re: Rabbi Dov Landa’s Attack on All Jewish Self-Defense
Sent in by a reader in reference to the outrageous statements by Rabbi Landa (ChatGPT plus some editing by me, but the point is brief and sharp enough):
Keren Olam HaTorah Hashalem
Saving the Torah World from Leftism Spoken in the Name of Hashkafah
Brothers,
The Torah world is in danger.
Not only because yeshiva budgets are being cut.
Not only because courts seek authority over Torah institutions.
The deeper danger is that we have grown accustomed to believing that Torah concerns learning, while saving Jews, confronting enemies, governing a community and defending the land belong to the secular State.
As though Torah knows how an ox damages together with a pit but has nothing to say when an enemy attacks Jews.
As though a kollel may be established to resolve a doubt concerning an after-blessing, while determining how millions of Jews should be defended is dismissed as secular “politics.”
We therefore establish:
Keren Olam HaTorah Hashalem
Not to add Torah. To restore the sugyos we left outside the beis midrash.
Not Torah and Rescue
It is Torah.
Saving a Jew is not an outside service provided to the Torah-learning world — it is Torah. Guarding a Jewish city is Torah. Determining when to fight, how to fight, what risks may be imposed on soldiers, and how to prevent the next massacre is Torah — not preparation for a mitzvah, not a technical necessity.
Torah itself.
The Honor of the State
A new argument is now heard within our community:
Israeli soldiers do not kill enemies for rescue, but for “the honor of the State.”
Similar language has been heard for years from the radical left.
There, it is called opposition to nationalism.
Among us, it is repeated in the name of hashkafah.
When printed in a left-wing newspaper, it is hostility toward Israel.
When whispered in the name of Torah leadership, it becomes an unquestionable expression of Daas Torah.
Apparently, the content does not determine whether a statement is leftist.
Everything depends upon the color of the speaker’s hat.
But we must ask:
- When a soldier shoots a terrorist who came to murder Jews, is he defending the honor of the State—or Jewish lives?
- When weapons intended for a massacre are destroyed, is that national pride—or the prevention of bloodshed?
- When an enemy is prevented from rebuilding so that it cannot murder again, is that a war for “honor”—or rescue before the knife reaches the throat?
According to the new outlook, rescue begins only after the knife is already resting upon the victim’s neck.
As long as the enemy is merely planning, arming, threatening and approaching, stopping it may be suspected of serving “the honor of the State.”
Yet when leaders travel overseas to preserve the honor, independence and funding of the yeshiva world, that is unquestionably called rescue.
We do not diminish the importance of saving the Torah world.
On the contrary.
We merely propose broadening the definition of “Torah world” so that it also includes the Jews living in this world.
If the independence of the yeshivos constitutes saving Torah, then keeping Jews alive is not merely a matter of honor.
And if language portraying every Jewish use of force as immoral nationalism is considered leftism when spoken in Tel Aviv, it does not become Torah merely because it is said in Bnei Brak.
Torah does not command killing for the honor of the State.
But neither does it command abandoning Jews for separation.
True, not every war is rescue. But neither is every rescue “the honor of the State.”
We Do Not Intervene
We are told the Torah world does not intervene.
But a void Torah does not enter does not remain empty:
- Judges enter.
- Attorneys enter.
- Universities enter.
- Human-rights organizations enter.
People enter who are fully prepared to tell Jews how they may defend themselves, provided Torah is not among the parties to the discussion.
Noninvolvement is not always separation. Sometimes it is handing over the key.
- One can dispute Zionism without surrendering the definition of morality to the ideological left.
- One can deny sanctity to the State while recognizing that the Jews living within it are not ownerless.
- One need not settle the definition of Zionism to understand pikuach nefesh.
- One need not recite Hallel on Independence Day to examine the halachos of war.
- One need not treat an army as sacred to demand that Jewish defense be governed according to Torah.
A Contracted Torah
It is easy to accuse others of teaching a “distorted Torah.”
But there is also a Torah that bends nothing.
It simply contracts.
It studies the law of the pursuer without looking at an actual pursuer.
It studies pikuach nefesh only when the danger is private.
It studies the Rambam’s laws of Jewish kings while refusing to ask whether they apply to reality.
It believes all Torah is eternal—until, that is, Torah approaches army, government and warfare.
Then Torah suddenly becomes too rarified to enter the room.
When Torah refuses to enter the room, the ideological left enters in its place.
When the Public ‘Did Not Understand’
Sometimes profound statements are understood according to their plain meaning.
Then we are told that the words were removed from context.
That the public lacked depth.
That opponents seized upon a phrase.
Certainly, an entire worldview should not be built upon one sentence.
But words also carry responsibility.
When a soldier hears that his self-sacrifice is morally suspect;
when a mother hears that her son’s war is merely about honor;
when an entire community hears that its rescue matters less than the rescue of an institution’s budget;
the answer cannot always be that the listeners failed to understand…
Torah is deep, not a deepity.
The [Complete] Keren Olam HaTorah
Not for the honor of the State.
Not for the honor of the army.
Not for politicians or officials.
For rescue:
- The rescue of Jews.
- The rescue of Torah from contraction.
- The rescue of the Torah world from believing that the Torah world ends where the lives of Jews begin.
Indeed:
- The laws of war must also be learned.
- The defense of Am Yisrael is also Torah.
- The leadership of the Jewish public is also a sugya.
Not Torah together with saving Israel. Saving Israel is Torah itself.