Weekly Living Torah Video: Mutual Defense Pact
The Talmud relates that King David and his general, Yoav Ben Tzeruya, supplemented each other. David was immersed in the study of Torah, while Yoav went out to battle.
If not for the merit of David’s Torah, Yoav would not have been victorious in his wars, and if not for Yoav’s battles, David would not have had the ability to study Torah.
Today, the bravery and sacrifice of Israel’s soldiers on the front lines will continue to meet success when bolstered and secured by their “spiritual supply corps” – the Torah study of the “support troops” back home. For the Torah is our deed of ownership to the Holy Land.
This partnership will keep the military miracles coming.
Milhouse
Yasher koach. Very appropriate now that the Israelis are attempting to destroy the very yeshivos that sustain them.
How many for each?
Surely “everyone” can’t be studying – so how many should be learning while the others are at battle? The Israeli government is willing to allow a certain number of bochurim to be exempt – the question really is: If Yoav also wanted to study Torah (just like Dovid), who would lead the army?
Milhouse
The government has no right to put a cap on the number of learners. How many is enough? Try one learner per soldier. That’s the ratio Moshe Rabbenu used. And if Yoav was learning full time Dovid would just have found another general.
Many yeshiva bochurim are NOT learning
Many are registered in yeshiva but never learn a word.
Milhouse
So have those learn under military discipline; if you come late to seder, you go to the stockade! But how dare you malign all the genuine learners, whose Torah is the only real thing protecting Eretz Yisroel?
Exempt them if they learn like Dovid!
Sorry, they take their “bein hazmanim” and even during seder there is much bitul torah. They do not learn like Dovid, whom the malach hamoves could not harm him because of his diligent learning till he was momentarily distracted.
Milhouse
Who says that every talmid chochom who is exempt from conscription must learn with that intensity? Where is this written? What the gemoro says is that any talmid chochom may not be drafted. There is no right to limit the numbers. If they want to give the roshei yeshivah and mashgichim the power to enforce discipline, and to threaten the bochurim with the draft if they slack off, that would be fine. But they don’t want to put the power in the hands of the yeshvah hanholos, they want to determine for themselves who stays and who goes, and they have no regard for the Torah at all. They don’t believe that the Torah protects.
By the way, after someone has learned in yeshivah for three or five years, they’ve done their duty; why should they still be subject to conscription if they decide to leave the yeshivah? That is the real problem with Israeli society. If time learning Torah were credited as army service, then people could stay until they need to support a family, and then get jobs.