[Avodah] [Areivim] what proportion would return to the yeshiva

[Daniel M. Israel]

In a discussion on Areivim, Zev Sero wrote:
> tas we've been told repeatedly, once you're signed up [for the IDF] you're
> not under your control, and not under your rabbonim's control, and your
> commanding officers can give you whatever orders they see fit, and you're
> stuck with them.

You are not under your rabbonim's control, but in that sense, you are under the control of the rabbonim of the IDF.  This raises some interesting policy questions about who the IDF should be appointing as rabbonim, and how much does meeting peoples hashkafic comfort zone weight against having a more unified derech in psak for optimal running of a military.

But the question I wanted to raise here is something else.  To what extent is an army unit a kahilah in the sense that someone joining such a unit would be obligated to accept the local mara d'asra?  Is there a difference between a charedi soldier and a charedi who is forced for health or parnassa reasons to move to a town where the Rav ha'ir is RZ?  In general in such a case the typical response is to not use the local Rav, and speak to a more charedi Rav by phone, but there really is not halachic justification for this, is there?  (And I write this as someone who is as guilty of it as everyone else.)

Also, a soldier does go home sometimes, so he might be similar to someone who lives in two different communities.  I don't know what the normal din is for someone, for example, who divides his time between two homes, and the rabbanim of the two different places he lives have a machlokes over something nogeah to him.

--
Daniel M. Israel
dmi1 at cornell.edu

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