I was onIsraelEnglish-language TV last week debating the army draft issue with Yochanan Plessner the head of the government committee established to make recommendations on the issue in the last Knesset. The moderator began by asking me: “More and more Israelis are asking themselves whether it’s fair that young men like Yochanan Plessner [who served in an elite combat division] should go off at the age of 18 risk their lives endure great hardship in order to defend us — all of us — while at the same time 18-year-old yeshivah students are exempted from that burden. Rabbi Rosenblum is that fair?”
I have heard chareidi debaters counter this argument: Well is it fair that we have to do all the Torah learning for the country?
It’s safe to say that argument has never convinced a single non-chareidi. Not just because of the emotional response — How many yeshivah bochurim are killed in the tents of Torah? — but because it misses a fundamental distinction: Yeshivah bochurim immersed are doing what they most want to do. IDF recruits are acting under legal compulsion.
The argument of “equality of burdens” in short cannot be easily dismissed on either an intellectual or emotional level. Equality before the law is an important societal value.
Create a free account to keep reading.
