Haredi protesters from an extremist faction blocked a major traffic artery in central Israel for three hours on Thursday evening, protesting the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to the Israel Defense Forces.
Dozens of men blocked rush hour traffic in both directions on Route 4, at an intersection near the city of Bnei Brak, east of Tel Aviv. They chanted slogans such as “We will die and not enlist” and “To prison and not to the army.”
בד"א במלחמות הרשות אבל במלחמות מצוה הכל יוצאין אפילו חתן מחדרו וכלה מחופתה
The mishna adds: In what case are all of these statements, with regard to the various exemptions from war, said? They are said with regard to elective wars. But in wars whose mandate is a mitzva, everyone goes, even a groom from his room and a bride from her wedding canopy.
(5) . . . And this was done due to the importance of maintaining peace among people, so that one person will not say to another: My father, i.e., progenitor, is greater than your father.
(ג) אַנְטִיגְנוֹס אִישׁ סוֹכוֹ קִבֵּל מִשִּׁמְעוֹן הַצַּדִּיק. הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּהְיוּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, אֶלָּא הֱווּ כַעֲבָדִים הַמְשַׁמְּשִׁין אֶת הָרַב שֶׁלֹּא עַל מְנָת לְקַבֵּל פְּרָס, וִיהִי מוֹרָא שָׁמַיִם עֲלֵיכֶם:
(3) Antigonus a man of Socho received [the oral tradition] from Shimon the Righteous. He used to say: do not be like servants who serve the master in the expectation of receiving a reward, but be like servants who serve the master without the expectation of receiving a reward, and let the fear of Heaven be upon you.
According to Women Warriors, 47 female IDF soldiers were killed on October 7, and five more have been killed in the line of duty near Gaza, on the northern border and in the West Bank in the months since. In April, 2024 the Israel Defense Forces said it had seen a massive spike in female conscripts joining combat units during the war. During the March-April conscription cohort, the turnout for female troops in combat units hit 157 percent, meaning 57% more than planned for.
Ben Gurion and the Chazon Ish Meet. - The Parable of the Empty Cart
“There’s the question of existence, of preserving human life,” Ben-Gurion recounted saying to the Hazon Ish. “Shouldn’t love of [the People of] Israel take precedence over everything?”
The Hazon Ish responded that, although love of Israel and love of Torah may seem like two separate things, they’re not, because “there is no Torah without Israel, and no Israel without Torah.”...
Navon, writing sometime later about the meeting, recounted how Rabbi Karelitz, responding to Ben-Gurion’s query regarding “how can we live together,” described a scene from the Talmud in which, when “two camels meet on a path, and one of the camels is weighed down with a load, and the other camel is not, the one not carrying the burden must give way to the one who is.” The moral of the parable, suggested Karelitz, was that, “We, the religious Jews, are analogous to the camel with the load – we carry a burden of hundreds of commandments. You” – secular Israel – “have to give way.”...
Ben-Gurion, according to Navon, attempted to mount a counter-argument. “And the [second] camel isn’t weighed down with the burden of commandments?” he asked rhetorically. “The commandment to settle the land isn’t a burden?... And the commandments to defending life aren’t mitzvot? And what those boys whom you are so opposed to do, sitting on the borders and protecting you, that’s not a mitzvah?”
Karelitz was not even able to agree, according to Navon, that the learners’ lives were protected by those serving in the army. Rather, he insisted that, “It is only thanks to the fact that we learn Torah that they [the soldiers] are able to exist.”
Based on Sanhedrin 32b