Military Self-Defense is a Torah Halacha

Not if you are the aggressor which is the position of the non-Zionist Hareidim. The Palestinians had no issues with Jews have a self-governing autonomous community, but did object when the Zionists demanded that they have political control and that the Palestinians would be ruled by Jews. Note that when Palestinians discuss the status quo ante they want restored, it is to 1914 not 1947. Note the discussion of the “three oaths” by the original Satmar Rebbe. The solution that might work would to allow the anti-zionist Hareidim the same status under Israeli law as Palestinians (limited civil rights in return from an exemption from military service), Also consider that persecution of Jews who have a halachic objection to the establishment of a secular medinah and who are refusing to fight for it, are “conscientious objectors” under international law and that persecuting them would be a public relations disaster for the zionists since what little support the medinah has among the goyim is largely religious in nature and will not look favorably on persecuting Jews for being too religious.

You are living in a dream if you think those folks will be swayed by halachah. “The Gedolim Say” is all they have to respond. “Das Torah” trumps halachah when it comes to preserving the chareidi lifestyle and power structure. Any halachic authority (regardless of his gadlus in Torah) who paskens otherwise is not a “gadol”, because his hashkafa is “wrong”, his mesora is “wrong”, and in their eyes is likely an apikorus or oved avoda zara. Although HKBH lives within the dalet amos of halacha, the chareidi world lives within the dalet amos of hashkafah.

good point, you should ask your ques. to Gedolei Yisroel who paskened not to enlist, I’m sure they have good answers. Meanwhile presenting questions as if Gedolei Yisroel never learned Gmarra or Hilchos shabbos is kind of foolish

Rabbi Yisroel Meir Lau (Chief Ashkenazic Rabbi
of Israel from 1993 CE to 2003 CE) said this:

“Over the years I have had the very special opportunity
to pray near some of the greatest rabbis
on the holiest night of the year, Yom Kippur.
I have prayed near Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Leizer Shach.
I saw and heard them cry, shedding copious tears
as they recited the Ashamnu and Al Cheit prayers.

And I saw them cry when they heard that our soldiers had been killed.”

SOURCE: At the Maggid’s Seder (commentary on
“this is the bread of affliction”, page 92) by Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn,
year 2020 CE, ‎ArtScroll Mesorah Publications,
ISBN-10: ‎1422625753 ISBN-13: 978-1422625750
_________________________________________________
PERSONAL COMMENT 1:

Most of those soldiers who died were NEVER religious and NEVER Shomer Shabbat.

Yet Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Leizer Shach
CRIED when they heard that “OUR soldiers” had been killed.

Notice that Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn refers to them as
“OUR soldiers”, even though
they were never religious, and even though
they were never Shomer Shabbat, and even though
they took orders from Secular commanders of a Secular Jewish State.

Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach and Rabbi Leizer Shach
CRIED when they heard that “OUR soldiers” had been killed.

Why do the Chareidi anti-Zionists not cry when
they hear that “OUR soldiers” have been killed?
_________________________________________________
PERSONAL COMMENT 2:

FACT: If Israel were not a Jewish state, then NOBODY
would care at all about the so-called “Palestinians” (phoney-stinians).

The proof is that NOBODY protests when Muslims kill Muslims.
The proof is that NOBODY complains when Arabs murder Arabs.

If you truly believe that the merit of Torah Study [Limmud HaTorah]
is the ONLY thing that we Jews need to protect us
from genocidal Muslim terrorists, then you should PROVE IT
by establishing a yeshivah in Lebanon and another yeshivah in Damascus [Syria].

Both Lebanon and Damascus are Halachically part of Eretz Yisrael.

You will NEVER do this, because you know that
without the protection of THE ISRAELI ARMY,
both yeshivahs would soon be: killed, murdered, massacred, destroyed,
annihilated and exterminated, and not even one Jew would remain alive.

