IDF Service, and the Thin Line Between Hishtadlus and Kefira
Plus Torah class #216 — Lessons from Bar Kochba and the Destruction of Beitar
In this week’s Torah class we took a break from Yirmiya to learn about Bar Kochba and the destruction of Beitar from Chazal’s perspective in Yerushalmi Taanis. There are many striking parallels between what made Bar Kochba a false messiah — fooling no less than Rabbi Akiva! — and the State of Israel; between the valiant warriors fighting a milchemes mitzvahagainst the Romans and the well-meaning fools in the IDF; between the nationalist gangsters who ruled Jerusalem before the destruction and the Zionist gangsters of modern times.
This special class for the three weeks is embedded above and on Rumble here. Next week’s class has been rescheduled from Thursday to Tuesday night at 8PM Israel time. The link to join the live classes is here.
Regular listeners to my weekly Torah classes will be familiar with what I am about to share, but it cannot be emphasized enough.
If you internalize this lesson it will radically change your life. It will spare you many forms of suffering, it will help you navigate the inevitable challenges and difficulties in life with serenity and confidence, it will help you avoid irresponsible, self-defeating actions, and, most importantly, it will strengthen and deepen your relationship with Hashem.
As if that’s not enough, internalizing this lesson will protect us from the relentless efforts of enemies from within and without to mislead us, turn us against each other, turn us against Hashem in the name of the Torah, and lead us to physical and spiritual destruction.
If enough of us accomplish this, it’s game over, we win.
Imagine that we had no external enemies, or that they simply went poof and disappeared.
Alternatively, imagine that Israel and the IDF were authentic Jewish entities, and they achieved a total victory against Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, etc. Our enemies were completely vanquished, and they had no intention of waging war on us ever again.
Alternatively, a spirit of peace and brotherhood washed over our enemies, they beat their swords into plowshares, and resolved to live with us in unconditional peace and harmony forever. There would be no more wars, and no need for armies. This would be cause for great celebration. Maybe even Hallel without a bracha!
But here’s the chiddush: We would not be one iota safer.
Why not? Because our enemies have absolutely no power. Their ability to harm us comes directly and exclusively from our sins. If there is no heavenly decree, they can’t harm us. If, God forbid, there is a heavenly decree against us, our enemies can be the executors of the decree.
Here’s the thing: If there were no evil people who wished to harm us, the decree would simply be fulfilled another way. Hashem has many messengers. He can send a famine, a flood, an earthquake, pestilence, etc.
Similarly, if the IDF were a thousand times larger and more powerful, they were really fighting a milchemes mitzva, and they were trying their very hardest to protect us, we would not be one iota safer. After all, our success or lack thereof depends entirely on Hashem’s decree; our hishtadlus in the physical realm does not determine the outcome.
Hence, when one says something like “the IDF keeps us safe”, he is expressing outright kefira. When one demands people join the IDF to compensate for a presumed “manpower shortage” that poses an “existential threat”, he is making a kefira-based demand. (When one demands more people join the IDF out of a presumed obligation to suffer more and die more just because others have chosen to do so, he is exhibiting a thoroughly perverted mind, in addition to being a kofer.)
Hashem requires us to engage in hishtadlus because He wants us to behave according to the ways of the world, while recognizing that our hishtadlus is not the actual cause of the outcome — it all flows from Hashem. If there were no need for hishtadlus, everything would come through open miracles, and there would be no free choice; we would immediately and conclusively see the difference between one who serves Hashem and one who does not. Hishtadlus is a necessary camouflage for Hashem’s intervention, and we are required to respect this system.
However, we are not to go overboard with our hishtadlus, which includes unreasonable measures, measures that unnecessarily harm us, and measures that outright violate the Torah.
For example, we are required to perform some hishtadlus to earn a living, but stealing is not an acceptable form of hishtadlus. Similarly, going overboard with hishtadlus to make money demonstrates lack of bitachon in Hashem, and can be destructive to one’s well-being, family life, and avodas Hashem.
We are required at times to go to a doctor, while recognizing that true healing depends on a divine decree. The doctor is nothing more than an emissary of Hashem’s healing (or the Angel of Death). If we were on a high enough level and recognized the spiritual cause behind our ailment, a doctor might be superfluous. Sometimes Hashem forces us to go to a doctor anyway as a form of punishment; He will still heal us, but only through an emissary, like a king who banishes his son from his table, but still sends him food through one of his servants.
So yes, sometimes going to a doctor is proper hishtadlus, but we shouldn’t get carried away with it. We shouldn’t think the doctor is anything more than an emissary (hopefully the good kind). We shouldn’t put our hope and faith in doctors. We certainly shouldn’t blindly follow a corrupt medical establishment (or even an honest one), or undergo dubious medical interventions when one is perfectly healthy to begin with — that is improper hishtadlus, which can be the cause of that which we are trying to prevent.
All the brouhaha over IDF service servitude is predicated on a terrible misunderstanding (or wilful disregard) of this basic principle. It is predicated on kefira!
Even if the IDF were an authentic Jewish army, run by God-fearing, Torah-observant Jews, doing everything according to halacha, and fighting a true milchemes mitzvah, the entire discussion over who should participate should be far less heated, because the size of the army is far less important than the spiritual state of the nation.
This is all the more so when the IDF is quite the opposite, representing a form of hishtadlus that is inappropriate on every conceivable level. Certainly no one should be pressured or forced to participate in an army that contradicts the Torah in so many ways, and poses such a threat to one’s physical and spiritual well-being even in times of peace.
Hashem hates the people who operate the IDF, and He hates the way the IDF is run. He doesn’t need the IDF to protect us, and neither do we¹. Believing otherwise, to the extent that one actually sanctifies IDF “service” as the most important religious duty, is outright kefira, a rebellion against Hashem.
If the steady bloodletting with little to show for it is not enough of a wake-up call to stop doubling down on more devotion to the IDF, greater demands for IDF “service”, or even more kochi v’otzem yadi outside the framework of the IDF, what will it take? Do we really want to find out?
This is one of the greatest tests of our generation, and much of our nation is failing it miserably — all because of a fundamental mistake. Military service is a camouflage for Hashem’s protection, nothing more.
If we are right with Hashem, a small army will succeed just as well — assuming Hashem bothers us to fight altogether — and if we are not right with Hashem, God forbid, a large army will only fail more spectacularly.
This is the consistent lesson from Tanach and Chazal. For all the defeats our ancestors suffered, insufficient participation in the army is never presented as the cause — not once! On the contrary, reliance on our strength and the might of our hand is frequently presented as the cause of defeat.
There is indeed an obligation to engage in this form of hishtadlus — in the proper way, to the proper degree — but only because hishtadlus is a box we need to check off, not because it is actually keeping us safe or winning our wars.
If we understood this and internalized it, the terribly destructive fracas over IDF servitude would be circumvented, we could engage in much healthier and productive discussions, and we might finally merit a true redemption.
This lesson is based on principles developed in Sha’ar HaBitachon from Chovos Halevavos and the essay on bitachon from Sefer HaMaspik L’Ovdei Hashem by Rabbi Avraham ben HaRambam, both of which I taught in a series of classes years ago. The series on Chovos Halevavos began with Torah class #62, which can be found on Rumble here.
To those who would cynically ask if I would call the IDF if terrorists were attacking, I say “Maybe, if I had eight hours to spare.”
No comments:
Post a Comment