Yeshiva Study Not Comparable To National Service

Dr.Aaron Lerner
IMRA
Weekly Commentary
05 August '10

It’s a simple and fundamental difference:

Those serving in national service sacrifice their freedom during the course of that service.

Those who permanently defer service don’t.

And that sacrifice of freedom exists even for those in the cushiest positions in national service.

What sacrifice of freedom?

In national service you are instructed where to go, what to do and when to do it. And you can end up in jail if you don’t follow those instructions.

In national service you can’t unilaterally opt out of a particular assignment or arrangement.

And in national service, you face the exposure that you might even be punished for poor performance doing something that you didn’t even want to do in the first place.

And, of course, in national service when a third party instructs you to take risks; the consequences of declining to obey the order could be jail.

That’s not to say that those permanently deferring national service aren’t making sacrifices as they devote their lives to Torah study.

But it is sacrifices they decided to make within frameworks of their choosing.

At the simplest of level: in contrast to national service, the sanctions they may face if they choose, in defiance of their superiors, to go to place “X” at time “Y” do not include incarceration.

The purpose of this observation is not to take a stand on permanent deferments.

It’s only to ask that those advocating permanent deferments recognize the special sacrifice made by those who do national service.

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