Pesachim 64B clearly teaches that “it is forbidden to rely on miracles”:

תלמוד בבלי מסכת פסחים דף סד/ב
תנן: ולא סמכינן אניסא

If a yeshivah were established in Lebanon or Damascus, where
The Israeli Army cannot protect them, then those yeshivahs
would violate the prohibition against relying on miracles.

In year 1929 of Common Era, 67 righteous students of
the Chevron Yeshivah (HYD ZTL ZYA) were brutally murdered
by wicked bloodthirsty Muslims. Those righteous students
(HYD ZTL ZYA) had the merit of Torah Study, but without
the Israeli Army to protect them, they were all brutally murdered.

May G*D avenge every one of them at least 50,000 times.

If you are trying to insinuate that theres an obligation to join the Israeli army based on this, sorry, its a nice try but not gonna work.

Set up a independent self-defense course and you’ll have many (C)hareidim join.

not just self-defense but protection from an enemy attack.

According to that logic, everyone would be obligated to become a doctor in order to save lives. Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l famously rules that no such obligation exists. The chiyuv to save a life applies only if one already possesses the necessary knowledge; there is no obligation to learn how to do it in the first place. (Igros Moshe, Yoreh Deah II:151)

Dear editor, I don’t know how you allowed israeli doc’s comment to be published! His comment is total slander against chareidim and total ignorance! If you indeed ask a Rav about what should and should not be published on your site, I ask you please inquire about this comment immediately!

Just> Everyone would be obligated to become a doctor in order to save lives. Rav Moshe Feinstein zt”l famously rules that no such obligation exists.

Self-protection from attackers is different from being a doctor, and obligation would be different. And even when one is not obligated, we have a lot of people who are trying to be super-frum in mitzvos. Maseches Taanis describes a doctor who was visited by yeshiva shel maaleh more often than Abaye and Rava (despite his bloodletting methods were not the most effective ones – surely a fact known b’shmayim!). I would presume many would like to follow in his steps.

“While you are correct that the halacha would indeed mandate that Jews rise up and violently fight the Zionists (like any other masis umadiach, kofer, michalel shabos, etc), we have unfortunately lost the masora of how to be “moredim”, as our Gedolim have taught us that we must wait for Moshiach to fight these wars against Hashem when the zionists and their supporters will be destroyed.

1) I thought it was “maysis imaydiach”?
2) Violently fight would only apply to an Ir Ha-Nidachas. The three you listed would be executed, assuming the criteria were fulfilled. Learn Halacha.
3) Zionism – yeah, we know, you wish we would all die CV”H, because you’re a Sonei Yisrael par excellence.

Most importantly:
4) You’re waiting for Moshaich to fight against Hashem, after the Zionists are destroyed? That is very interesting.

Re: “In Israel, Arabs are NOT DRAFTED INTO THE ARMY, because the Arabs CANNOT BE TRUSTED with guns or with anything.”

Actually many Arabs serve in the IDF, including some as senior officers (ranks that would be translated as “generals”). Those who do not serve in the IDF have reduced civil rights, but still more rights than Arab Muslims have in most Arab countries (which is why apparently half of Palestinians hold Israeli citizenship vote for Zionist parties).

An argument can be made that a Melekh Yisrael (which by definition is a usurper, since he isn’t from Beis David) who goes against Torah, can and should be overthrown. By drafting, and arming, Hareidim who see the zionist state as lacking legitimacy, you are giving weapons to those who will turn on the medinah. Do you really what Peleg to have automatic weapons??????

akuperma> By drafting, and arming, Hareidim who see the zionist state as lacking legitimacy, you are giving weapons to those who will turn on the medinah.

Do peleg really represent ajority of charedi public? Probably, a majority of them will quickly learn how to live with the Army without comproming their principles – as long as the leadership let them do it.

@akuperma

arabs who do not serve, enjoy FULL civil rights in israel

inform yourself .
.

