Whom Do We Call Heroes?

Israel discovered some new heroes this week.

When a FlyDubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv suddenly plunged toward the ground after the captain was stabbed in the cockpit, an extraordinary series of events unfolded. Almost miraculously, among the passengers were people with precisely the skills needed for the emergency they suddenly faced. Some were able to overpower the attacker, others cared for the wounded, and still others had the ability to help take control of the aircraft and eventually bring everyone safely to the ground. It would be unrealistic to imagine that every ordinary group of passengers could have done what this group did.

But what mattered was that, when the moment came, people stepped forward and did whatever they were capable of doing. They did not know how the story would end. They saw that lives—their own and those of everyone around them—were in mortal danger, and each did what he could. Surely many prayed to Hashem for help, and the extraordinary combination of people and circumstances that came together at precisely the right moment seems almost miraculous. But immediate hishtadlus was necessary to bring about that Divine salvation.

That is heroism.

And it made me think about a very different celebration only days earlier, when thousands of Chareidim gathered in Yerushalayim during Chol Hamoed Sukkos to celebrate men who had been imprisoned for failing to report for military service. They were welcomed as “prisoners of the Torah world” who had supposedly courageously defended the honor of Torah by refusing to submit to the draft. There was music and dancing, and the “Prisoners of Zion” received gifts celebrating men who had supposedly gone to prison for the “sin” of preserving Judaism.

A similar celebration had taken place two days earlier in Bnei Brak, honoring some 160 men released from military prison. Many had been arrested not while sitting and learning in the Beis Midrash, but at Israel’s borders while traveling to or returning from Uman.

What an extraordinary contrast. In one case, people suddenly confronted danger and ran toward it. They did not ask who else might take care of the problem. Lives were at stake, and they acted. In the other,  a parade was held honoring people precisely because they had refused to participate in the enormous burden of defending the country in which they live.

I know which group I want to call heroes. I suspect that a great many Chareidim, including many who will never appear at demonstrations or make their voices heard publicly, know it too.

I watched those earlier celebrations with profound embarrassment. I do not want draft evaders to be the heroes of the Chareidi world. I want to honor the young men who genuinely devote themselves day and night to Torah learning, serious Talmidei Chachomim whose Torah illuminates the Jewish people.

I also want our children to see as heroes those Chareidi young men who put on an army uniform, or undertake meaningful national service, while remaining faithful to Torah and mitzvos. They demonstrate that being Chareidi does not mean turning one's back on one's fellow Jews and make a Kiddush Hashem by showing that Torah can produce not only devotion to learning, but responsibility, gratitude and concern for others.

Those are heroes worth celebrating.

Perhaps Koheles, which we read during Sukkos, has something important to say about what is worth celebrating:

 טוֹב לִשְׁמֹעַ גַּעֲרַת חָכָם מֵאִישׁ שֹׁמֵעַ שִׁיר כְּסִילִים

“It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than for a man to hear the song of fools.” (Koheles 7:5)

It is a striking thought during a week filled with singing and celebration. The fact that people are singing does not necessarily mean that what they are celebrating is worthy of celebration. Sometimes we need to hear an uncomfortable voice telling us that perhaps we are celebrating the wrong things.

That seems particularly poignant as we approach Simchas Torah. On Simchas Torah, nobody asks whether you learn twelve hours a day before allowing you to dance. The businessman and the rebbe dance in the same circle around the Torah, each equidistant from the center. As do the accountant, the plumber, the doctor, the soldier and the retiree who join them. Men who know all of Shas and men who struggle to understand a page of Gemara dance together.

Why? Because Torah belongs to all of us. We place the Torah at the center because Torah is supposed to be at the center of life, not as an escape from life, but as the force that teaches us how to live it. Torah teaches us how to daven and how to learn, but also how to treat our neighbors, earn a living honestly, raise families, care for another Jew, and accept responsibility for the community in which Hashem has placed us.

That is the Torah I want to dance with.

Think for a moment about the Israeli reservist watching that parade. He may have spent hundreds of days away from his wife and children. His business may have suffered and his family struggled in his absence. Perhaps friends of his were wounded or killed. Then he sees thousands of Chareidim dancing in the streets to honor someone for refusing even to report.

