Small Differences That Fan the Flames: Why the Religious Zionist Camp Really Hates Us

On the eve of elections, and in the middle of a war, the hottest fire is not being lit against distant secularism, but דווקא inside the nearby religious home | Behind the moral sermons and the emotional upheaval of the moment, a long-standing, visceral frustration with a Torah world that refuses to bend and apologize for its path is hidden | What is really burning in the ideological dispute that erupted between us with such force, and how did closeness become the most sensitive explosive material on the ground? (Haredim) The hottest fire is not being lit against distant secularism, but דווקא inside the nearby religious home (Photo: AI ) On the eve of elections, and the stage looks strikingly familiar. The main players are already on stage, sharpening their rhetorical knives, and the target, as usual, is painted black. We are used to every political round having someone who makes the ultra-Orthodox head his ticket into the Israeli consensus. When Naftali Bennett does it, it is almost natural, it is his brand, the “new Israeli” trying to wink at the center-left at the expense of the Haredi sector. >> For the full magazine, click here But this time, something deeper and more visceral is happening beneath the surface. This time, the fire comes דווקא from the neighboring house. When Bezalel Smotrich, who is supposed to be the natural partner, the neighbor on the bench of the observant, acts actively against the Haredi public, delays budgets, promotes hostile laws and understands that this is the currency used to scrape together a few more votes at the ballot box, we have to stop and ask: where is the sentiment really located? This is no longer a cold political argument over resources. This is hatred. And to understand it, one must break down the most complex psychological mechanism in Israeli society: the tribal tension of the near and far. The battle over “Solomon’s Pools” has begun: the religious MK’s leap into the water and the Palestinian response, Israel Shapira | 14:46

The psychological trap of the nearby neighbor In sociology, this is called “the narcissism of small differences.” The rule is simple: the closer two groups are to one another, the deeper and more painful the tension between them becomes. The distant secular public does not really occupy the daily spiritual life of Religious Zionists; we do. Religious Zionism carries an open wound, an inherent frustration over the fact that, despite all its efforts, it has not succeeded in creating the same internal unit of pride, unassailable and unquestioned, on the subject of piety and observance. They feel that the Haredim look down on them. And to be honest? They are right. There is condescension here, and it is based on reality. To blunt that sting, Religious Zionists like to pull out their standard trump card: they wave around the same percentage of “modern Haredim,” those who integrate into the labor market or academia, make spiritual compromises at nearly every turn, and still try to hold the rope at both ends, enjoying the comforts of modernity on the one hand and exemption from military service on the other. They like to repeat the false slogan that “most Haredim do not study at all.” I will add here a clarification, not an apology: anyone who knows the Haredi world from within knows this is a total distortion. True, there is such a group among us, just as there is a respectable group of serious, diligent Torah scholars within Religious Zionism. But when analyzing a society, one looks at the average, at the central engine and the collective aspiration, not at the extreme cases. The Haredi system, as a whole, is entirely geared toward the ideal of the purity of Torah; the national-religious system, as a whole, is built on an inherent compromise with Western values and the desire for integration. Deep inside, members of Religious Zionism know that when one looks at the whole, the pure halakhic truth, stripped of all beautifying complexities, lies on the Haredi side. Where does genuine Torah knowledge grow? Our sages taught in Mishnah Avot: “A thousand enter the study of Scripture... and one emerges to teach.” Where are those thousand? Where does the broadest and deepest infrastructure of halakhic decision-making grow? The national-religious public itself, at the decisive moments of halakhic ruling and at the deepest level of Torah scholarship, relies on the Haredi world of Torah and psak. Their sectoral pride cracks in the face of the yeshiva world, and that crack breeds frustration. This is not a new dispute. The position of the Chofetz Chaim, of blessed memory, toward the Mizrachi movement and the Religious Zionism of his time was firm and unequivocal. He did not see it as merely a political movement, but as a profound educational and spiritual danger. In his view, the very turning of nationalism into a central value necessarily came at the expense of total and exclusive commitment to Torah and mitzvot, and would ultimately lead to abandoning them. When they try to engineer for us a “Torah outlook” that will legitimize the military melting pot, it is worth opening the words of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, of blessed memory. In the introduction he wrote in his own hand to his book Igrot Moshe (Volume 5, Yoreh Deah Part 4), he defines the concept of Da’at Torah: what is Da’at Torah? An outlook built only on Torah and not at all on other influences. A person who necessarily dealt only with Torah, because if he received views from various places, his view is not a pure and absolute Da’at Torah. Rulings must be completely free of any hint of self-interest. Whoever expresses an opinion based on views that are not directly from Torah but from people without Da’at Torah, is necessarily not expressing a pure Da’at Torah. True Da’at Torah arises only from pure, for its own sake Torah study and complete nullification of personal will before the will of God. From this arises the crying question: it is impossible that people inside the military system, subject to the line of thought of senior officers and influenced by it, will lecture us on what Da’at Torah is and why it is a mitzvah to enlist. It may be that in their view enlistment is a civic, equal, necessary, or proper value from a national standpoint; but they should not confuse us and claim that this is a pure religious commandment, and they should not expect us to draw our spiritual outlook from those whose view is tainted by an alien system. The pain over the fallen does not resolve the ideological dispute. From this attempt to dictate an outlook, members of Religious Zionism hurl harsh and pained words at us. “Detached,” they call us. “How can it be that even after the October 7 massacre you did not enlist?” Even about the words written here, members of the national-religious public will say in shock: “What detachment.” Let us say it as clearly and painfully as possible: it is impossible to write about these relations without expressing deep sorrow for the many precious fallen from among Religious Zionists. The blood shed in this war is the blood of our brothers, and the rupture is everyone’s rupture. The bereaved