Rabbi Segal, Hold Your Tongue! (On the IDF Chief Rabbinate)

I often frequent (Orthodox) blogs of people with whom I disagree, within reason. It is an enriching experience and has helped me form and mold the way I look at the Jewish world today. Evanston Jew in particular has helped me in this regard, especially when it comes to the importance of being "empathetic" to (if still strongly disagreeing with) the other side.

Rabbi Shael Segal is another such person. Most of his posts are very enlightening and well-thought out. They are demonstrative of a brilliant and off-the-beaten track type of thinking that I have always liked. Even when I find myself disagreeing with him (and that's a lot of the time), it is a disagreement of principle – not the type of thing that "gets my gander up", so to speak.

This is true except with regard to one issue – his attitude towards the IDF Chief Rabbinate. In many of his posts, Rabbi Segal makes clear his utter contempt for the Israeli Rabbinate, calling them a bunch of little peikidim and wishing the State of Israel had separated "Church and State" from the outset. This is certainly a legit, if minority position (Prof. Leibowitz held to that view from 1953 until his death).

What made me absolutely furious was that in a post on Operation Cast Lead, he extended this contempt to the IDF Chief Rabbinate. I had to study the history of the IDF Rabbinate pretty thoroughly for my thesis (sheyikatev bimehera beyameinu) so what follows is grounded in academic research. But to make a long story short, Rabbi Segal, you're full of it.

This may sound surprising, but in the first years of the state of Israel, the attitude of many religious Zionist Jews to the IDF was deeply ambivalent. On the one hand, they obviously supported serving in the Army and found it a source of pride. But serving as a religious Jew in the IDF was an extremely difficult experience. Kosher food and kosher kitchens were not always available. Almost all the commanders, junior and senior, were secular. Many were indifferent or hostile to religious needs. There were cases (I don't know how many) where Jews were forced to violate Shabbat in conditions that could by no stretch of the imagination be called "Mivtza'i" or involving military necessity. Many old-time Mafdal leaders (you know, those "always compromise, wishy-washy" types) openly called for establishing separate religious units to prevent the mass defection of the younger generation to the secular side.

Enter the first IDF Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Shlomo Goren (Gornochik). While his predecessor Nathan Gardi (head of the "religious section") helped lay some of the groundwork, it was Goren who succeeded in turning the IDF into a place where Orthodox and traditional (Masorti) Jews could serve proudly while keeping Torah and Mitzvot to whatever degree. He not only ensured that the IDF be a kosher-friendly environment. He was a pioneer of "Army halacha" and through a years-long painstaking effort created the first hands-on corpus of army-specific halachic responsa ever. Religious Jews now had what to work with to maintain the faith and serve their country. More than that, Rav Goren went to the matt many times to ensure that Jews not be forced to violate halacha unnecessarily, working together with Ben-Gurion (of all people!) to ensure that voluntary Shabbat and Holiday observance in the army (i.e. that religious soldiers not be forced to violate them) was mandated in a series of legally binding directives from the IDF Chief of Staff.

Rabbi Goren was a sincere believer in Klal Israel and was against the idea of "separate religious units. He also practiced what he preached – he was not a detached Yeshiva Rav. He participated in combat missions and even took a parachuting course. In addition to the functions of ensuring "dati-friendly" conditions, he also invested in organizing Seders on Pesach and even held series of lectures on the High Holidays. He risked life and limb to ensure the burial of Jewish soldiers who died behind enemy lines – there are reliable stories of how he crossed minefields to be kover metei mitzvah. He also helped be matir many of the agunot of Jewish soldiers, such as the Dakar incident and the dead of Gush Etzion.

Even after Rabbi Goren left, the IDF Rabbinate continued to this day to do important work. In addition to the "little pekidim" (kashrut supervisors, Rabbis) whom Rabbi Segal so despises who ensure that religious and secular Jews can serve together, there are many other functions. The chazanim (many of whom are Charedi!) who officiate at military funerals and help comfort the bereaved. The important work they do towards (non-lunatic) conversion. I could go on, but I think my point has been made.

Rabbi Segal, the IDF Rabbinate has done and continues to do exponentially more work towards Ahavat Israel and Achdut Israel than you can possibly imagine. Shame on you for smearing the work of this wonderful institution and its people.