But What About Charedim Who Can’t Learn Full-Time—Shouldn’t They Go to the Army?

The Question Sounds Reasonable. The Answer From Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman zt"l Himself Is No.

This is one of the most commonly asked questions — even among sincere, frum Jews, and even among Charedim who agree with the gedolim on full-time bnei Torah but find themselves persuaded by the secular argument when the conversation turns to the others.

The argument runs: "Fine, the gedolim are right about full-time bnei yeshiva — their Torah is their service. But what about the bochurim who are not learning full-time? The boys who are weaker in learning, or struggling with motivation, or just not cut out for the kollel life? Why shouldn't they at least serve in Netzach Yehuda or one of the other Charedi army frameworks? Wouldn't structure and a paycheck be better for them than aimlessness in Bnei Brak?"

It sounds reasonable. It is also the question Religious Zionist publications and secular politicians have been pressing for thirty years, hoping to peel off the "easy" cases of non-learners and gradually narrow the Charedi exemption until it covers only the elite few.

The honest answer, from the gadol most often cited as supposedly supporting Charedi army service, is no — and his published reasons are devastating to the entire framing of the question. We set out the documented record below.

I. The Three Categories People Conflate

The popular argument deliberately blurs three distinct categories of Charedi young men, and the blur is what makes the question sound reasonable. The gedolim, when they actually addressed the question, distinguished sharply between:

Category 1: Full-time, serious bnei yeshiva. Their Torah is their occupation. Every Charedi posek for seventy-eight years — Chazon Ish, Brisker Rav, Rav Shach, the Steipler, Rav Shteinman, Rav Elyashiv, the contemporary Roshei Yeshiva — has ruled categorically that they are not to be drafted. Toraso umanuso. Their service is the beis medrash.

Category 2: Boys who are weaker in learning or weaker in yiras Shamayim — but still raised within the Charedi world, still observant, still struggling within the framework. This is the category the question above is asking about: the boy who is not learning seriously, the boy who finds yeshiva a struggle, the boy who is "not cut out for full-time learning." The suggestion is that the army — particularly a Charedi army track — would help these boys.

Category 3: Boys who are already publicly off the derech in severe ways — mechalel Shabbos in public, committing serious aveiros, lost to the Torah world entirely, where the family is desperately trying to prevent further damage. The question of these boys is a different halachic discussion entirely — a triage question, not a general policy.

The popular argument moves freely between Category 2 and Category 3, treating them as the same case. They are not. And the gedolim, when they spoke, were explicit about which category they were addressing.

II. Rav Shteinman's Actual Position — In His Own Words

Rav Aharon Leib Shteinman zt"l is sometimes invoked by Religious Zionist and secular publications as having supposedly "supported" Charedi army service. The picture they paint is misleading. His actual published position is documented in two key sources:

The letter to Rav Don Segal, published by Yeshiva World News. In this letter, Rav Shteinman directly addressed claims that Nachal Charedi was suitable for boys "who are weaker in Torah study or in yiras Shomayim" — exactly Category 2 in the framing above. His response, in the published English translation, was uncompromising. The idea that such boys would benefit from being there, he wrote, was something that "would never enter my mind." He clarified that the original Nachal Charedi discussion concerned only boys already publicly mechalel Shabbos and committing very serious aveiros — Category 3 — where the alternative was the street. And he warned, in the same letter, that it would be an "unforgivable sin" to persuade anyone outside Category 3 to enlist on the basis of the framework's existence.

This is the single most important point in the entire conversation, and it is documented in writing by Rav Shteinman's own pen, published in widely-distributed Charedi media. The next time someone asks whether weaker learners should serve, the answer is: Rav Shteinman explicitly addressed that question, and his answer was that such a suggestion would never enter his mind.

The 2013 public statement, reported by Arutz Sheva. When public discussion of compromise on the draft intensified, a sharply-worded notice connected to Rav Shteinman appeared in the Charedi press. Two of its lines have permanent significance:

"לא שייך שום פשרה" — "There is no possibility of any compromise" regarding yeshiva boys learning Torah.

"עצם השהות במסגרות הצבא גורם לסכנה רוחנית גדולה ה׳ ירחם" — "The very stay within army frameworks causes a great spiritual danger, Hashem should have mercy."

Notice the second line carefully. This is not a statement that some IDF environments are dangerous. It is not a statement that combat units are dangerous. It is a statement that the very stay within army frameworks — atzem ha'shahut b'misgaros ha'tzava — causes great spiritual danger. The framework itself, before any specific action of any specific commander, is the danger. And this is from the gadol most often invoked as supposedly supporting Charedi army service.

The Charedi summary on the WikiYeshiva site puts it precisely: "It was claimed maliciously that Rav Shteinman supported the establishment of Nachal Charedi… whereas his view was only that boys who are openly not observant of Torah and mitzvos have a solution to go to such a framework after it was already established." The framing is critical: only for those openly not observant, and only once the framework already existed without his initiative.

