The Gemara in Bava Basra 7b discusses the need for building walls around a town/city. Since walls are for communal protection, all residents have to share in the cost of erecting them. However, the Gemara rules that Torah scholars are exempt from this expense, since they are protected by virtue of the Torah they learn. This is quoted l'halacha in Shulchan Aruch Yoreh Deah 243.
The question is what is the scope of this exemption? The Charedi world has applied this to army exemptions based on the following:
1. Torah learning protects everyone
2. The boys are engaged in מלחמתה של תורה
3. Talmidie Chachamim don't need protection
However, this is very difficult for the following reasons:
R' Zevin in a famous (anonymous) essay says writes the following.
When actual lives are at stake, may we rely on miracles? In 1929 at Hebron... didn't young students of the yeshiva, whose holiness shone like stars in the sky, fall before the malicious enemy? Please, did these martyrs need protection or not?... If you understand that the scholars don't need protection in relatively peaceful times and are exempt from building the protective walls, what consequence has this when compared to a life-and-death struggle, a war which is a mitzvah and in which all are obligated? The defense authorities ordered everyone to cover all windows as protection against shattering glass in case of an air raid. Would anyone think that some rabbis will not do so, claiming, "Rabbis do not need protection?" ...Why did rabbis leave areas under enemy fire along with the rest of the general population? Why did they not rely on this maxim?
R' Aharon Lichtenstein wrote:
It may be stated... that such a claim (that since rabbis "don't need protection" they should be exempt from military service) raises a very serious moral issue. Can anyone whose life is not otherwise patterned after this degree of trust and bitahon argues for exemption on this ground? Is it possible to worry about one's economic future - in evident disregard of Rabbi Eliezer's statement that "whoever has bread in his basket and says 'What shall I eat tomorrow?' is but of little faith" - and yet not enter the army because one is presumably safe without it?
What is even more damning is the fact that in recent years when the missiles were flying from Gaza the yeshivas in the South (Ashdod and other places) temporarily moved to Yerushalayim or Bnei Brak. If the boys who are learning are engaged in war just like the soldiers why should they abandon their posts? In addition if Torah learning protects, let them stay where they are and be protected by their Torah. These moves undermined the claim for draft exemptions and looked very bad. The soldiers went to Gaza to fight while the yeshiva bachurim fled to safer havens.
> However, the Gemara rules that Torah scholars are exempt from this expense, since they are protected by virtue of the Torah they learn.
ReplyDeleteIn other words, Torah scholars ruled that Torah scholars are exempt from a communal expense because they are Torah scholars. But of course they were pious and holy, so far above us that they were liike malachim, and there's no chance that they would have made a self-serving psak.
The best example of how this is nonsense is something I came across years ago on R' Slifkin's blog. There was a rash of robberies in a Chareidi neighborhood, and a godol was asked if the yungerleit should put in alarms and extra locks, since their torah would protect them. He ruled that normally, torah protects, but when there is a time of danger, one can't rely on protection of torah alone.
In other words, when there are no robbers, your torah learning will protect you from robberies, but when there are robbers, it won't.
Great points G*3.
DeleteI guess we should be thankful that they don't go around telling people who were robbed, etc. you must not really be chareidi.