Reciprocal Response To Religious Refusal

Yair Lapid has written a column in response to the increasing demands by religious soldiers to not be forced to listen to women singing at army ceremonies. The crux of his argument is that if religious soldiers should be exempt from army duties due to their beliefs, secular people should as well.

Many religious people, myself included, think or thought that a secular lifestyle does not have any specific worldview, of course people can have beliefs such as morality, kindness, save the whales, cure cancer, equality or any belief or ideology out there, and that belief can be the driving force behind a person's actions and lifestyle. However in the larger context, religious people tend to think of secular people as not having a specific worldview. Meaning, if you ask a secular person to respect religious beliefs for any given period of time, the religious person will see no problem with making such a request because we assume asking him to put on a kipa while in my house, for example, does not contradict his worldview.

I have learned, and Yair Lapid says so as well, that that assumption is false. People do have worldviews that drive their lifestyle. Asking them to respect our religious beliefs is going against their worldview (obviously it depends on the person, I am talking generally) and the fact that some are willing to do so anyway despite the fact that putting the kipa on the head contradicts what they believe in, they do so anyway to show respect. Others refuse, and we tend to not understand, asking why its such a big deal to wear a kipa to the ceremony for an hour or whatever else it might be.

So, Yair Lapid suggests that if the religious soldiers have the right to demand not listening to female soldiers sing, secular soldiers should be able to refuse to listen to rabbis give talks at IDF ceremonies or other similar occasions.

I don't know what the response to that would be. Perhaps religious soldiers won't care - saying we shouldn't listen to women singing regardless of the effect because it is prohibited. Or perhaps they will say the trade-off is not worth it.

Here is Yair Lapid's article:

In two weeks or so, the IDF Rabbinate will embark on “Operation Elul” ahead of Rosh Hashana. This is a religious revival campaign mostly based on lectures delivered by rabbis to tens of thousands of secular soldiers.


It would be proper to allow a secular soldier who is not interested in hearing the lectures to skip them. Why? For the same reason religious soldiers demand to skip performances by female singers.


As opposed to what many religious Israelis apparently think, seculars too have a worldwide and they also don’t like it when forced to listen to people whose words contradict secular principles. Hence, the seculars are also deserving of having their views and thoughts respected.


In both cases, I am of course not referring to official military ceremonies. Secular soldiers must also cover their heads while a prayer in memory of fallen troops is recited, just like religious soldiers are not exempt from attending Yizkor ceremonies that feature female singers.


If a soldier who stands at attention during a Holocaust Commemoration Day or Memorial Day ceremony cannot think of anything else but the level of sexiness in a female singer’s voice, he should be released from the IDF in any case on mental grounds.


However, the above equation does not apply to events that are not an obligatory military ceremony. If a religious soldier does not wish to attend the performance of a military band at his base during his leisure time, we can spare him this experience. At the same time, if a secular soldier does not wish to hear a rabbi lecture we can and should spare him this experience as well.


IDF Chief of Staff Lt. General Benny Gantz recently said that the issue of female singing in the military should be examined. This would also be an excellent opportunity to look into the issue of rabbinical lectures. If we have an army that accommodates the requests of various sectors, let’s apply this to everyone.

So, what do you think? Does Lapid make a good point or is it wrong? Should the demand result in a reciprocal demand, should that make a difference and force a reconsideration of the issue?