Rabbi Amsalem’s plan for haredi society

CHAIM Amsalem, a member of Knesset, is a maverick. A learned Sephardi rabbi-politician, Rabbi Amsalem was educated in haredi yeshivas, was elected to the Knesset as a member of a Sephardi haredi party, Shas, and then broke with his party over its adherence to an economic model that, in his view, spells disaster for a large segment of religious Jewry in Israel — both Sephardi and Ashkenazi.

Since this economic model is religiously based, Amsalem’s economic critique is also a religious critique. He is a critic from the inside.

Rabbi Amsalem is worth hearing if one cares about social cohesion in Israel, even if one is not haredi, not Orthodox, and does not live in Israel.

Based on the number of Rabbi Amsalem’s Facebook fans, at least, he has struck a chord. Whether that will translate into political power or other influence to effectuate major change in haredi society remains to be seen.

Amsalem critiques the Orthodox approach to conversion in Israel, which I cannot address without seeing his halachic writings on the topic. The rest of his plan — an economic, religious, and political critique — can be evaluated on its own merits. Rabbi Amsalem presented it to me in an interview conducted in English and Hebrew; the translations from the Hebrew are mine.

Here is Rabbi Amsalem’s analysis of haredi society in Israel.

NON-ZIONIST religious (“haredi”) society has tremendous beauty, fear of Heaven, modesty, Torah study, chesed and volunteerism — not to be found in Israeli secular society.

However, Rabbi Amsalem says that the fact that most adult haredi Jews forswear Army service and work in favor of full time Torah study leads not only to poverty, but to people who “work the system in ways that are not the ideal Torah ways.”

Such distortions of the Torah include, ironically, the shirking of Torah study by students who defend it, but are not very good at it.

Long-term, full time Torah study, he says, is not for everyone. It is only for the gifted.

What he calls “the self-decreed communal poverty” leads to social distortions. He says that a small part of haredi society rules over the rest. And the ruler class is not impoverished. Quite the contrary, it is doing quite well through such enterprises as kosher supervision.

“You exploit the community and ensure that it remains poor,” he says. “This can’t continue. There is no contradiction between being Torah-learned and also an architect, an engineer, a doctor. There is no contradiction between Torah and worldly knowledge.

“But how will a Torah-learned Jew become a doctor if he can’t get educated in basic mathematics?

“And how did parts of the Torah itself disappear? They are not secular; they are holy. Why are we studying Talmud but not Tanach [the Hebrew Bible], or Hebrew poetry?

“We’re not in the shtetl. We’re in a modern state. We must develop gedolei Torah [preeminent Torah scholars], but it is understood that there cannot be many of them. Not everyone has the talent, the desire and the ambition.

“Everyone whose place is not in the yeshiva must have a good livelihood (parnasa). This isn’t new. It’s in the Talmud.

“He who says differently distorts Jewish history. Our gedolim [preeminent scholars] were great in Torah and worldly knowledge. Some want to make us forget what Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) says: Torah [study] without work leads to sin.

“Fifty years ago, full time Torah students numbered a few hundred, and it was necessary not to join the Israel army [to preserve our way of life]. Fifty years ago, we convinced the secular to allow us not to join the army. Now, we can’t convince them. The secular know that the majority [of full time, haredi Torah students] are not actually studying Torah — and there are thousands.

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“Therefore, we must find a way to serve in the army and also remain haredi.

“He who chooses not to serve in the army and does not want to be a Zionist cannot come afterwards with complaints that the state, which he doesn’t recognize, doesn’t allow him to study Torah.

“The army recognizes the special character of the haredi soldier, and is ready to accommodate the haredi in separate-gender units, to make available superior kashrut (kashrut mehuderet), Torah classes and prayer.

“It’s tough today to explain why a part of the religious society serves in the army [the modern Orthodox part] and a part does not.

“The haredi world needs to understand that we are not a tiny minority. We are a substantial percentage of Israel now. If we don’t take true steps to change our concepts, our ideology, we will increase the jealousy and polarization.

“You can’t preach about Jewish unity all day long but evade participation in the collective burden [Army service]. Azov ta’azov imo — help out your fellow Jew — is a mitzvah in the Torah.”

To advance his perspective, Rabbi Amsalem founded a new movement, “Am Shalem,” when he broke with Shas.

His movement, he says, “wants to focus on interpersonal mitzvos, to honor the other person, no less than on the ritual mitzvos.

“We don’t want to cause the secular to hate us, or cause them to want to emigrate, to find a better life somewhere else due to haredi society.” Rabbi Amsalem’s movement advocates near universal haredi service in the army.

