akuperma: No one says that learning Torah doesn’t have value and is a source of protection. At the same time, learning Torah with no effort at self defense has proven throughout our history, not to be enough. Hashem does his part when we do our own hishtadlus.
Yeshivas and shuls have been attacked. They are both a mokom Torah, yet we all know what occurred . Both are necessary. It was always the Tzaddikim that were supposed to fight, since they has a greater protection. I think that is still the case as represented by the Hesder and other Yeshiva bochrim that leave Yeshiva and go fight to protect everyone else.
There was a story from the war in 1948, when Yeshiva’s were asked to send bochrim to dig ditches to prevent Jordanian tanks from attacking. Israel had no other defense against them at that time. The Yeshiva’s refused. B”H, the bochrim had more seichel and went when they were approached directly and it worked. What they did had far more benefit to them and everyone else. Had they just sat and learned while the tanks destroyed everything in their wake, they wouldn’t have survived and the country ch’v, could have been lost.
Again, everything is min HaShamayim, but we have to do our part first.