By Rabbi Josh Wander

There is a Jewish identity crisis unfolding before our eyes. It affects Jews across the religious spectrum, from Charedim in Israel to Jews living comfortably throughout the Diaspora. At its heart is a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to belong to the Jewish people?

Ask a young Jewish man living in New York, London or Toronto why he isn’t being drafted into the IDF while his Jewish brothers are fighting, and his answer will probably seem perfectly logical: “Because the war is in Israel. I’m an American Jew.” He may donate money, say Tehillim—Psalms—for the soldiers, attend rallies and pray for Israel’s victory. But enlist? That is different. Israel’s soldiers are fighting their war. And therein lies the problem.

Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer explores this question in his book Shall Your Brothers Go to War While You Stay Here? The title comes from Moshe Rabbeinu’s piercing challenge to the tribes of Reuven and Gad: “Shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” The question is about much more than military manpower. It is about belonging. Are we one people sharing one destiny, or separate communities that merely share a religion?

Rabbi Pfeffer cites Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner, the great-grandson of the Chatam Sofer and an early Orthodox advocate of Zionism. In his 1920 article Zionism in Light of Faith, Rabbi Glasner challenged Jews who defined themselves essentially as Hungarians who practiced the Jewish religion. But Judaism is not merely a religious denomination. A Jew belongs to a people, with a shared history, covenant, destiny and homeland. Jewishness cannot simply be the religion practiced on Shabbat while one’s national identity belongs entirely to somebody else.

Haman understood this. When he approaches Achashverosh seeking permission to destroy the Jews, he describes them as “one people, scattered and dispersed among the peoples”—יֶשְׁנוֹ עַם אֶחָד מְפֻזָּר וּמְפֹרָד בֵּין הָעַמִּים (Esther 3:8). The Jew living in Persia may have considered himself Persian, just as the Jew living in America may consider himself fundamentally American. Yet Haman recognized something Jews themselves repeatedly forget: underneath all those citizenships lies another identity. We are one people.

That makes Purim, among other things, a story about Jewish identity. Esther could have told Mordechai, “Of course I support the Jewish community, but this isn’t really my fight.” Mordechai destroys that illusion: “Do not imagine that you can escape in the king’s palace from the fate of all the Jews.” Their fate was her fate because their story was her story.

The same identity problem appears today in two seemingly different Jewish worlds: portions of Charedi society in Israel and Diaspora Jews abroad. But the contemporary Charedi attitude toward military service was not always the norm. In 1948, when the newborn Jewish state was fighting for its existence, Charedim were mobilized along with the rest of the Jewish population, including members of the Torah and yeshiva world. Whatever disagreements existed about Zionism or the nature of the new state, the existential danger to Jewish lives was understood as pikuach nefesh—the obligation to save life.

One remarkable example is Rav Chaim Kanievsky, the son of the Steipler and eventually one of the most iconic Charedi Torah authorities of his generation. As a young talmid at the Lomza Yeshiva in Petach Tikvah, Rav Chaim was drafted during the War of Independence and sent to help guard a position near Jaffa. According to the famous account, amid the desperate shortage of weapons, he went with his fellow yeshiva students—and brought his Gemara with him. Nobody could plausibly accuse Rav Chaim of insufficient dedication to Torah. Yet when Jewish lives faced existential danger, being a yeshiva student did not mean their physical defense belonged to somebody else. The Gemara and the defense of Jewish life traveled together.

The subsequent yeshiva exemption must therefore be understood in its historical context. It was intended to protect those genuinely devoted to full-time Torah study, not to declare that every Charedi man was exempt from national responsibility simply because he was Charedi. As Rabbi Yehoshua Pfeffer documents, Rav Elazar Menachem Shach repeatedly emphasized that those who were not full-time Torah students belonged in the IDF. A 1980 letter issued on behalf of the Vaad Hayeshivos stated that the right to defer enlistment was contingent upon Torah study being the student’s sole occupation. Rabbi Yechezkel Abramsky went so far as to call someone who abused that privilege a rodef—a “pursuer”—of the genuine yeshiva students whose exemptions he endangered. And Orchos Rabbeinu records the Steipler as describing those registered in yeshiva while actually engaged in gainful employment and thereby receiving army exemptions as “absolute rodfim.” The principle was clear: the exemption belonged to genuine full-time Torah study, not automatically to everyone who identified as Charedi.

