The “Exemption” Mindset

With so many soldiers killed in these past few weeks, the current Knesset vote on Haredi army exemptions feels like salt smeared on gaping wounds. Just last week dozens of people stood in protest at the traffic circle at the entrance to my neighbourhood, yelling out in frustration against our local Knesset member’s lack of vocal opposition to the suggested legislation. While I am a self-proclaimed novice to politics, as a religious Jewish woman I know a thing or two about the “exemption mindset.” I’ve been thinking about these parallels over the last few weeks and how they might enlighten the circuitous conversation surrounding the Haredi draft dilemma.

The Mishna famously exempts women from time-caused commandments, but it is a perplexing principle with almost as many exceptions to the rule as the rule itself (Kiddushin 33b). Talmudic discussion abounds regarding what constitutes time-causation (once a year or a specific time daily) and what commandments women are still obligated in despite their time-causality, such as eating matza, Hakhel, megilla reading, grace after meals (Berakhot 20a). This category of exemption is also added to several other key non-time-caused mitzvot from which women are exempt, such as Torah learning, procreation, and redeeming a first-born son. Maimonides acknowledged that “there is no general rule regarding the positive commandments in which women are obligated or exempted, rather they are passed on orally and are matters received by tradition” (Commentary on the Mishna, Kiddushin 1:7). It is noteworthy to mention that exemption does not equal prohibition. After concluding that women are exempt from tefillin, the Mekhilta (Bo 13) recounts the stories of two women who donned tefillin with no criticism.[1] Woman can still perform many of these commandments, but they are released from the obligation to do so.

While the sheer number of mitzva exemptions is not quantitatively large, many of them constitute core moments or tenants of daily Jewish life. The Shema is a central prayer said twice a day, sitting in the Sukka resides at the heart of the Sukkot celebration. Donning tefillin and tzitzit, counting for a minyan, and a daily Torah-learning obligation are so essential that once women are counted out, the gap between their religious roles is massive, despite women’s obligation in the majority of commandments. Additionally, the exact boundaries between exemption and disconnect from mitzva performance becomes blurred: once women don’t count for a minyan and their daily prayer obligation minimized by some Rishonim to once a day, it becomes an easy slide to reciting morning prayers midday, and in the case of many, simply skipping them entirely. Similarly, negative statements about women learning Torah and an exemption from daily learning often morphs into an idealization of Torah taught without source material and woeful ignorance ofTorah ideas and teachings even among women who aspire to otherwise be connected to that same Torah.

Many rationalizations have been offered throughout the ages, since the Mishnaic and Talmudic discussions provide almost none. What was likely a historical reality describing what women simply didn’t do or did not have the ability to do without formal education, over the years transformed into an ideology:

• Women must be free to care for their children. Time-caused mitzvot would interfere with this essential role.
• A fuller obligation would cause a woman to have to choose between obligations to her husband and God (Abudraham).
• Women are more spiritual and don’t need as many commandments. Men, are more at risk for distraction and need more structure and obligation to create their relationship with God (Maharal, R. S.R. Hirsch).

These ideas, while unappealing to some modern ears, are still widely taught in various permutations to observant women and men. Their ubiquity impacts women’s continued role in religious society, the way the home is structured, and how much energy and resources are devoted to women’s religious endeavours. While today there are many opportunities for women to become more involved in religious, communal, and synagogue life, motivation requires a greater mental leap once exempt. It’s hard to commit to something as a regular staple of life when one knows in her heart that she does not have to do so. Additionally, women’s genuine desire to engage in religious and communal life is often treated as suspect—some feminist poison making its way into a pure religious life—even though for so many younger women the link to older feminist trends is completely foreign. This suspicion is further proof for how uncommon desire for voluntary inclusion is as a human phenomenon.

Mitzva exemptions were granted to women of a different time. Yeshayahu Leibowitz famously (and controversially) said that the woman spoken for by the halakha simply doesn’t exist anymore.[2] A surgeon, professor, or law partner who is also the mother of six was not the women envisioned by Talmudic and halakhic sources.

Thankfully, many of the struggles surrounding women’s religious issues seek to add responsibilities out of piety, seeking a religious life with more meaning, including greater inclusion in religious ceremonies, and especially normalization of women’s serious Torah learning, including Talmud and halakha. These are blessed efforts to do more. I learn Torah daily because I love it and because it is my oxygen, but I also think that the profile of the modern woman justifies no exemption from daily learning. My life is no more and no less burdened by responsibility than my husband’s (just to pick at one of the fabricated justifications for the exemptions). This position, however, is highly unpopular and I rarely express it. Most women and men prefer the posture of “exemption.” Societal norms are deeply established surrounding these exemptions. Assumptions about who leaves home in the morning for synagogue attendance, and who prepares sandwiches in the interim, as just one example. They also enable a large degree of flexibility that most women and men are content with.

