Last week, Agudah MK Yitzchak Goldknopf, addressing the tension between the dati leumi crowd and the chareidi crowd, made a devastating statement in an interview with Makor Rishon:
“Their pain should remain with them and our pain should remain with us. Don’t bring me your pain and don’t share your package with our package. Let’s decide that everyone deals with his own package.”
This was the height of insensitivity. I am glad that the editor of Mishpacha magazine, Rabbi Aryeh Ehrlich, condemned those remarks in no uncertain terms. “I am ashamed and humiliated by my representative in the Knesset. I literally bury my head in shame at such callous and un-Jewish quotes like ‘Don’t dump your pain on us’ or ‘Everyone with his own package.’ Such alienating remarks. Our Sages taught us about suffering and about when a Jew is in pain, the Divine Presence suffers with us.”
Ehrlich concluded by hoping that MK Goldknopf will be big enough to publicly retract his words.
But Rabbi Ehrlich also reserved criticism for the roshei yeshivah who do not take time off to visit the bereaved families who lost their loved ones as fallen soldiers.
While I applaud Rabbi Ehrlich’s heartfelt words, we also must ask ourselves: How did we get here? How could a respected Member of Knesset issue such a cruel statement?
I maintain that the struggle over drafting yeshivah boys has little to do with the belief that their Torah learning protects the Jewish people as much as the army. That may be true, but it seems to me that it’s a matter of culture. Ehrlich, in his assessment of the situation, declares that the chareidi world has “fears and difficulties in general, and especially regarding the enlistment of yeshivah students.”
In other words, using Ehrlich’s line of reasoning, the issue is not so much the need to study Torah for protection, but a sense of fear and difficulty. The issue seems to be more cultural. It is us vs. them – the yeshivah world vs. the world of the army. Enlisting in the army is just not something that a yeshivah bachur should consider.
Thus, we find that the army is often vilified by the chareidi world, even though officially yeshivos claim that they are equal in protecting the nation as is the army. And thus, we have the pernicious statement of Yitzchak Goldknopf.
Of course, it cuts both ways. I have often heard from dati leumi people that yeshivah boys spend their time in cafés and wandering through the streets. In truth, if you ever spend time visiting a yeshivah, you will find that they are packed with students studying Gemara diligently.
So, until we learn to accept each other’s culture, this battle will continue to be a divider of our people. And that is a sad package that all sides will bear.
Rabbi Yoel Schonfeld is the Rabbi Emeritus of the Young Israel of Kew Gardens Hills, President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, former President of the Vaad Harabonim of Queens, and the Rabbinic Consultant for the Queens Jewish Link.