We should not turn draft evasion into a mitzvah, and we certainly should not turn draft evaders into our heroes

What are we expecting him to think about Chareidim? More painfully, what are we teaching him to think about Torah? That question should haunt us.

There are legitimate Chareidi concerns about military service that should not be mocked or dismissed, and I certainly do not believe that arresting and imprisoning more and more Chareidi young men will, by itself, solve this crisis. Surely we can say something much simpler: We should not turn draft evasion into a mitzvah, and we certainly should not turn draft evaders into our heroes.

Nor is it unreasonable to ask difficult questions about the claim of Toraso Omanuso. I have enormous respect for someone for whom Torah genuinely is his vocation. Israeli society should recognize the enormous value of serious Torah scholarship, and I believe there should be a place for exceptional young men genuinely dedicated to full-time Torah study.

But there is another aspect of these arrests that troubles me. Again and again we hear inflammatory claims that these young men are being arrested because the government has declared a “war on Torah,” that the State wants to destroy the Torah world, and that these men are being imprisoned simply for the “crime” of learning Torah. That rhetoric is then used at rallies and in fundraising campaigns around the world.

But that is not why these men are being arrested. Whatever one thinks of the government's draft policy—and there is certainly plenty to debate—the law requires those subject to military service either to serve or to have a legally recognized exemption. Those who fail to regularize their status face consequences, including restrictions on leaving the country. Those rules are not punishment for learning Torah; they are consequences of failing to comply with the draft requirements that the State has decided, rightly or wrongly, to enforce.

That is the real significance of Uman in this story. There is nothing wrong with a serious Ben Torah traveling to Uman to daven on Rosh Hashanah, and doing so says nothing about the seriousness of his learning. (I will not discuss here the unrelated issue about whether is right for tens of thousands to leave Eretz Yisroel to daven in the Ukraine on Rosh Hashana, which I have strong feelings about, but not for now),

The problem is the assumption that because one believes the draft requirements are wrong, one may simply disregard the restrictions that follow from refusing to comply with them—and then be celebrated as a hero when arrested for doing so.

Even more troubling is what this rhetoric teaches our children. If young Chareidim are repeatedly told that enforcement of an unpopular law is really a war against Torah, it should hardly surprise us when some grow up believing that the Medinah hates them, hates Torah, and is their enemy. We then hear the ugly language about the State that has become far too common in parts of our community.

Israel has made serious mistakes in its treatment of religious Jews over the years, and there are legitimate arguments to be made about the current draft policy as well. But today's State of Israel is not engaged in a war to destroy Torah. To tell our children that it is does them, the Torah world, and the entire Jewish people a terrible disservice.

 I believe that Torah must lead us toward responsibility rather than away from it.

Those who truly learn full-time should be respected for their learning. Those who do not should serve their country in an appropriate military or national-service framework that enables them to remain fully observant Chareidi Jews. Chareidi soldiers and national-service volunteers who make sacrifices for their fellow Jews should never be made to feel like second-class members of our community.

They deserve our respect and our gratitude. Perhaps even  a parade!

There is another reason that Simchas Torah makes this question so painful. Three years ago, on Simchas Torah, the Jewish people experienced one of the darkest days in the history of the State of Israel. Since then, extraordinary numbers of Israelis have risked everything to defend Jews they have never met. Religious and secular, Ashkenazi and Sephardi, right and left, they left their homes because Jews were in danger.

Your lives matter to us. Your children matter to us. Your sacrifices matter to us. We are part of this people too.

Whatever our disagreements about politics, the army, the government or the courts, we Chareidim have to be able to look those people in the eye and say: Your lives matter to us. Your children matter to us. Your sacrifices matter to us. We are part of this people too.

So when I dance this Simchas Torah, I will think of those extraordinary young men sitting in Batei Midrash, genuinely giving their lives to Torah, and of the young men wearing uniforms who are standing guard while the rest of us dance. And this year I will also think about some ordinary people on an airplane who, when suddenly confronted with danger, did not look around for somebody else to take responsibility. They stood up and did what needed to be done.

Those are people I want my grandchildren to look up to, and people I want the Chareidi world to honor.

As we dance with the Torah, perhaps we should ask ourselves one simple question: Whom do we want our children to call heroes?

I know my answer.

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