I recently published a lengthy response to Eli Paley’s Mishpacha article, “A Manufactured Deadlock,” in which he portrayed the Chareidi draft crisis largely as the product of courts, secular activists, philanthropists, and ideological organizations seeking to undermine lomdei Torah. My central objection was not only to several of his factual claims, but to his repeated use of the terms “the Torah world” and “Olam HaTorah” as though they referred exclusively to the Chareidi community.
Just as I was preparing to publish that response, the new issue of Mishpacha appeared with another article by Mr. Paley, “Friend or Foe?” Unfortunately, rather than reconsidering that framing, he doubles down on it.
Mr. Paley expresses surprise and dismay at the vehement opposition within the Religious Zionist community to the proposed Basic Law: Torah Study. He regards that opposition not merely as a disagreement over the draft or over constitutional law, but as evidence of a growing campaign against “the Torah world.” Although he acknowledges that the Religious Zionist community includes outstanding talmidei chachamim and sincere lovers of Torah, the structure and language of his article continue to treat the Chareidi community as the authentic Torah world, while Religious Zionist rabbanim and institutions appear as outsiders challenging or attacking it.
That is precisely the presumption to which I objected in my previous article.
Religious Zionists do not regard themselves as people standing outside the Torah world, invited to admire it from a respectful distance. They see themselves as an essential part of it: a community of roshei yeshivah, rabbanim, talmidei chachamim, yeshivah students, soldiers, and deeply committed yirei Shamayim who believe that Torah must be studied intensely and also lived courageously.
They believe that defending fellow Jews, refusing to stand idly by their blood, and participating in a milchemet mitzvah are not secular values imposed upon Torah. They are themselves Torah obligations.
Mr. Paley is particularly offended by those who suggest that authentic Torah observance includes more than remaining in the beit midrash. He writes critically of people who speak “brazenly” about a community of talmidei chachamim who strive to observe every detail of halachah, while allegedly ignoring many parts of Torah. He contrasts their position with what he calls “the full observance of all four sections of the Shulchan Aruch.”
But this badly misconstrues both their argument and the Shulchan Aruch itself.
The four sections of the Shulchan Aruch do not describe a Judaism confined to prayer, kashrut, Shabbat, and private religious devotion. They regulate marriage and family life, employment and commerce, property and damages, courts and testimony, relations between neighbors, responsibility for the safety of others, communal obligations, and the countless moral and legal complexities of living among other human beings.
Torah was not given only for people who remain insulated from the broader demands of life. It teaches how a Jew must conduct himself while earning a livelihood, building a society, protecting others, settling disputes, bearing communal responsibility, and confronting danger.
The Religious Zionist claim is not that military service replaces Torah learning or substitutes for observance of the Shulchan Aruch. It is that Torah must govern the whole of Jewish life—including the obligation to protect other Jews when their lives are threatened.
A young man who leaves the beit midrash to defend his people has not necessarily abandoned Torah for something foreign. He may be putting Torah into practice under the most demanding conditions imaginable.
Indeed, one might reasonably argue that a Torah life that confronts the full range of communal responsibilities described throughout the Shulchan Aruch is in some ways broader than a religious life built largely around personal study and the obligations necessary for one’s own family and livelihood. That is not a criticism of those who genuinely devote themselves to Torah scholarship. Their contribution is precious and indispensable. But it is a rejection of the claim that they alone represent the complete Torah life.
There is room for serious disagreement over how the obligations of Torah study and national defense should be balanced, which students should remain in full-time learning, and how the army must change in order to protect the religious lives of those who serve. But it is profoundly unfair to suggest that one side represents “the full observance” of Torah while the other has elevated military service into a counterfeit religion.
A Particularly Painful Time for This Message
The timing of Mr. Paley’s article makes its framing especially troubling.
During the summer bein hazmanim, many Israelis will see large numbers of yeshivah students who are supposedly protecting the country through the spiritual power of uninterrupted Torah study swimming in the Kinneret, hiking in the mountains, vacationing with friends, and strolling through city centers without the visible burdens being carried by the soldiers defending them.
There is nothing inherently wrong with yeshivah students taking reasonable time to rest. Torah students, like everyone else, need recreation, physical activity, family time, and an opportunity to renew their strength before returning to serious learning.
But the sight is understandably painful to parents whose sons are fighting in Lebanon, Gaza, or elsewhere; to wives whose husbands have been called up for yet another lengthy period of reserve duty; and to soldiers who have had little meaningful time with their families since October 7.
It is difficult to tell those families that an entire community must remain exempt because its young men are continuously protecting the nation through their Torah learning when many of those same young men are visibly enjoying an extended summer vacation.