In his interview with me, Rabbi Amsalem presented his thinking in related areas. You get the gist.

CLEARLY, there is much merit to what Rabbi Amsalem says.

Yes, as he says, poverty in Israel has increased drastically, in part due to lack of training, even of basic education.

Yes, he is right when he notes that there are full time Torah students who waste their time, or at least most of it. I myself saw this as long as 40 years ago when I studied in kollel in Jerusalem. It pained me to watch people wile away their hours unproductively.

Yes, the lack of service in the Israeli army is a tremendous bone of contention between the secular and the haredi sectors.

And, yes, the distortions of poverty include behavior that contradicts Torah principles.

But the picture is more complex.

Israeli army:

One could get the impression from Rabbi Amsalem that the situation today, and 50 years ago, is unchanged, save only for the drastic increase in the number of full time Torah students.

Actually, there are now a couple of thousand haredi, ex-full time Torah students serving in the Israeli army. That is a couple of thousand more than 15 years ago.

Deep social revolutions are not wrought in a moment. Army service is growing slowly in haredi circles. I can understand Rabbi Amsalem’s frustration as the slow pace of the change, but I think he would get further praising what is really a dramatic change, and then asking for more; rather than making short shrift of the seeds of a revolution.

Non-serious Torah students:

Torah study as a universal, full time occupation is not working, and cannot work. But there is a difference between weeding out shirkers and weeding out everyone but the intellectually gifted.

Dedicated Torah students should be offered the option of full time Torah study on a trial basis, even if they are not of the very highest caliber. The fact is, there only a few hundred Torah students of the very highest caliber. And Torah study has never been just for the intellectual elite.

Torah study increases holiness in the world. Torah study is critical for the defense of Israel. I don’t think Israel would gain if only a super-elitist cadre of Torah students engaged in full time Torah study. Yes, the current system needs to be modified, but in such a way that there is a gradational decrease in the number of full time students in inverse proportion to their intellectual capacity.

Poverty:

It grows not only because full time Torah students will not work, but because they are forbidden to work. Only people who have served in the army may do so. Many haredim would work if permitted.

Israel has tied itself up in legal knots. A Catch-22 damns haredi Jews if they want to work, and if they don’t. The Knesset is struggling to resolve this conundrum. Part of it, of course, is the disconnect between rejecting the state and expecting it to support you.

OTHER, more general points:

First: context.

There is a significant fall-off in registration for the army among secular Israelis. In part, this is unrelated to haredi society. Secular Israeli society is, in part, in crisis. Zionist themes do not carry the weight they used to. The “Americanization” of Israel has had an effect.

Likewise, emigration from Israel began 45 years ago, long before the great growth in haredi society. The overwhelming reason for this emigration is internal: the difficulties, economic, military and otherwise, of living there.

Second: blame.

If one Jew hates another, that is not the problem of the victim. In the US, we do not excuse hatred of African Americans because the crime rate among this segment of the populace is higher than among other segments. Hate is one thing — and it is wrong. Crime is another — and it must be addressed.

Rabbi Amsalem says, “We don’t want to cause the secular to hate us.” If most haredi Jews do not serve in the army, that is one thing — and it must be addressed. It is a separate issue from hate. One does not blame the victim of hatred by exonerating the hater or explaining it away. I think Rabbi Amsalem would get further as a bridge-builder by softening his language.

Third: Communal strategy.

Rabbi Amsalem says, “there is no contradiction between being Torah-learned and also an architect, an engineer, a doctor.”

This is, of course, true. There is, as the rabbi notes, “no contradiction betwee

n Torah and worldly knowledge” — but what works for the individual may not work for an entire social segment.

Rabbi Amsalem’s strategy has been articulated and institutionalized by other segments of Orthodoxy, in which Rabbi Amsalem has not lived and whose education he did not receive. Modern Orthodoxy advocates Torah and worldly knowledge. This has radically diminished the social problems that Rabbi Amsalem wants to solve in haredi society.

However, many modern Orthodox leaders address their own problems, deriving, basically, from openness to general culture. For many, this openness enriches their Judaism. For some, cultural openness leads to the dilution of some of the qualities in haredi society that Rabbi Amsalem praises.

If you take insulation and openness as polarities, I don’t think there’s a perfect calibration somewhere in between that works for everybody. Yes, Rabbi Amsalem is right that haredi society could benefit from a greatly increased adoption of professional occupations, but it is naive to think that, if this happens, haredi society’s positive traits will remain the same. The Messiah has not yet come.

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