The question of forcibly drafting Charedim leaves many religious Zionist Jews in a bind. This is both due to the logical fallacy of rejecting a middle way, or what we often call black and white thinking, the inability to contain complexity. On the one hand, it is a great mitzvah to enlist in the army, and none are exempt from it. There is room of delaying service so people can grow greater in Torah and become talmidei chachamim. But a complete exemption? No.
Avraham Avinu was a warrior, as was Yaakov Avinu, Moshe Rabeinu, Yehoshua Bin Nun, David Hamelech, and even Shlomo his son, even if rarely. All of them fought.
Military service is not just a mitzvah, but a triple mitzvah. First, “you shall not stand on your brother’s blood,” and we are commanded to save Jews from death, as we face many enemies who wish to bring just that. Second, saving the land and keeping it in our possession, in a time others wish to take it from us. Finally, when we are beaten and murdered and humiliated and expelled – God’s name itself is desecrated. But when we defend ourselves, it is sanctified. This triple mitzvah is so important and so central that one must give one’s life for it.
On the other hand, this is not a problem to be solved by coercion. I am against coercion of secularists, against coercion of Charedim, and against coercion of any broad public within our nation. We can coerce an individual or an isolated few who deviate from the norm, engaging in what sociology calls “social surveillance,” where we take care to ensure there is no creeping change we don’t want. But we cannot in any way apply coercion to broad sections of the public, in this case the Charedim, whose worldview is unfortunately utterly distant from our own. In this case, coercion is both morally unjustified and also ineffective.
So what’s the solution? Dialogue, conversation, creating trust. Moving opinions closer to one another, slowly and patiently. Thank God, Charedim are ever so slowly enlisting more, and this can be seen in units like the Nachal Charedi. Every year, the number of Charedi recruits increases by more than 50%. Coercion only takes us away from that trend. A nation with problematic elements which still remains cohesive is stronger than one whose components are excellent while it remains divided. This is a lesson we should have learned hundreds and even thousands of years ago.
How did homo sapiens manage to dislodge the neanderthal, which was smarter, stronger, and knew how to use fire and tools skillfully?
The answer is simple: homo sapiens had a key advantage – the ability to speak, thus reaching broad agreement among thousands who’d never met.
This is the rule: we will not succeed through coercion, for we are brothers, but through increasing mutual trust and understanding.