AAK – ” as long as the leadership let them do it” strikes the nail on the head. It will never happen b/c the idea of a chareidi following orders / instruction from anyone other than a Torah authority is an anathema. It destroys the power dynamic inherent in chareidi hashkafah.

Wrong Zionist:
It is you who seem to be using Zionism as a facade and diversion, as implied by your nasty comment against Satmar (and NK).
Nobody in Satmar or NK (those are very different), to anyone’s public knowledge, has forbidden following that halacha. For you to (falsely, in general) condemn them for doing so implies that you are doing exactly that: “using Zionism as a facade and diversion”.

As posted, if you really feel that Chareidim need some sort of defense training and that doing so would be a fulfillment of that halacha then you could speak to an LOR to ask why the gedolim haven’t done so. As posted, they are obviously well aware of that halacha.

Your needless and false bashing of Satmar (and NK) is wrong, and makes it seem that Zionism is indeed the reason for your post.

Brilliant RightJew. Big chiddush.

News flash. Gedolei Yisroel also know how to read Shulchan Aruch. They also know some more things about the Torah and, lehavdil, about what goes on in the IDF.

The NYPD and US Army also protect many Jews. It seems your interest in the IDF is not purely from a practical standpoint.

AAQ said – My theory is that this is a history-driven sociological trap: leadership established separate communities (Rambam’s deserts in the words of Chazon Ish), had to use separatist ideology to protect them (and this worked well both in Israel and US), and now these ideologies took over the crowds beyond the temporary measures they were, and leadership is unable to change them, in part because the protection is based on “we are right, and they are always evil”, but also because they can’t go against the load crowds. Emes is the biggest loss of this complex process.
עד כאן דבריו.

You are rambling off too much nonsense to break down one by one. Let’s focus on the core issue. Secular Zionism was a highly organized and targeted campaign to destroy Judaism and replace it with a secular national identity. Period. Everything else, including the IDF, was a היכא תמצא to accomplish that. In other words, the State in general, and the IDF in particular, are one big social engineering project to create a new Jewish identity. This was never a secret. Not participating in that project is not some special “separatist ideology” or social phenomenon, it’s basic Judaism 101. That was even before ‘gender integration’ became ubiquitous in all parts of the IDF. Why in the world do you think the Rabbonim should “go against the crowds” and send the boys to Kefirah and Gilui Arayos galore in the name of – “Emes”?! (Did you mean to say ’emesis’?) What will be with the IDF and who will fight the Arabs is a red herring. The Chilonim don’t have a long term solution to Israel’s problems any more than the Chareidim do. Our job is to keep the Torah and Mitzvos. Sorry to disappoint you, but that does not include having an army during Galus. If truly Torah observant Jews end up becoming a majority in Israel, there will be many issues to deal with. When we get there, Gedolei Yisroel will deal with it. They aren’t afraid of “the crowds”. They are afraid of איסורי כרת וסקילה and more, which will have to be cleaned out of the IDF altogether. For now, it’s just regular Galus survival as usual under Jewish Paritzim.

A question on Taanis: so the good doctor gets 7x visits from yeshiva shel maaleh over Abaye.

First, why such unusual “yeshivish” distinction – not Eliyahu talking to him, or golden table in olam habo. I guess this also means that he is not an Am Haaertz DESPITE (tm YYA) being a doctor.
Why are they visiting? do they ask him questions? do they teach him? do they have a pleasere talking to a doctor with middos?

And one more: surely in the shamaim they are aware that bloodletting is not as helpful as advertised, so they good doctor might have killed a number of patients – and they still respect him “for the effort”. Or maybe they were coming so often – to warn him not to do bad medicine and save his zechus from the gehinom that was awaiting other doctors!?

@YYA – in response to your comment about an ad-hoc group only being what’s allowed – the Rema’s haga’a that ואפילו לא באו עדיין אלא רוצים לבא clearly seems to contradict that, in that it contemplates there being an organized group that goes out on Shabbos so as to dissuade attacks. That definitely seems to imply some sort of organized defense force that can do so – not a bunch of Yeshiva guys with baseball bats.

