generalspeaking

In Service To God

Isn't it amazing how some groups seem to feel themselves to be exceptional and as such quaintly entitled to bonuses that do not apply to others who consider themselves equally exceptional, but also add responsibility and maturity to their self-qualifying descriptives.  Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel think of themselves as being separate and apart from the rude everyday things that are of concern to others.

Their concerns far outweigh those of others.  They have dedicated themselves to exploring the finely nuanced details of studying sacred scripture, honed their minds and their spirits to enable them to confidently commune with the Most High.  So, not for them the ordinary pursuits that other citizens of the State of Israel must attend to.

They are forgiven from being conscripted into the military.  The seminary is their military.  They are militant about their adherence to the finest particulars of God's commands to the faithful.  And God did not command His faithful to bear arms.  Others may and should do so, to ensure that the country and its various citizens of many faiths remain well protected.

So all-consuming is seminary work, teaching and learning and worshipping that the ordinary pursuits that consume the days of other mortals do not beckon to these Ultra-Orthodox Jews who proudly hold themselves apart.  State welfare supports them.  And their large, very large families, of countless children.  Did not God instruct them to be fruitful and multiply?

To God's will they are obedient in all things.  Of the spirit, and of the body, when it too is called upon to give service in God's name.

Many years ago Israel's ultra-Orthodox were a relative handful of some several hundred.  Traditionally, in Europe, where so many of the Ashkenazi Jews came from, biblical religious scholars spent their waking hours in schul, and had no time to earn a living for their wives and their countless children.  It was the wives who, while raising those countless children, also managed miraculously, to earn a few pfennigs.

Or exist on the charity of other, hard-working, responsible Jews who had rachmones.  That original several hundred has ballooned over the years to about 60,000 men who continue to be supported by state charity.  Taxes imposed on the greater aggregate of Israeli citizens pay for a great many things.  Among them the support of the families of these pious men.

Exemption of the seminary students is destined to vanish in short order.  "Everyone must bear the burden.  We will provide positive incentives to those who serve and negative incentives to draft dodgers", stated Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to a meeting of lawmakers from the Likud party.  The legislators ratified the recommendations of a government-appointed panel to form a new military conscription law.

Now, all that remains is implementation....

Labels: Human Fallibility, Israel, Judaism, Middle East, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, July 11, 2012