbos is felt, not merely observed. It is in the home that Torah becomes tone, warmth, discipline, language, and memory. A person may be inspired in shul, but the question is whether that inspiration comes home with him.

This is one of the beautiful messages that emerges from the idea of the Bechoros. They represented kedusha inside the family circle. They symbolized the possibility that every Jewish home could have someone who carries the mission, someone who reminds the family that life is meant to be lifted.

In a broader sense, that responsibility does not belong only to a literal firstborn. Every person can become that presence in a home. Every parent, child, sibling, or grandparent can be the one who brings more patience, more Torah, more dignity, more emunah, and more sensitivity into the family.

Moshe Rabbeinu expresses this ideal powerfully later in the parsha. When Eldad and Meidad prophesy in the camp, Yehoshua is disturbed. But Moshe responds, “Would that the entire people of Hashem could be prophets.” Moshe does not want holiness to remain limited to the few. His dream is that the spirit of Hashem should rest upon everyone.

That is the ultimate vision: not a Judaism where kedusha is confined to official spaces and official people, but a Judaism where the presence of Hashem is felt throughout the camp, and especially in the home.

A few parshiyot earlier, in the vision of a blessed future of Parshas Bechukosai, the Torah described this dream with the words:

וְהִתְהַלַּכְתִּי בְּתוֹכְכֶם — “I will walk among you.”

Walking together is not about reaching a destination. It is like taking a stroll after the chulent. It is about closeness, companionship, and a life in which Hashem is not distant, but present.

That remains our avodah.

The Mishkan stood in the middle of the camp. But the goal was always that its light should reach every home

We may not have the Mishkan today. We may not have the Leviim singing in the Beis Hamikdash. We may not fully understand how the roles of Leviim and Bechoros will be restored in the future. But we do know this: the dream of kedusha in the home has never disappeared.

A Jewish home can be a place of holiness. A Shabbos table can be a place of avodah. A conversation can be a place of Torah. A parent’s patience, a child’s respect, a word of encouragement, a moment of restraint — these too are ways of bringing Hashem into the camp.

The journey of Klal Yisrael in the midbar reminds us that spiritual greatness is not only measured by what happens at the center. It is also measured by what happens around it, in the tents, in the families, and in the ordinary spaces of life.

The Mishkan stood in the middle of the camp.

But the goal was always that its light should reach every home.

 

Printed in the Jewish Press  and the Queens Jewish Link, June 5, 2026

Bamidbar before Shavuot: What Do We Really Want?

There is a longstanding custom that Parshat Bamidbar is read on the Shabbat immediately preceding Shavuot. Various explanations are offered for this connection, but one of the most striking is also one of the simplest.

The Torah was given in a desert.

Not in a great city, not in a fertile or comfortable place, not in the center of civilization, but in a barren wilderness — a place empty of distraction, empty of security, empty of everything except the encounter between Klal Yisrael and the Ribbono Shel Olam.

Chazal see something deeply significant in that setting. Torah can only truly be acquired, they teach, by one who is willing to make himself like a Midbar — a place not crowded with competing obsessions and endless noise. The desert represents a stripping away of distractions, dependencies, and competing preoccupations, a willingness to stand exposed before something greater than oneself.

And perhaps, as we prepare for Shavuot, that raises an uncomfortable but necessary question: What do we really want?

Not what we officially believe in, or publicly identify with, or dutifully perform — but what actually occupies the center of our emotional lives? What are we moving toward instinctively, naturally, when no one is forcing us?

At the beginning of Parshat Bechukotai, the Torah speaks about blessing flowing from a life shaped by Torah. Rashi famously explains the phrase “Im Bechukosai Telechu” as “Sheteheyu Ameilim Batorah” — that we should labor in Torah.

This is not limited — as it is often understood in the classic yeshivish sense — to expending great intellectual effort to understand a difficult Tosfos. Indeed, a few lines later, Rashi explains that this labor exists “al menas lishmor u’lekayem” — in order to observe and fulfill the Torah. Torah is not meant merely to pass through the intellect. It is meant to shape the heart, the instincts, and ultimately the desires of a person.

From Obligation to Desire

There is a profound difference between doing something because we must and doing it because we are drawn toward it.

A person can daven because the halachah obligates him to daven, all the while glancing impatiently at the clock. Another person can approach tefillah as the most precious part of the day, as a chance to step away from the noise of life and stand before Hashem. Externally, they may appear to be doing the same thing. Internally, they are inhabiting completely different worlds.

The same is true of Torah itself. One person learns because that is what religious Jews are supposed to do. Another learns because Torah has become the place his soul naturally wants to go.