families deserve every drop of respect, admiration and consolation from the depths of every Jew’s heart. In a place where such deep pain is bubbling up, no rational explanation will succeed. Emotion is met with emotion, and campaign architects on the opposing camp recognized this psychological mechanism long ago. Political actors whose sole goal is to bring down the government identified, with talent and cynicism, the most bleeding weakness of Religious Zionism, bereavement, and pressed on it with full force. This is a timed, organized and brilliant campaign, intended to redirect all the frustrations of war toward the Haredi head, thereby cracking the political bloc. And they succeeded. They succeeded not because they invented the kindling, but because they found fertile ground and an old frustration, and simply poured visceral fuel on it. This does not mean, of course, that the Haredi public should continue to ignore its own interests and the dignity of Torah scholars in favor of blind loyalty to the political bloc; but it does require us to understand the magnitude of the event. The sanctity of bereavement does not settle the historical and fundamental debate between us. The Haredi leadership, from the founding of the state until today, did not make the decision not to enlist because of the risk of falling in battle. The Haredi public is not cowardly. The prohibition does not stem from fear of bodily death, but from fear of the death of the soul. As it is written: “Guard yourselves very carefully for your souls.” There is a difficult feeling that in the current public polemic, some are using sacred bereavement to “win” an ideological argument that is unrelated to it. The substantive debate is about the spiritual path, and bereavement, however terrible the pain, does not answer the searching questions that the Haredi public has about the very ability and halakhic permission to enter a system whose declared purpose is secularization and the blurring of identity. When a Jew prays every morning, “May You save us today and every day from an evil person, a bad friend and a bad neighbor,” these words do not lose their validity on a military base. Reality shows that the military environment is a major engine of identity blurring. Historical experience teaches that the notion that “if you educated the child well at home, he will hold up anywhere” has simply not proven itself in the military cauldron. We say every day: “Do not bring us neither to trial nor to disgrace.” And Rabbi Yohanan warned in the Gemara: “Do not trust yourself until the day you die.” The Haredi war against modernity and uncontrolled integration is a war for the soul, and it is in our souls. This struggle is not unique to the army, it accompanies the Haredi public in every sphere of life. The spiritual leadership and the rabbis wage a stubborn, daily battle against the harms of technology and the dangers of the labor market. Even when a person must go out to earn a living, the rabbis always guide, open adapted frameworks and direct him to work only in places with the lowest possible spiritual risk. There is no evil here, no separatism for its own sake, and no desire for things to be bad; there is an entire, responsible and aware system, fighting to provide a person with protective walls and protection from modernity, which has proven time and again to be spiritually harmful and destructive. There is also a profound difference between the army and the labor market that is important to emphasize: in the labor market, a person has the autonomy to choose his environment and return home at the end of the day. In the army, by contrast, he is handed over to the total custody of a hierarchical system whose values and way of life are the exact opposite of his own, there he may be punished for not obeying his commanders, and he cannot simply get up and leave when it does not align with his worldview. And this is not theory or a concern on paper, anyone who follows the news hears about it again and again, about soldiers pushed into a corner, tried and punished in practice simply because they refused to compromise on their halakhic principles מול the dictates of the system. The red lines and political hypocrisy The best proof of the correctness of the Haredi path comes דווקא at the moments when Religious Zionism loses control. When military service touches their red lines, for example around the issue of women’s service or gender integration in armored units, different voices suddenly emerge. Suddenly prominent rabbis in the sector instruct their students: “Do not enlist in those units.” And what will happen tomorrow, if by order of the Supreme Court all units in the army become fully mixed, with no consideration for religious feelings? Even then, their rabbis will instruct them not to go. At that moment, they will be exactly like the Haredim. The only difference is that today they live in collective denial about the spiritual problems that already exist on the ground. The real argument between us is not about “sharing the burden,” but about an existential worldview: where do the prohibitions in the Torah lie that you are willing to give up for the value of belonging and cynicism? In the end, this tension translates into the political arena. Have representatives of Religious Zionism ever really cared about Haredi interests? The unequivocal answer is no. And the truth is that this is completely normal, just as Haredi representatives are not supposed to provide for the ideological interests of Religious Zionism. That is why the Haredi group that chooses them again and again is puzzling. Whoever decides, for his own reasons, to give them his vote can do so, but without illusions. One must know that this is Religious Zionism, these are its values, and this is the only thing it will fortify. This political confusion is only a symptom of a much deeper and more painful confusion, one that has been gnawing from within in recent years. It concerns that same growing group of Haredim who move among us with a constant sense of heaviness and discomfort. They feel attacked, are angry again and again at the Haredi leadership, and walk through the world with the painful feeling that “because of our brokers, rabbis and politicians, everyone hates me.” An existential absurdity has been created here: they themselves do not get up and enlist, yet they carry on their backs heavy guilt and discomfort with themselves. This distress was born only because they do not know history, do not understand the depth of the roots of the ideological dispute, and have forgotten the essential “why” that has held our path together for generations. (Even in Russia they were angry at us for not enlisting.) When one does not understand the depth of the gap, it is easy to fall into the trap of guilt and inferiority. >> For the full magazine, click here In the background noise, the engineering of consciousness and the chaos of the election and war system, this column is not here to preach or solve small political problems. It is here to bring order to the soul. It turns to you to say: stop getting confused. The time has come to clear away the fog, recognize our own worth, and know with complete clarity who we are and who they are.