But something profound has changed. Pfeffer himself observes that he could find no comparable statement from a leading Charedi rabbi in more than four decades. The old imperative that those outside full-time Torah study should serve was gradually forgotten. What began as an exemption for Torah study increasingly became, in significant parts of Charedi society, an exemption for being Charedi. “I cannot serve because I am devoting my life entirely to Torah” is one argument. “I cannot serve because Charedim do not serve” is something fundamentally different.

This is where the issue becomes larger than army manpower or political arguments over draft legislation. Isolation has historically served an important purpose in Charedi society: protecting Torah life from outside influences. But a protective wall can eventually become so high that those behind it cease to identify fully with those standing on the other side. There is a profound difference between separating oneself from secular culture and separating oneself from Klal Yisrael—the Jewish people as a collective.

October 7 should have shattered that wall. Jews were slaughtered in their homes, communities were attacked, hostages were dragged into captivity and soldiers left families, businesses and studies to report for reserve duty. Religious Zionist yeshivot emptied as students and rabbis went to war. If ever there were a moment comparable in principle to 1948, when pikuach nefesh should overwhelm ordinary communal calculations, October 7 was it. Yet instead of producing a wholesale reconsideration of Charedi participation in national defense, much of the Charedi establishment hardened its opposition to military service. This raises a question deeper than the draft itself: Who is responsible for protecting the Jewish people?

Some respond: first fix the army. Provide the necessary religious safeguards and make it suitable for Charedim. Then perhaps we will participate. Certainly the IDF should create conditions in which Charedi soldiers can serve without compromising Torah observance. But if the starting point were, “These are my brothers and I want to share their burden; now let us figure out how I can do so without compromising Torah,” the entire conversation would be different. Instead, the message too often sounds like, “Fix your army, and then perhaps I will join you.”

That pronoun—your—should sound familiar to anyone who has sat at a Pesach Seder. The wicked son asks, “מָה הָעֲבֹדָה הַזֹּאת לָכֶם” — “What is this service to you?” The Haggadah focuses on that word: “לכם ולא לו” — “to you, and not to him.” His defining failure is that he removes himself from the collective: “ולפי שהוציא את עצמו מן הכלל כפר בעיקר” — “Because he removed himself from the collective, he denied a fundamental principle.” It is your service, your obligation and your story—not his. Sometimes all it takes is a pronoun: your army, your country, your war, your problem. Someone who feels ownership speaks differently: our army, our country, our problems, our brothers.

The supposed choice between Torah and defending Israel is contradicted daily by thousands of religious soldiers who are themselves serious Torah scholars. For decades, Hesder yeshivot have combined intensive Torah study with military service, while frameworks such as Nahal Haredi and Chashmonaim are specifically designed for Charedi soldiers. They may not be perfect, and legitimate religious concerns should be addressed, but they demonstrate that military service and serious Torah observance are not inherently incompatible. Israel is filled with Torah scholars who are soldiers, and Religious Zionist yeshivot have produced generations of soldiers and officers whose commitment to Torah did not disappear when they put on a uniform.

This makes another episode especially revealing. During the Corona years, when the pandemic disrupted the yeshiva world, proposals for greater interaction and joint learning between Charedi and non-Charedi yeshiva students encountered considerable resistance. That was a missed opportunity because portions of the Charedi world maintain the perception that Religious Zionist yeshivot are somehow inferior or that combining Torah with military service necessarily dilutes Torah learning.

Put those students across the table from one another with the same Gemara open, however, and stereotypes become harder to maintain. A Charedi student may discover that the young man wearing a knitted kippah opposite him knows Shas, wrestles seriously with Tosafot, spends hours in the beit midrash and possesses genuine yirat Shamayim—fear of Heaven. He may discover that the soldier who left the yeshiva did not abandon Torah but returned to it after risking his life to protect fellow Jews. It is easy to say, “They don’t really learn,” when they remain an abstraction. It becomes considerably harder when he is your chavruta.

Remarkably, an almost identical identity problem appears in the current debate over American Aliyah. Jake Turx and others have raised legitimate concerns: Can we expect families to leave established communities when they worry about chinuch—their children’s education—parnassah—earning a livelihood—housing and finding the right community? These are serious questions. But there is a fundamental difference between asking how we overcome those challenges and placing the responsibility entirely upon Israel: fix the problems, recreate what we have in America, and then perhaps we will come.

Rav Shlomo Katz recently offered a beautiful response centered on one word from our daily prayers: ובנה—“and build.” Every day we ask Hashem, ובנה ירושלים עיר הקודש במהרה בימינו—“And build Jerusalem, the holy city, speedily in our days.” Rav Katz suggested another way of hearing בימינו: perhaps it means not only “in our days,” but “with our days”—with our lives, our efforts and what we are being given right now. Perhaps Hashem’s answer to our prayer is not to present us with a completely finished Jewish homeland, wrapped and ready for occupancy. Perhaps He is inviting us to help build it.