As to your comment on what the “real goal” of “Secular Zionism” is – you are what the Chazon Ish ZT”L calls a “good Polish soldier”, still fighting yesterday’s battles. The classic secular Zionists are for the most part long gone – the percentage of Israelis who consider themselves Dati or Chareidi is upwards of 30%, with a significant further percentage considering themselves traditional (“Masorati” – not to be confused with the Conservative movement, which has tried to take this term for themselves). Even amongst those that are really secular, the vast majority have no interest in making the religious less Frum – they just want to be left alone to live their lives as they wish, with minimal “religious coercion”. Using an argument that may have been relevant 70+ years ago in today’s situation makes no sense – similar to the way using the Gemara’s description of blood letting as the treatment given by a good doctor to justify such treatment today would be ridiculous.

Bottom line – Zionist ideology is not the reason for Chareidim to serve. The reason, as posited by the original poster in this thread is the Halachic obligation to come to the defense of one’s fellow Jews. As noted above, I have yet to see a logical explanation that explains why this Halacha is not applicable today.

an Israeli Yid

YYA> Let’s focus on the core issue. Secular Zionism was a highly organized and targeted campaign to destroy Judaism and replace it with a secular national identity.

First, this does not contradict my ramblings. I am not fully condemning the separation that Chazon Ish created (nor I am saying it was the only way to go). It lead to a lot of successes in preserving and expanding observant community. I am just calling to understand what the negatives are. I am not sure Chazon Ish would disagree – he used the word “midbar”. He knew that wandering in midbar is not for your guf and neshomoh. He just did not see other choice. So, logically, by now, 80 years later – 2x more than Hashem’s measure – it is even less healthy. You don’t even have great-grandparents who remember life outside the desert. As an example, when Soviet Jews were coming in 1970s – they had no memory of Jewish life after 60 years of communist erasure, except Jews coming from Lithuania and such – who had “only” 30 years – and they still remembered.

So, I am calling for honest diagnosis of accumulated problems leading to treatment. That’s all.

An Israeli Yid

As another Eretz Yisroel Yid, I am well aware of the demographics and society of Israel, and that Zionism today isn’t what it used to be. Something I have stated here many times. However, the סעיף in Hilchos Shabbos is NOT about WHO has an obligation to “defend ones fellow Jews” (at any rate something the IDF sometimes does and sometimes doesn’t, depending on political considerations), nor about whether such an obligation, if it exists nowadays altogether, outweighs Gilui Arayos and GRATUITOUS Chilul Shabbos, among other issues.

YYA> ad hoc vigilante committee to go get the pitchforks

what is the source of this, maybe I missed it above? Chacham einav b’rosho. We just saw tragically 2 years ago what happens if IDF slips in just one part of the border. Where will your vigilante get F-35s on a short notice – and pilots to fly them. This is actually what Zionists did early in flying european planes acquired any way they could.

AAQ, RightJew, and friends –

There is an excellent book called “The Empty Wagon – Zionism’s journey from identity crisis to identity theft.” If you have the patience to go through 1390 pages and close to 3000 footnotes, with hundreds of citations from the writings of Zionist thinkers and leaders, you will get a much clearer picture of what secular Zionism was about then, what parts of it still exist today, how and why the RZ and Chareidim dealt with it the way they did, what the Zionists did and didn’t try to do, and to what extent they succeeded in their goals, among many other things that you are often confused about. It is very probable that you will interpret the facts differently than the author does, but you will at least know WHAT THE ZIONISTS SAID ABOUT THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN GOALS IN THEIR OWN WORDS. All of the quotations include the name of the publication and the page number, if you want to fact check or context check. Reading this would probably change your perspective, if not your opinions themselves. I don’t have time to copy hundreds of pages and then debate the משמעות of each quote and each sugyah. If you are serious you can do the research.