Taking the Basic Law Seriously

Yeshiva students playing laser tag redux

Our son Yaki serves in the tank corps of the IDF. He had gone four consecutive months without a real break, coming home every couple of weeks for Shabbat and going back again early on Sunday morning.

Finally, he was given a week-long break at the end of February. He came home for Shabbat, expecting to have the following week off.

On Shabbat morning, February 28th, Israel and the United States attacked Iran… and Yaki’s vacation was immediately canceled. He went back to the army the next day. His week-long break was not rescheduled; he did not have longer than a Shabbat off for another four months. Only then was he given a week off, after which he continued his IDF service on the front.

Eight consecutive months of service. One week off when it was over.

Yaki’s experience is not the exception. The IDF takes its mission seriously, and for that reason, its soldiers, happily or otherwise, serve for long periods of time without a significant break.

Which brings me back to the new Basic Law: Torah Study, passed by the Knesset last month.

The law reads: “Torah study is a foundational value in the heritage of the Jewish people and in the State of Israel.” Many of us have no quarrel with that idea, even if we believe that codifying it in legislation is a serious religious and political mistake.

The same political parties that pushed for the law’s passage argue vociferously that those who study Torah full time¹ should be exempt from military service. There are numerous reasons given, including the idea that Torah study is itself a source of protection, and the assertion that Torah study is important enough on its own, even apart from any protective qualities, that those who study should not be forced to abandon that study in order to serve in the IDF. This, in fact, is the implicit conviction behind the new Basic Law.

That is why it is maddening to see the streets of Israel filled with yeshiva students currently enjoying a three-week vacation.

Many people know that full-time yeshiva students are given ten weeks of annual vacation: three weeks after Tisha B’Av, three weeks after Yom Kippur, and the entire month of Nissan. This time of bein hazmanim (“between the semesters”) is supplemented by time off most Fridays and Shabbatot, as well as various additional days off or less-than-full-time days throughout the year, such as on Chanukah and Purim.

The vast majority of people who have regular jobs get nowhere near ten weeks off annually. Certainly those who occupy important positions would never dream of taking so much time off. And soldiers in the Israeli army go far longer without a proper break.

Why, then, do yeshiva students who also receive military exemptions have so much time off - more than almost anyone in typical professions?

Some have argued that there are voluntary learning programs taking place during these vacations. Yet if yeshiva students are performing an essential service for the State of Israel such that they are exempt from serving in the IDF - indeed, such that they are paid stipends by the Israeli government - how can we, the taxpaying public whose children are serving in the Israeli army, be satisfied that whose whom we pay and who are exempt from the army simply have an option to learn during their vacations, but are under absolutely no obligation to do so? The idea that a soldier could choose to take three weeks off is laughable; yet this is de rigueur when it comes to those who are supposedly upholding the Torah standard for the people of Israel.

Some have argued that wives need their husbands home during this time to prepare for the holidays and help take care of the kids. Yet once again: if these allowances are not given to soldiers, or frankly to employees in other professions (good luck suggesting to your boss that you want three weeks off in the summer to take care of your kids, after taking a full month off around Pesach, and before another three weeks of vacation after Yom Kippur), why do we demand so little from those who are performing an essential service, as codified in the Basic Law? Are husbands really working full-time for two weeks before Pesach to prepare their houses for the holiday - and even if they are (which indicates that they should spend more time learning the laws of Pesach), do they also need another week after Pesach to stay home doing nothing? How about the week after Sukkot when yeshivot are not in session - why are the only people still on vacation those who are supposedly upholding the Torah character of the State of Israel? People who work in law firms in Tel Aviv manage to build their sukkot and buy their lulavim and etrogim even if they don’t take four days off following Yom Kippur - yet yeshiva students, who are keeping Israel’s religious life afloat, are told to stay home during this time instead of returning to the yeshiva.

Some have argued that students cannot study for so long without a break. Yet do our best and brightest truly need ten weeks of vacation a year? Why not instead say that when a student needs a break, he gets a week off, then returns to his studies? Demanding ten weeks off annually is indefensible. Yes, this system made sense in Europe when people lived far away from their yeshivot, and needed days to travel back and forth to their homes. There is no need for such latitude today; and the fact that most yeshivot take this latitude demonstrates that they do not take their mission as seriously as they claim.

A sign seen in Kiryat Sefer, sent to me by a friend. It reads, “The city of Modi’in Illit welcomes the myriads of those who toil in Torah, who are returning to our city at the end of the summer semester. The yeshiva students, the guardians of the flame, the carriers of the torch: you are our mighty heroes!”

If yeshiva students want to take ten weeks off a year, they should be entitled to do so, just as an employee whose boss gives him ten weeks of vacation is entitled to take it. But they should not be entitled to do so when they assert that their Torah study exempts them from military service, when they insist that the State pay them stipends and offer them benefits such as financial aid for daycare, when their representatives in the Knesset pass a Basic Law that declares Torah study to be a foundational value of the Jewish people. When others doing jobs that are not defined as foundational receive fewer days off than those who are learning Torah, what does that say about how much we really value Torah study?

I recall reading that when a student interrupted Rav Yehuda Zev Halevi Segal zt”l while he was learning, he would answer, “I can’t talk now; I’m in the middle of a million dollar deal!” That’s called taking Torah study seriously.

Those who interrupt their studies for three weeks in the summer, three weeks in Tishrei, and four weeks in Nissan are unwittingly demonstrating that they do not take their Torah study seriously.

Two years ago, I wrote an article that expressed disgust at those yeshiva students who refuse to serve in the army, but take enough time off in the summer that they can play laser tag in a local Beit Shemesh park while their peers serve on the actual front. How fundamentally disappointing that the same people who demand more and more from the State of Israel do not simultaneously offer to do more and more for the State of Israel. Instead, once again, they take their sacrosanct ten weeks of vacation with barely any recognition of how awful such bitul zman appears to the rest of us.

If you demand that the State of Israel treat you as its cultural defenders, at least act as though you believe it yourself.

1. In fact, many Chareidi leaders argue that all Chareidim, regardless of whether they are yeshiva students, should be exempt from serving in the IDF. Even though this is far from an extremist position, I am restricting my comments to those who argue that those who learn Torah should receive military exemptions.