The Gap Is Wide — but We Can Bridge It

“Sharing the burden.” Those words in the Hebrew vernacular — shivayon banetel — serve as shorthand for the demand of some to end army exemptions for yeshivah students. Ironically, that same phrase in the Lashon Hakodesh of Chazal — nosei b’ol im chaveiro — describes a foundational value of the yeshivah world and occupies a significant place in the writings of generations of its baalei mussar, from the Alter of Kelm to Rav Mattisyahu Salomon, emphasizing how the capacity to picture and to empathize with the burdens of others is fundamental to the development of the ben Torah and critical to societal coexistence. We must therefore ensure that a rejection of the implications of shivayon banetel comes along with a full embrace of nesius b’ol. How can we achieve that?

Since Simchas Torah, our people have been actively engaged in an existential battle against an enemy intent on destroying us. Hundreds of Israel’s precious soldiers have given their lives, and thousands have been wounded in defense of our land and its inhabitants, changing the lives of their families forever. Thousands of Israelis have been living for months with the unimaginable tension of having a child, spouse, parent, or sibling on the front lines as they await the dreaded knock on the door.

There is an unbridgeable gap between them and those of us — the vast majority of both the Israeli chareidi population and of American Jewry — who have not shared that experience and who cannot possibly imagine it. A dear friend lost his son, a reservist who was exempt from service as a father of six but nevertheless went voluntarily to the front lines. Thinking of his child who literally gave his life for the Jewish People and of the wife and children who proudly encouraged him and sent him into battle, my friend cannot bear hearing others bandy about the term “mesirus nefesh” to describe things like traveling three hours to a wedding or staying after an event to clean up. Those of us far from the front lines really have no clue what true mesirus nefesh is.

We need to recognize that this is currently the deepest division in Klal Yisrael, the disparity in lived experience between those bearing the direct burden of the war and those removed from it. This gap is far more substantive than which side we take in the philosophical and policy debates over the pros and cons of granting draft exemptions to yeshivah bochurim. And it is a space that needs to be filled not by discussions in which we argue our own side, but by pure and unadulterated empathy, nesius b’ol im chaveiro, trying our hardest to understand the other’s experience.