Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: Israel’s Ultra-Orthodox: Not for Life
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox (haredim) claim to be the exclusive advocates of “true Torah Judaism.” Wrong! Jewish Law (halakha) sets one value above all the rest (except for very narrow circumstances), and the haredim have been breaching it (transgressing would be a better word) consistently.
Pikuach nefesh – saving one’s life – is that supreme value. The Torah states: “You shall keep My laws… which a man shall do and live by them” (Leviticus 18:5). The Talmud (Tractate Yoma 85b) explains that the commandments are intended to facilitate life – not actively cause (or even passively enable) death. The latter is based on the verse in Leviticus 19:16: “Neither shall you stand by the blood of your neighbor.” That’s understood to prohibit inaction when something endangers life. Moreover, the rabbis (most prominently, Rabbi Akiva) issued a cleaqr halakhic directive: when life is in danger, almost all Torah laws (especially Shabbat: Pikuach nefesh docheh et ha-shabbat) are suspended in order to protect or save human life.
Let’s see how the haredim in Israel are (not) living by this paramount Jewish directive.
1) During Israel’s (possibly ongoing) war with Iran and Hezbollah, with missile barrages raining down on Israel daily, Israel’s Home Front Command continually issued instructions how to immediately approach and then enter protected spaces, whether safe rooms in apartments or public safety shelters, until the danger has passed. But the yeshivas in the haredi communities ignored such directives, ignoring this real threat to their lives – even when direct hits and even large pieces of those missiles did kill several civilians during the war. If danger to life is enough to abrogate the Sabbath, it certainly is sufficient to halt Torah study for half an hour here and there. But no; for Israel’s haredi community, the study of Talmud has become a “political issue,” a buffer against serving in the army (more on that below).
2) Israel has a very good health care system – universal (automatically covering everyone), with special emphasis on newborns and babies in the first year of life. Given such a positive environment it is especially egregious that significant parts of the haredi community do not bring their young children to the Child Health Clinics (Tipat Khalav) to get vaccinated. The result: “the 15th fatality in a months-long outbreak [of measles]… has swept through ultra-Orthodox communities and areas with low immunization rates” (https://www.timesofisrael.com/unvaccinated-9-year-old-dies-of-measles-as-outbreak-mounts-in-haredi-communities/).
Some have tried to defend these unfortunate parents by claiming that the lack of vaccination is merely a matter of ignorance. But even if that might be true in a few cases, for a community that harkens to everything their rabbi tells them (not) to do, where are the rabbis when they are needed to provide life-saving directives? Again: “Neither shall you stand by the blood of your neighbor.” That danger need not be merely a matter of immediate peril (e.g., a murderer about to attack); it is just as relevant when the danger is real, albeit “unseen” (deadly viruses and bacteria).
3) Another “silent killer” is cigarette smoking. A recent survey found that 54% of students in haredi high schools and 80% of haredi high school dropouts have tried smoking – contrasted to only 13%-23% among youth attending regular Israeli schools, whether secular or mainstream Orthodox (https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/405454). Even worse, among post-high school yeshiva students: 77% that are 17-24 years young have tried smoking, and 56% of them smoke regularly. By comparison, only 22.4% of all those in their mandatory IDF three-year army service reported that they actively smoke.
Again, where are the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in all this? Some excuse the practice as being a “permissible sin” (an oxymoron, if ever there was one) – something technically forbidden halakhically, but socially tolerated or perceived as a minor religious infraction because it was once permitted. Hardly a reason to allow pikuach nefesh to go up in smoke…
4) The final issue cuts two ways: army service. One could theoretically argue that not fighting is a way to “save life.” However, that runs up against the reverse argument: if Israel’s enemies seek total destruction of the state and its people, that’s tantamount to overwhelming danger to Jewish life in Israel (pikuach nefesh writ large) – necessitating all haredim to heed the call to arms to protect life in “macro” fashion.
In any case, as I noted in my post here last year (https://israelseen.com/prof-sam-lehman-wilzig-haredim-fighting-the-torah-instead-of-israels-enemies/) the Torah itself settles this conundrum decisively. Deuteronomy (20:5-8) offers explicit instructions as to who is exempt from army service: anyone who has built a new house but has not yet dedicated it; planted a vineyard but has not yet harvested its fruit; betrothed/pledged to a woman but has not yet married her (if newly married, he can avoid service for the first year – Deut. 24:5); or who is “afraid or fainthearted” (to prevent their fear from spreading to other soldiers). However, except for the last one, even these exemptions are valid only for a “voluntary” war (milhemet reshut) that isn’t a matter of national defense (milhemet mitzvah). Israel’s situation today is clearly existential i.e., almost all wars are mandatory for self-defense.
The bottom line: the haredi leadership is pulling the wool over our eyes – as well as their own flock. It’s time for the ultra-Orthodox community to return to Judaism’s cardinal principle that it supposedly knows so well. It’s nothing less than a life or death decision for everyone concerned in Israel, literally and figuratively.