This is where we can return to the Haredi question.

Haredi explanations about how Torah learning will win wars, and how the beit midrash is the real frontlines of this war, are about as convincing as claiming that women today are more spiritual than their male peers. Most of the religious population values prayer and learning but harbors no illusion that they can replace the need to physically and technologically defend the State of Israel. However, exemptions create realities far stronger and more comfortable than obligations. They give people room to marshal their own path and engineer their self-perception. It creates a degree of freedom that the Haredi world has used to carve a minority identity that, due to impressively high birth rates, has morphed into a massive population in the State of Israel.

As an observant Jew who deeply values Torah learning and understands how years of devotion are needed to cultivate expertise and skill, I would support draft exemptions for a proven group of Torah geniuses. But the 400 yeshiva students from 1948 to whom Ben-Gurion granted draft exemption bear no resemblance to the overall profile of contemporary Haredi yeshiva students en masse. To gain exemption today, one merely needs to be a boy enrolled in a yeshiva for that year, each year showing up to the draft office with proof of enrolment until aging out at 26 from draft obligations. On paper, a boy must be learning eight hours a day. Realistically, a significant portion of these young men are not seriously learning or certainly not seriously learning for all eight of those years. It is also important to clarify that the term “Haredi” includes a broad gamut of religious devotion including some who are not budding Torah scholars, to say the least. The exemption of 400 is innocuous; exemption of 75,000 eligible men was a national scandal before October 7th and has become a national, moral, and religious calamity in the intervening year. While some Haredim have candidly challenged this status quo in the past year, much of Israeli society has lost its patience for organic shifts in light of the current war.

But the Haredi world has not expressed recognition of reciprocal civic duty in return for the incredible financial support that enables their lifestyle. They have enjoyed the privilege of exemption while also benefiting from funding by the state, and telegraph an attitude that the rest of the citizenry should be grateful to them for the privilege.

We can debate ideology, but ideology rarely shifts society winds. Economics does. Once we engage in an ideological conversation about a lifestyle that has been abused, we’re like a parent screaming at his or her child. We’ve already lost. There will be a time to speak about creating culturally sensitive units for Haredim. The law does need to change, but before the debate continues about how to gently nudge more Haredim into the workforce at a younger age and ultimately serve in the army, there is basic tactic that must be wielded.

If funding for Haredi institutions will be cut a new theology will follow suit. It will take time, and it may even topple governments, but ideology is a malleable thing. Economic support is not.

***

One final point of comparison between my unusual life track and the Haredi dilemma:

Five years ago, I was essentially a Kollel student. I was learning in a 2-year program with a meager stipend while working part-time. Towards the end of the program’s first year, I gave birth to our fourth child and we had two children in need of private child care. This was an economic impossibility for us at the time and it was also the year of Covid lockdowns. Our older children ended up being home much of that year and the baby with them. The learning program continued exclusively online and, somehow, we made it all work (full disclosure: it was awful).

One night while I was studying on the couch for an exam, my husband sat down next to me and said, “After this program is over, you cannot learn Torah (semi-)full-time anytime in the near future. We have too many economic responsibilities and you need to contribute more fully to shouldering them.” I don’t even remember how I responded. I likely cried. I had already been feeling immature and embarrassed by my income, stuck between a deep love for Torah and a real need to move on.

And that was it. The following summer after completing all my exams, I went out looking for more full-time work, discovered the pride in being a serious bread winner and never again wanted to go back to the position of feeling like my family had to pay a price for my learning. I still learn Torah regularly, but I’ve found a way to make it fit into a work week. I had aged out of a period of life where depending on others was legitimate.

A draft will change the face of Haredi society. They are right to be scared, but it’s time to move on. I don’t expect the Haredi world to suddenly mature and realize this, but the government can help them face the music, just as my husband helped me. I have enough faith in Torah and the Jewish people’s commitment to cultivating it to know that it will survive this change.

Dr. Yosefa Fogel Wruble, a yoetzet halakha, teaches in the Women’s Beit Midrash at Migdal Oz and at Matan, and hosts the Matan Parsha Podcast.

[1] See also Eruvin 96a which claims this permissibility explicitly; admittedly, the Yerushalmi is somewhat less sympathetic to this position as expressed in Berakhot ch. 2.

[2] Leibowitz Mitpalmas (Carmel, 2013), 68-69.