Sages: Be careful with your words

Speaking with care, honesty, and precision is a dying art

Avtalyon said, Sages: Be careful with your words… (Avot 1:11)

On Tuesday, the Israeli High Court of Justice issued a ruling that the government must begin drafting eligible Chareidi men into the IDF. The Court also ruled that “in the absence of a law, funding cannot be made from state coffers for yeshiva students who were not legally exempt from service."

The ruling is legally sensible, as the law that offered blanket exemptions to yeshiva students expired last June, and the Knesset has not legislated a new law in its place. The government did pass a cabinet resolution immediately before the law expired, telling the IDF not to draft yeshiva students for ten months; the Court, however, ruled that this resolution exceeded the government’s power, and was accordingly null and void. In fact, the Knesset could vote on a new exemptions law that would replace the law that expired last year, but given the political climate following October 7th, it is unlikely to pass. For that reason, there is currently no legal mechanism that exempts yeshiva students from military service - and accordingly, the Court told the government that it was obligated to implement the law.

You may agree that Chareidim should be drafted (in whole or in part) or you may disagree. However, it is difficult to argue that the Court’s decision was unreasonable. Israel is a state in which the law is taken seriously; the Supreme Court’s decision, while obviously troubling to many, is unquestionably a sensible interpretation of the laws currently on the books.

Later on Tuesday, Rabbi Dov Landau, widely considered to be the senior leader of the Lithuanian Chareidi community, said that, “The courts - all of them together - cut off the basis of the budget for yeshiva students and kollelim - they cut it off with anger, wickedness, and malice. They hate those who learn Torah… Look, they hate and want to destroy the Torah world in the Land of Israel… I repeat: the evil authorities in the Land of Israel and all the haters from the courts, and all the ‘wicked among the wicked’ there who hate the Torah and those who learn it with a terrible hatred that cannot be described; and they are going to destroy everything, they cut the budget and the budget they cut needs to be filled…”

I have been vocal in saying that the system of blanket exemptions is unfair, unreasonable, and untenable. I believe that some of those who are in yeshiva should be given military exemptions, but the current system needs to be overhauled.

I know that there are many people who strongly disagree with me. I think they’re wrong.  I am convinced that they are advocating policies that are ruinous for the State of Israel. I believe that their interpretation of the Torah is very mistaken, and that, in the words of Rabbi Nachum Rabinovitch zt’l, “‘Torah of truth’ does not tell us to hide out in the beit midrash, but instead helps us to understand that if we do not protect ourselves, our land, our birthplace - no one else will do it for us.” The people who think otherwise are hurting us all.

Yet I would never say or think that those who believe in blanket military exemptions are “evil authorities.” I would not dare to suggest that those with whom I disagree are all motivated by hatred, or despise the State of Israel, God forbid.

Nevertheless, this is the language which Rabbi Landau used on Tuesday night -  language, unfortunately, which is far from unique among the Chareidi leadership, as well.

I certainly don’t question Rabbi Landau’s massive Torah knowledge, and I have every reason to believe that he lives a righteous life dedicated to Torah and mitzvot. But I still cannot accept his declaring that the High Court of Justice was acting “with anger, wickedness, and malice.” How can we sit quietly when he describes the courts and political leadership as “evil authorities in the Land of Israel and all the haters from the courts, and all the ‘wicked among the wicked’ there who hate the Torah and those who learn it with a terrible hatred that cannot be described” - all for the crime of interpreting the law in a reasonable manner? Even should someone disagree with their legal reasoning, Rabbi Landau went much further and brutally denigrated not their opinions, but their character and motivations - something which Rabbi Landau could not possibly know.

Why should we care what he says? Because thousands of people look to gedolim like Rabbi Landau for guidance, and model their own actions on their behavior. When leaders speak in a manner which is beneath them, and insult the character of people with whom they disagree, they normalize such discourse and further corrode civil society. When this takes place in a Torah community that values deliberate speech and condemns slander, the tragedy is compounded.

When I taught Gemara in yeshiva, I was fixated on the diyuk - that is, the careful reading of every word and sometimes every letter, knowing that Chazal and the great Rishonim wrote in such a careful manner that every letter was meaningful. The Vilna Gaon was reputed to have read the first eight chapters of the Ramchal’s classic Mesilat Yesharim and said that he could not find a single unnecessary word. The words of great sages are taken very seriously; thus they have the responsibility to speak with care, honesty, and precision.

If only some of the great sages of our own time would take this lesson to heart.

And if the sweeping statement that these judges are “the ‘wicked among the wicked’… who hate the Torah” was indeed said with care, honesty and precision? Then our problems are even worse than I imagined.