Haredi service

Sir, – Michael Rappaport’s view (“The importance of full-time Torah study,” Comment & Features, February 19) is terribly skewed, perhaps driven by the fact that he only recently made aliya or, more likely, that he is a lawyer.

Regardless, he should consider the following:

1. No one with any perspective feels that our army cannot function without conscripting haredim. What they feel, and rightly, is that our society cannot function without shared responsibilities and values.

2. No one with any wisdom feels that education is not important. What they feel is that a narrowly based, haredidirected education is not enough to support either the haredim or the country.

3. No one with any values minimizes the fact that the Torah is and should be the source of our values. However, one would have to be blind not to recognize that the Torah itself mandates the specific requirement for everyone to serve in the army, as well as the general requirement to support the country. CHAIM A. ABRAMOWITZ

Jerusalem

Sir, – Like the current situation regarding haredim and their lack of service and participation in society, the arguments made by Michael Rappoport suffer from a lack of balance. They also suffer from an error of omission.

Nobody should dispute the value of education, but his misuse of an analogy between fulltime Torah study and student deferments in the United States in the 1960s is deeply flawed.

Rappaport omits the crucial fact that those deferments were temporary, ending for almost everyone after four years, when they completed their undergraduate education. Those students – I was one of them – also were generally studying a broad curriculum preparing them for a lifetime of work.

A balance of skills is important to the proper functioning of society. As important as Torah study is, it is also clear, beyond any reasonable argument, that the current situation is out of balance, unhealthy for Israel in general and unhealthy even for the haredim themselves. ALAN STEIN

Netanya

Sir, – Attorney Rappaport believes that Torah study is important. But apparently he does not believe in the importance of the study of medicine, chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, the arts, and not even law. Otherwise, how can he say that those who study these subjects, and many more, can delay their studies for three years in order to fulfill their obligation to defend the state, while yeshiva students cannot?

Iron Dome has been much, much better at fending off Hamas rockets than have Torah principles, and Ofeq and Techsar give us a much clearer picture of what our enemies are up to than can be gleaned from reading the Talmud. These technologies were developed by people who had to postpone their studies for three years of army service, and yet succeeded in their praiseworthy projects.

A three- year delay before studying Torah would not prevent those students from learning the Torah, which would not change in that time – although science and technology certainly would. I even think that they would be better people and more mature, though some may decide as a result that there is more to life than just Torah.

And that, of course is what really worries the rabbis – not whether we can defend our state or who will pay to maintain it. JEREMY TOPAZ

Rehovot