Excerpts: Yated Ne'eman Editor Slams Religious Who Fight With Guns Instead
of Gemaras
Editor-in-Chief of Yated Ne'eman, Israel Friedman interviewed by Akiva Weiss
in Makor Rishon Diyukan 7 November 2025
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/magazine/people/article/211405

There was a story with Rabbi Chaim of Brisk - the Maskilim put on a play in
the city, about 'Who is the man who built a house and did not dedicate it,
who is the man who is fearing and tender-hearted', and in the end everyone
goes home and 15 elders remain. The Maskilim mocked this picture and asked:
There is a war and you are reciting Tehillim? Rabbi Chaim of Brisk said:
Yes. And they, the 15 elders, went out and won the war. You ask me, it
doesn't make sense. But what does make sense here? When did anything here
make sense? The Yom Kippur War, when the Syrians suddenly turned around, did
it make sense? The thought that my strength and power make me this brave -
this is Israeli hubris. And we saw the results.
...
The army says it lacks fighters, and I say: There are no learners! We need
to increase the teaching in yeshivas even more, and then 15 elderly fighters
will win all these wars, and I believe in this with complete faith. But
what, there are those who say, 'No, you will live according to my questions,
according to my logic and according to my faith.' I, on behalf of the great
men of Israel, am trying to explain to everyone: We will live according to
our faith, and do not take into account the unpleasantness. Yes, weep for
the fallen, do everything you can, but be Abraham the Hebrew. Learn, defend
and save. Do not be discouraged because you are right, and right and popular
are not.

... If ...I want to combine the Torah and the sword, and at the moment of
truth when Torah is required I close the Gemara and go to fight, it's like
an Air Force man who parks the plane in the hangar and runs into the field
to fight alongside the infantry force. Sorry, your job is to be in the Air
Force. So it is with a Torah scholar: Why are you closing the Gemara? If you
know and truly believe that Torah protects and saves, and you serve in the
Torah army that is winning the war - why do you abandon the position of
protector at the moment of truth? This stage may be interesting, but you
don't believe that Torah protects and saves. You don't believe that
immersion in a Talmudic issue intercepts missiles and makes shooting
precise and protects the fighters.

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