The Ohr HaChaim offers a remarkable insight into the words “Im bechukosai telechu.” He connects them to the verse in Tehillim in which David HaMelech says, “Chishavti derachai va’ashivah raglai el eidosecha” — “I considered my paths, and my feet returned me to Your testimonies.” Chazal describe David as sometimes believing he was headed elsewhere entirely, only to discover that his feet had instinctively carried him to the Beit Midrash.

It is a beautiful image. Torah had become so deeply woven into his being that it no longer felt external to him. It was not simply an obligation imposed from outside. It had become his natural gravitational pull.

Perhaps that is what Chazal mean by ameilus baTorah. Not merely working hard at Torah, but internalizing it so deeply that in everything one does, one’s inner world begins moving one toward Torah on its own.

And that brings us directly back to Shavuot.

We stay awake not because exhaustion is holy, but because longing is holy

One of the best-known customs of Shavuot is to remain awake throughout the night learning Torah. Chazal explain that this serves as a tikkun for the generation that stood at Har Sinai, who, according to the Midrash, went to sleep the night before Matan Torah and had to be awakened by Moshe Rabbeinu.

At first glance, the criticism seems difficult to understand. Human beings need sleep. Why is this viewed as a failing?

But perhaps the issue was not sleep itself. The issue was anticipation.

A kallah does not sleep indifferently the night before her wedding. There is excitement, longing, emotional readiness. One senses that something life-changing is about to occur.

And so every year, before we once again stand at Sinai, we attempt to demonstrate not merely commitment to Torah, but eagerness for Torah. We stay awake not because exhaustion is holy, but because longing is holy.

The tikkun of Shavuot is not merely to remain awake learning Torah through the night. It is to become the kind of Jews who cannot easily sleep because Torah matters to us that much.

This idea appears again in a different form in the story of the Meraglim.

The Maggid Meishorim, attributed to the Malach who regularly revealed himself to the Beit Yosef, asks a fascinating question. If Hashem had already promised Bnei Yisrael that Eretz Yisrael was good, why send spies at all? And why did Moshe instruct them to examine whether the country was good or bad, or whether the fruit was beautiful?

Had Hashem not already promised them, back in Egypt and repeatedly thereafter, that it was a beautiful and abundant land? What difference should any of that have made?

The mission of the meraglim was not to investigate Eretz Yisrael. It was meant to cultivate love for Eretz Yisrael.

The answer he suggested is profound. Moshe was not gathering military intelligence. He was trying to awaken longing. He was, as it were, winking at them: Go see what a wonderful land it is! See its beauty! Experience its goodness! I want you to return and speak about it in a way that will make the people yearn to enter it.

The mission of the meraglim was not to investigate Eretz Yisrael. It was meant to cultivate love for Eretz Yisrael.

And that, perhaps, was their deepest failure.

Rav Yissachar Shlomo Teichtal חי"ד developed this idea with extraordinary emotional force in Eim HaBonim Semeichah. Writing during the horrors of the Holocaust, after rethinking many of the assumptions with which he had grown up, Rav Teichtal returned again and again to one painful realization: Jews had become too comfortable in the Galut.

For centuries we prayed for Eretz Yisrael, cried over Eretz Yisrael, spoke passionately about Eretz Yisrael — yet our desire to return was often more theoretical than real, for we had grown too comfortable where we were to go there now.

He compared this to the generation that slept on the night before Matan Torah. If Chazal believed that a lack of visible anticipation for Torah required a tikkun for all generations, how much more so must we repair the failure to cultivate genuine longing for Eretz Yisrael.

His words are especially powerful because he himself never merited reaching the Land. He wrote with urgency, heartbreak, and longing, trying desperately to awaken Jews to the gift standing before them, but he was murdered before he could arrive.

Preparing for Shavuot Means Preparing the Heart

Perhaps that is part of what genuine preparation for Shavuot demands from us.

Not merely more learning, but deeper longing.

Parshat Bamidbar reminds us that the Torah was given in a wilderness, in a place stripped of distractions and competing loyalties. To receive Torah fully requires more than observance alone. It requires a willingness to let Torah become central — not merely something we fit into our lives, but something around which our lives begin to revolve.

The question, ultimately, is not only whether we are keeping Torah, but whether our hearts are moving toward it. Whether Torah has become a place to which we naturally gravitate; whether mitzvot feel merely obligatory or deeply precious; whether the things that are holy still occupy the center of our emotional lives.

Because the strongest and most enduring forms of Jewish life are rarely sustained by obligation alone. They are sustained by learning, slowly and sincerely, to desire the right things.