I'm of a couple of minds on this. First we need to get some facts stated: 1. There are already a number of religious, even 'ultra-orthodox', in the military already. There are even special units designed to handle the needs of the religious while in the military. There are Yeshivas with programs that combine learning with military service. 2. The military does not want more religious in the military. They are not equipped to handle their needs. There are also many forces that are confronting any attempt to move the religious into the military. You have the feminists who are forcing confrontations that break the religious laws of modesty. You have brass who do not want a huge influx of religious officers, especially in the higher ranks. You have the anti-religious who see this as a perfect place to strip these 'ignorant orthodox' of their 'medieval religious ideas'. The list goes on. 3. While some of the 'ultra-orthodox' yeshivas are part of a program that combine learning with military, there are others who hold that learning Torah is as important to the preservation of the state as those who carry a gun. They do not want the secular problems and forces of the military getting in the way of that learning. Israel stands due to the Torah and without the Torah, Israel will fall 4. Lapid is an anti-religious dick. He's always been an anti-religious dick. He takes great delight in it. Rather than try and work with the programs that already exist, he's tearing them all down just to satisfy his own agenda. He sees a civil war as a good thing as it will get rid of those 'pesky religious'. No joke. 5. In Jewish law, there are few laws more important than saving a life. I've seen people run out of synagogue on Yom Kippur in order to jump in a car and race off to save someones life. They can break many religious laws to do that - and only that. 6. This was not a vote of conscience, ideal, or popularity. It was forced along party lines with with strict party discipline in effect. One person breaking who broke ranks was severely punished for it. Even parties who might have voted against it were 'forced' to due to deals with Lapid - deals that got them into the ruling coalition.
So my thoughts are that Lapid and those of his ilk have forced a crisis that no one wants, bypassed the solutions already in place, bypassed any attempt at compromise, and brought even more strife to Israel. If there were a need for these students in the military then I'm all for forcing them into one of the learning/military programs, but there is no need. The current military is of sufficient level to protect the state and the reserves are more than adequate to supplement that. If someone sees themselves as supporting the state by learning Torah while forgoing the privileges that a military stint gives, then I see no reason to force them - as long as they are not needed for the physical defense of the people. Personally, I think that every religious person of the allowable age should go into the military right away. This will force the military's hand and they will either have to cope the the supply/demand or send them all home. If they cope, then the power shift in Israeli society due to so many religious in the military and then in places they go after the military (politics, police, etc) will reshape the entire country - and no one wants that. BTW, the term ultra-orthodox is a loaded one and is used to negatively portray the religious in different ways. The telegraph stated that this was a secular vs. ultra-orthodox battle, implying that the ultra-orthodox represented ALL religious and compounded their portrayal by saying that the ultra-orthodox was only 10%, implying that the secular was 90%. While one may be able to say that the ultra-orthodox is 10% (as represented by a specific Yeshiva based lifestyle), this percentage does NOT include all of the other orthodox who are not considered ultra. In other words, the telegraph is playing fast and loose here with the facts. On Wed, Mar 12, 2014 at 12:18 PM, GMoney <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://tinyurl.com/pcldosy > > Dino, your thoughts? > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:369561 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