That completely changes the Aliyah question. Your children need a particular kind of school and it does not exist? Perhaps somebody needs to build it. Your community does not exist? Perhaps somebody needs to establish it. Your profession lacks the infrastructure you enjoyed in America? Perhaps somebody needs to create it. The fact that something has not yet been built in Eretz Yisrael does not necessarily end the conversation. Perhaps that is precisely where the conversation begins.

Rav Katz connected this idea to Rav Kook, who already in 1907 issued a great call to the Jewish people to return to Eretz Yisrael. Geulah was not something Jews were supposed to watch from the stands while waiting for somebody else to complete it. Hashem was bringing His children home, and the responsibility of the Jew was to hear the call and enter the story. More than a century later, that challenge feels remarkably contemporary.

The parallel with the Charedi draft debate is striking. The Charedi says, “Fix your army, and perhaps I will serve.” The Diaspora Jew says, “Fix your country, and perhaps I will come.” Different communities and different complaints, but the same fundamental identity problem. Both position themselves outside the enterprise and demand that those inside first make it worthy of their participation. Once again we hear the Haggadah: lachem velo lo—“to you, and not to him.” The Jew who understands himself as an owner rather than a customer asks something entirely different: “What can I help build?”

That is how a family works. You do not tell a struggling brother, “Fix everything first, and then I will consider helping.” You help precisely because he is your brother. You do not stand outside your own home demanding that somebody else repair it before you enter. If it is your home, you walk through the door, roll up your sleeves and help fix what needs fixing.

Israel is not a product being marketed to Diaspora Jews. Aliyah is not a vacation package that must offer sufficient amenities to attract customers. The IDF is not somebody else’s army fighting somebody else’s war. This is our Land, our people and our story. Israel has problems and the IDF has problems. Of course they should be fixed. But if they are our problems, we should be participating in fixing them rather than waiting outside until somebody else does.

Perhaps both groups also fail to appreciate the incredible honor our generation has been given. For nearly two thousand years Jews prayed to return to this Land, cried toward Jerusalem and ended the Seder with “Next year in Jerusalem.” Our ancestors endured expulsions, pogroms and the Holocaust without a sovereign Jewish government or Jewish army capable of defending them. Today a Jew can get on an airplane and come home, while a Jewish young man can wear the uniform of a Jewish army and defend Jewish children in a sovereign Jewish state. What generations of Jews would have given for either privilege!

If the Charedi Jew truly understood the honor of defending Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael, his first question would not be, “Why should I serve?” but “How can I serve without compromising Torah?” If the Diaspora Jew truly understood the privilege of living in the Land generations could only dream about, his first question would not be, “What must Israel improve before I consider Aliyah?” but “How can I overcome the obstacles, come home and help build it?” Both questions begin from the same assumption: this is mine too.

There can certainly be legitimate disagreements about how one serves the Jewish people. Torah study is indispensable, as are medicine, rescue services, agriculture, education, national service and military service. There may always be exceptional Torah scholars whose uninterrupted learning should be protected. But preserving an elite cadre of full-time Torah scholars is fundamentally different from transforming an entire community’s nonparticipation into an ideological principle. There is an enormous difference between asking how I should participate and explaining why this isn’t really my responsibility.

Perhaps that is the Jewish identity crisis confronting our generation. We spent so many centuries learning how to survive as Persian Jews, Hungarian Jews, German Jews, Russian Jews and American Jews that we sometimes forgot which word was the noun and which was the adjective. We are עם אחד—one people. Haman understood it. Mordechai understood it. Esther ultimately understood it. Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner understood it. And in 1948, the Charedi Torah world understood it too. Rav Chaim Kanievsky could leave the Lomza Yeshiva when Jewish lives were in danger because defending Jews was not somebody else’s story.

When Jewish soldiers go to battle and Jews throughout the Land carry the burden of defending the Jewish future, Moshe Rabbeinu’s ancient question stops sounding ancient: “Shall your brothers go to war while you stay here?” Before arguing about the army, Aliyah, politics, exemptions or accommodations, perhaps every Jew must first answer the question underneath all of them: Are they really your brothers? Is this really your Land? And is their story really yours? And after two thousand years of asking Hashem to rebuild Jerusalem, perhaps Rav Shlomo Katz has supplied the perfect final challenge: What if Hashem is answering our prayer by handing us the bricks?