The contrast becomes even more painful when some use part of that vacation not for study or rest, but to participate in demonstrations that block highways, disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens, prevent people from reaching work or medical appointments, and further inflame an already bitter national division.
Such conduct does not protect the honor of Torah. It drives many Israelis toward resentment of Torah and Torah scholars and creates a terrible chillul Hashem.
Those who are carrying the burden see their own sons serving without the freedom to spend weeks enjoying the Kinneret or hiking through the country. They see reservists leaving businesses, careers, spouses, and young children behind. They see soldiers risking injury or death while others block roads to demand protection from sharing that responsibility.
At precisely such a moment, it is particularly provocative to lecture the Religious Zionist community about its supposed failure to respect the “Olam HaTorah.”
The Source of the Anger
The Religious Zionist community has not reacted so strongly because it hates Torah scholars. Much of its anger comes from the feeling that its own Torah, rabbanim, yeshivot, sacrifices, and halachic worldview are being delegitimized.
Men who learn for years, then risk their lives defending Am Yisrael, are told—implicitly and sometimes almost explicitly—that they do not truly belong to the Olam HaTorah whose interests must be protected.
Their batei midrash are filled with serious Torah learning. Their roshei yeshivah have produced major works of halachah, Tanach, Gemara, and machshavah. Their students leave the beit midrash to defend the Jewish people and return—sometimes after many dangerous and exhausting months—to continue their learning.
Some have fallen. Others have returned wounded in body or spirit. Their wives and children have carried extraordinary burdens.
Their Torah is not second-class Torah. Their mesirut nefesh is not a concession to secular values.
They, too, are the Olam HaTorah.
When Mr. Paley presents opposition to the Basic Law as proof that the struggle is no longer about manpower but about an assault upon Torah itself, he turns a profound internal Torah dispute into an accusation of religious betrayal.
The Religious Zionist opposition to the law does not necessarily arise from rejection of Torah study. No serious religious Jew needs to be persuaded that Torah learning is foundational to the Jewish people.
The objection is to using the constitutional honor of Torah as a legal mechanism for preserving broad exemptions from national responsibility—particularly when many of those exempted are not truly learning full-time and when the soldiers and reservists carrying the burden receive no comparable constitutional recognition for their service and sacrifice.
Rav Yaakov Medan’s fierce opposition to the earlier version of the Basic Law cannot honestly be dismissed as hostility toward Torah. Rav Medan is a major rosh yeshivah and talmid chacham. He objected not to recognizing the importance of Torah learning, but to using Torah as a mechanism for avoiding responsibility. He described the proposal as a distortion of Torah and a chillul Hashem because Torah learning does not exempt a Jew from obligations toward fellow Jews facing an enemy.
That is a Torah argument, not an argument against Torah.
A Dangerous Narrowing of Torah
Mr. Paley sees the opposition to the Basic Law as evidence that the Religious Zionist community has become a foe of the Torah world. I see something very different: a painful disagreement within the Torah world, made far worse by the refusal to recognize the Religious Zionist community as an equal and legitimate part of it.
That refusal does not protect the honor of Torah. It narrows Torah into the ideology and lifestyle of one sector and then accuses those who disagree of hostility to Torah itself.
This continued doubling down is leading us down a dangerous road. It will deepen resentment toward Chareidim, Torah institutions, and talmidei chachamim—not because Israelis inherently hate Torah, but because Torah is being invoked to defend a policy that many experience as profoundly unequal, while the Torah, sacrifices, and legitimacy of those who serve are dismissed or belittled.
All of this could be avoided, or at least greatly reduced, through a collaborative approach: serious protection for exceptional Torah scholars; genuine and enforceable religious safeguards for Chareidi soldiers; and an honest recognition by Chareidi leadership that many draft-age young men, particularly those who are not truly learning full-time, must participate meaningfully in defending the Jewish people.
That would not diminish the Olam HaTorah.
It would broaden it, strengthen it, and restore honor to a name that belongs to far more than one community.
As a postscript, I note that Mr. Paley concludes his article with the following charge:
When the rabbinic leadership of Religious Zionism remains silent while Torah students are being persecuted, that silence, too, is heard as consent. Surely we have suffered enough; we don’t need any more churban in our days.
To which I would respond:
When the rabbinic leadership of the Chareidi world remains silent while Torah students create a terrible chillul Hashem—blocking highways, disrupting light-rail construction, causing chaos for ordinary citizens, and denigrating soldiers and police officers with vicious and contemptuous language—that silence, too, is heard as consent.
Surely we have suffered enough. We do not need any more churban in our days.
My previous article, responding to Eli Paley’s “A Manufactured Deadlock,” together with detailed notes and verifiable sources, may be read here.
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