The IDF is not geared for mitzvah-observant Jews, and not only for Torah students. Let them not tell you fantasies as if the army is prepared to tailor itself to them. It is all lies, deceptions in order to tempt the naive ones and suck them into the army trap from which it very difficult to escape. From time to time, another story makes the headlines, which only reveals the tip of the iceberg of army abuse against soldiers who seek to preserve their Judaism within the army.
Most soldiers simply bow their heads in submission to the dictates of their superiors who lack minimal understanding and sensitivity to Jewish values. But occasionally, a story comes to light about soldiers with backbone who are not prepared to yield to the whims of their opinionated, value-lacking commanders.
This is a story that took place this past week when 16 Givati soldiers, Hesder students, declined to obey an army order forcing them to agree to a joint maneuver with female soldiers. They called their rabbis asking them if they were forced to obey the command. They were told that under no circumstances were they permitted to agree whereupon their division commander court-martialed them.
Five them, considered as the leaders of the refusal, were sentenced to ten days of confinement and the rest to only five days.
The Women's Organization for Army Camp Purity demanded: "Immediately release the soldiers and punish the commander who dealt foully with them. The agenda of the progressive coercion has reached an ethical rock bottom, reaching in an extreme and violent stage." And they added, "The IDF is a Jewish army where Halacha, commandments and sanctity are meant to be its guiding light and not a doormat to be downtrodden by commanders who are not fit for the office. This constitutes a disgrace and mark of shame for the Chief of Staff and the Security Minister. You cannot presume to talk about induction of chareidim into the army so long as mitzvah-observers within the army ranks are persecuted for preserving the dictates of our holy Torah."
Rabbi Dror Arye, a Hesder rabbi in Shderot, attacked the army as well. "This is an unparalleled chutzpah. The Security Minister failed in protecting and defending devoted combatants because of progressive values. These soldiers are heroes; their spirit will not be broken by imprisonment. They are the pillar of fire before the camp and will be remembered in the coming ages as the true victors in this implausible saga. Their commanders acted in defiance to the Halacha and against orders. The ones who should rightfully be indicted are the commanders who violated the accepted procedures."
This is not the first incident involving these soldiers. According to the soldiers, an additional occurrence took place a week before, when a division commander decided to order a training maneuver on Shabbos which was not at all necessary to be on Shabbos. The soldiers were forced to desecrate Shabbos, but only after Shabbos when they reported to the chaplain, they were told that according to the Halacha, they were forbidden to participate in it on Shabbos.
Values, however, do not begin to interest the commanding officers, while chillul Shabbos doesn't speak to them in the least. They are totally in command, answerable to no one, and all the army directives regarding honoring the lifestyle of Jewish soldiers are simply ignored and downtrodden.
When the chairman of the National Zionism party, Betzalel Smotrich, came out in defense of the soldiers, he was violently verbally attacked by assorted Liberals of the Opposition parties, for whom chareidi mobilization is their agenda.
Those soldiers who are slated to spend the coming days in the army prison, will probably meet yeshiva students incarcerated there for the crime of studying Torah. They will surely hear from them that if they are already meant to spend time in jail, it would have been preferable to be arrested for Torah study than for insubordination to orders.
As Pappus ben Yehuda said to Rabbi Akiva when they met in the Roman prison: "Fortunate are you, Rabbi Akiva, for having been caught because of Torah dissemination while woe unto Pappus for having been arrested for inconsequential matters."
