At a vast historic gathering last week, tefillah was front and center

Photos: Dov Ber Hechtman, Shuki Lehrer, Meir Zalaznik, A. Eisenbach, Ari Cooperstock, Flash 90

Gathering at theGates

By Gedalia Guttentag     

AS

dusk settled over Yerushalayim last Thursday, the city’s entrance resounded with  the roar of a vast minyan. The hundreds of thousands gathered around Rechov Yirmiyahu, and countless others who joined from afar, experienced moments of rare elevation that won’t be quickly forgotten.

Long minutes of Tehillim led by gedolim of every type gave way to Selichos highlights. Yisrael Nosha B’Hashem took hearts back to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Adon Haselichot drew litvish avreichim in along with their Sephardi counterparts. Ponevezhers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Lubavitchers. Belzer chassidim shared little Tehillim printouts with a smattering of Mercaz Harav talmidim.

As the shofar sounded and Hashem Hu Ha’Elokim echoed across the boulevards, for a few minutes Ne’ilah was in the air once again.

When the organizers of last week’s anti-draft protest announced that the event would be a prayer gathering, the pundits rushed to contextualize and the cynics to explain why it was all a power play.

More than a decade after a previous attempt to legislate a military draft for bochurim under the Bennett-Lapid government brought a vast chareidi protest onto Yerushalayim’s streets, this round was far more consequential. The absence of a draft law has turned tens of thousands of bochurim and avreichim into lawbreakers.

With an activist justice system in the driver’s seat, and a war-weary public hostile to legislation acceptable to both the chareidi and general publics, the result is deadlock.

In the buildup to the rally, major media outlets emphasized the political slant of the gathering. In real time – and the wall-to-wall attendance of gedolei Yisrael of every stream – emphasized something that the critics miss.

For the chareidi public, the refusal to draft yeshivah bochurim is a core belief. It’s not about budgets or about refusing to play a part in national defense. It’s not a vote against the army, so much as a vote for the absolute centrality of Torah study.

High above the crowd clustered around the capital’s iconic String Bridge, a fading poster that declares “Ha’Am im HaGolan — the People Stand With the Golan Heights” was a reminder of the ’90s era campaign to retain sovereignty over the rocky outcrop in northern Israel.

Along with the tefillah, the message of last week’s chareidi show of force was equally unmistakable. It demonstrated that whatever the divisions of the chareidi world on a host of issues, when it comes to the primacy of Torah study, there’s remarkable unity.

None of the 120 Knesset members can now be in any doubt about where the chareidi world stands on the draft issue.