III. Why the Framework Itself Is the Problem

Rav Shteinman's "atzem ha'shahut" — the very stay within the framework — points to something that the popular argument deliberately ignores. The danger to a religious soldier is not specific incidents that better policy could prevent. The danger is structural.

The IDF, even in its Charedi tracks, operates under a chain of command whose authority structure subordinates halacha to military priorities. The 2011 Bahad 1 incident, in which four religious cadets were dismissed from officer school for walking out of a women's-singing ceremony, established the IDF's institutional position: religious soldiers may not skip official ceremonies on religious grounds. The 2012 directive of Chief of Staff Benny Gantz formalized this. The 2012 expulsion of Rav Eliezer Melamed shlita's Yeshivat Har Bracha from the Hesder framework — for his refusal to condemn soldiers who walked out of those ceremonies — demonstrated that the IDF would punish even Religious Zionist Roshei Yeshiva who refused to bend halacha to military priorities.

If the IDF will not protect the halacha of Religious Zionist hesder talmidim — the most halachically-flexible religious community in the system, the community that has explicitly committed to the framework as a religious value — what protection will it actually deliver to a Charedi boy in Netzach Yehuda?

The November 2024 emergency gathering of dozens of Lithuanian Charedi yeshiva deans, convened to address the post-October 7 pressure on Charedim, addressed exactly this question. The gathering's published letter stated, in writing, that the Charedi-tailored frameworks "regrettably do not endure over time despite promises and commitments." This is forty-five years of accumulated evidence speaking, not abstract suspicion. The promises break. The protections erode. The frameworks drift.

Rabbi Dov Lando shlita, Rosh Yeshiva of Slabodka and one of the leading poskim of the Lithuanian Charedi world, was quoted in the same letter:

"Anyone who, G-d forbid, joins these tracks or similar, should know that beyond the personal tragedy that he brings upon himself and his household, others may, G-d forbid, be drawn after him, and his sin would be great to bear."

This is a contemporary, named, sourced statement from a sitting gadol, addressed precisely to the question of Charedi army tracks and published in Israel National News in late 2024. It does not say "the army is unsuitable for elite learners." It says joining these tracks brings personal tragedy, and that drawing others to do the same is a sin great to bear.

IV. Rav Shach's 1980 Vaad Hayeshivos Letter and the Honest Distinction

Rav Elazar Menachem Man Shach zt"l, in a 1980 letter on behalf of Vaad Hayeshivos — the formal liaison body between the army and the yeshiva system — wrote a sentence that has been carefully ignored by the popular argument:

"The right given to yeshiva students of deferring their enlistment into the army is contingent on his study being his sole occupation."

Rav Shach's distinction is important and honest. The exemption rests on full-time learning. For someone who is not engaged in full-time learning — Category 2 in our framework — the exemption does not, by Rav Shach's own logic, automatically apply.

But notice what Rav Shach did not do. He did not direct Category 2 boys into the IDF as a policy answer. He did not establish Charedi army frameworks as the path forward. He directed his community toward an honest, internal question: if a young man is not a Toraso Umanuso case, what is the proper Charedi response? And the answer the gedolim have given for forty-six years, consistently, has been: bring him back to learning if possible, train him for parnasa within a Charedi framework, support him through the yeshivos for ba'alei teshuva and the kollelim and the gemachim, but do not hand him to a military institution whose framework systematically erodes Yiddishkeit.

The Charedi world's failure here, when it has failed, has been a failure of communal infrastructure for Category 2 boys — not a failure of halachic position. The answer to the question "what should we do with the boy who is not learning seriously?" is to build better Charedi structures for him, not to outsource him to a secular institution that the gedolim have warned against for forty-six years.

V. The Steipler Gaon: A Voice Earned by Personal Experience

Rav Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky zt"l, the Steipler Gaon, addressed this question with an authority no one else on the bench possessed: he had personally served in the Russian army during World War I. He guarded camps in Siberian cold. He kept Shabbos and kashrus through extraordinary mesirus nefesh — he once accepted a beating rather than work on Shabbos, the famous incident recorded in Toldos Yaakov.

Throughout Krayna D'Igrasa — the published collection of his letters — the Steipler returned repeatedly to a single warning: even where physical danger is bearable, spiritual danger is the deeper concern. He drew on his own experience. He had survived. But he had seen what the military environment did to ordinary religious soldiers without his level of yiras Shamayim. His letters to talmidim, to families, to communal askanim, are not theoretical. They are the warnings of a man who watched it happen.

When the Steipler addressed Category 2 boys — the boys who were struggling, the weaker learners, the ones drifting at the edges — his consistent guidance was that the protection of the Charedi community, the chevra, the Rebbe, and the framework of Torah-observant life had to be strengthened around them, not abandoned. Sending them out of the protected environment into the IDF was, in his halachic and personal analysis, exactly backwards.

VI. The Documented Conclusion

When the popular argument is carefully examined against the actual documented record of the Charedi gedolim, the result is unambiguous.

For full-time bnei yeshiva, the gedolim are unanimous: their Torah is their service. The IDF cannot conscript out of the beis medrash someone whose halachic role is precisely to be there.

For Category 2 boys — the weaker learners, the struggling boys, those "not cut out for full-time learning" — Rav Shteinman zt"l, the gadol most often invoked by the secular and Religious Zionist establishment as supposedly supporting Charedi army service, explicitly rejected the suggestion that they should be directed to Nachal Charedi. In his own published letter, the suggestion that such boys would benefit was something that "would never enter my mind." Persuading such a boy to enlist was, in his words, an "unforgivable sin." This is documented, sourced, and verifiable.

For Category 3 boys — those already publicly off the derech in severe ways, where the alternative is the street — Rav Shteinman tolerated the existence of Charedi army frameworks as a rescue option for those specific boys. Tolerated, not endorsed. For Category 3 specifically, not as a general policy. And even here, his 2013 statement made clear that the framework itself is a great spiritual danger, and that no Charedi who is observant should be encouraged toward it.

For all of them — every one — the framework problem is real. The 2024 Lithuanian Roshei Yeshiva, with forty-five years of accumulated evidence, ruled in writing that the promises of religious accommodation in Charedi tracks do not endure. The pattern is documented. The warnings are sourced. Rabbi Dov Lando shlita's contemporary letter — published in Israel National News, signed by dozens of yeshiva deans, issued in the middle of the post-October 7 pressure campaign — names the personal tragedy that follows for those who enter these tracks.

The answer to "shouldn't Charedim who can't learn full-time go to the army" is therefore not the dismissive "no" the original framing imagined. It is a more carefully articulated no, grounded in:

• The actual documented position of Rav Shteinman, who the question presupposed would say yes — and who in fact said no, in writing, in his own hand
• The actual documented position of Rav Shach, who tied the exemption to full-time learning but did not direct non-learners into the IDF
• The actual documented position of the Steipler, drawn from his own military experience
• The November 2024 letter of the contemporary Lithuanian Roshei Yeshiva
• Forty-five years of evidence that "Charedi-friendly" army frameworks do not, in practice, protect Yiddishkeit

The Charedi world's responsibility for Category 2 boys is real, and the community must continue building the parnasa frameworks, the yeshivos for ba'alei teshuva, the supportive structures that genuine pastoral care requires. That work is ongoing and it is serious. But the answer to the boy who is struggling is not to hand him to an institution that the gedolim have warned, in writing, will cause him spiritual damage — and whose own forty-five-year track record confirms exactly the warnings.

The answer is the one the Charedi world has been giving since 1948: protect him within the community, build for him within the community, bring him back to learning if possible, support him in parnasa if not — but do not hand him over to a framework that even the gadol most often misquoted in support of it called a great spiritual danger.

This is what the gedolim said. The seforim and the letters are still on the shelf. The question has been asked. The answer has been given.

Sources

Rav Shteinman zt"l's documented position

• Yeshiva World News, "Recently Released Letter By Maran HaRav Shteinman To Hagon HaRav Don Segal Regarding Nachal Charedi" — Rav Shteinman's letter explicitly rejecting Nachal Charedi for "weaker learners," limiting his allowance to boys already publicly mechalel Shabbos, and warning that persuading anyone outside Category 3 to enlist would be an "unforgivable sin"
• Arutz Sheva (Israel National News), "הרב שטיינמן: 'אין פשרה על לומדי תורה'" (2013) — Rav Shteinman's public statement, including "לא שייך שום פשרה" and "עצם השהות במסגרות הצבא גורם לסכנה רוחנית גדולה ה׳ ירחם"
• WikiYeshiva (yeshiva.org.il), entry on Rav Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman — analytical summary of his actual position

Rav Shach's 1980 Vaad Hayeshivos letter

• Tzarich Iyun (iyun.org.il), "Charedi Army Service: A Matter of Jewish Belonging" (June 2025) — quoting Rav Shach's letter that yeshiva exemption is "contingent on his study being his sole occupation"

The Steipler Gaon

• Krayna D'Igrasa, Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael Kanievsky zt"l — published collection of letters
• Toldos Yaakov — biography including the Russian army incidents
• Orchos Rabbeinu — recorded teachings

The November 2024 emergency Lithuanian Roshei Yeshiva gathering

• Israel National News, "Haredi leaders warn against Haredi IDF service tracks" — Rabbi Dov Lando shlita's signed letter and quotes

The IDF framework and religious soldiers

• Haaretz, "IDF: Soldiers Cannot Skip Ceremonies With Women Singing" (September 2011)
• Ynetnews, "Rabbi Melamed: Stop IDF draft" (2012) — Yeshivat Har Bracha removed from Hesder framework
• Times of Israel, "Report: Female soldiers barred from singing at IDF base due to religious troops" (August 2023)

Background on Rav Shteinman's pragmatic leadership (cited for context, not as endorsement of the secular framing)

• Israel Democracy Institute, "אחרי מות" (analysis of Rav Shteinman's pragmatic positions)
• Calcalist, "המנהיג הליטאי שהוציא את החרדים לשוק העבודה"