Rabbi Shach was once asked to explain his community’s seeming hypocrisy. On the one hand, mainstream Charedim oppose the state of Israel, adopting the anti-Zionist line almost-perfectly (voting excepted), as Rabbi Shach admitted in his eulogy for Rabbi Y. Teitelbaum, and on other occasions. And on the other hand, they guard and use political power to great effect.
In answer, Rabbi Shach adapted the following parable of the Chafetz Chaim for his purposes (see the rest here):
The idea was originally intended as encouragement for one who “awakes” halfway through prayer, realizing his concentration was lacking. Point being, at least concentrate on whatever words one still has left to recite.
Rabbi Shach borrowed this parable to exemplify his approach toward the condition of illegitimate politicians grabbing our religious freedoms and stealing our assets wherever they can. We await Mashiach to supplant this weed with the kingdom of Torah. But meanwhile, why suffer? Let us at least try and grab whatever “apples” we possibly can, as well!
So answered Rabbi Shach.
Presumably, the intention is not to concede shameless corruption. Instead, he means to convey an attitude of non-naive, defensive realpolitik, both foreign and domestic.
But this is comparing apples and oranges. In my opinion, Charedi politics, under the thin veneer of תן לי יבנה וחכמיה has in practice (and from virtually the beginning, too — excluding the Chazon Ish, I hope) been the woman whose own apples are being stolen — and responds by overturning others‘ apple carts, grabbing apples from additional innocents, joining and, indeed, paying the ruffians to systemize and expand their crime syndicate.
Sometimes “The Best Defense Is a Good Offense”, but committing “Offense“ against fellow slaves as a Junior Partner to the evil regime has nothing to do with “Defense” from the slave-master.
You don’t like taxes? So why do you approve the state’s plans and budgets and create new currency debasement, monetary inflation, and government “jobs”? Why do you write new laws and regulations? Why do you assist and enlarge coercive miseducation if you don’t like it yourself? You want to keep your homes (including those beyond the Green Line), so why do you enable the expulsion and expropriation of other Jews?!
In short, why do to third parties what you vocally dislike?
A world of difference divides subsidies (bad) and tax breaks (good), as Rothbard once explained:
A deduction or exemption is only a “loophole” if you assume that the government owns 100 percent of everyone’s income and that allowing some of that income to remain untaxed constitutes an irritating “loophole.”
Why not let everyone keep their own private apples, plus Tzedakah?
Rabbi Yitzchak Ze’ev Soloveitchik (I think) was once asked how he proposes to deal with a certain issue absent the means of the state of Israel. He mockingly answered with a story of a wagon driver gratefully warming up his hands with snow in bitter, European winter, foolishly saying: “Ach, what would I use to warm my hands if there were no snow?”
If anything, “Torah-True” politics should be about גם לי גם לך לא יהיה – גזרו! If we believe our own words about the state being a “children’s play” and “criminal gang”, our own speeches (in the ears of our own…) begging “them” to let us go back to how things were before the state, and if we believe (with the Austrian school and against Keynesian woo) the state is at least not necessary to create economic growth, shouldn’t we then follow the example of the man asking to be blinded in one eye, so his one-eyed enemy loses all?!
Why do you complain when the chief “Rabbinate” (whose very founding was originally opposed by Charedim!) gets pelf and power diets, instead of rowdily campaigning for these yourself?
Why do you support the army kidnapping anybody if you dislike being drafted yourself? Why do you cheer robbing money, labor, untaxed [literal] apples, and oil on the high seas for the sake of “environmentalism”\feminism\equality baloney? Why do you support fake news, counting our apples, or volcano survivors in other countries — so long as you get your cut for yeshivos?
(One cannot ask this question of the National-Religious, of course…)
Instead of demanding apple reparations, secession, or at least some appl-iberalization, Charedim support red apple socialism, robbing cannabis apples, and oppose slicing the spending and malinvesting of apples.
And to hear complaints about “Jewish antisemitism” and the Gemara Pesachim 49b of גדולה שנאה ששונאין עמי הארץ לתלמיד חכם יותר משנאה ששונאין עובדי כוכבים את ישראל ונשותיהן יותר מהן… (And they don’t seem to think they need us for trade, either!)
Rashi Tehillim 37:1:
אל תתחר במרעים, מוכיח את ישראל הוא שלא יתחרו בהצלחת המרעים לעשות כמעשיה’ כמו ואיך תתחרה את הסוסים לרוץ במרוצתם, האטיר בלע”ז.
אל תקנא בעושי עולה, לעשות עולה כמותם.
Do our brethren gobble apple pie? Sure. But as I say regarding anti-Israeli sentiment, are they meant to hold the supposedly strictly-observant down to their own lowly standards? At least they are straightforward about their intentions.
Someone needs to spell things out, שמא יאמרו תלמידי חכמים אין הרמאין בקיאין במעשה ידינו…
(Full anti-Zionists, too, often decry this התחברות לרשעים \ mission creep, especially upkeeping Avoda Zara in Eretz Yisrael via the “Religions Ministry”, plural (!), but even a stopped clock is right twice a day, per Brisk.)
Charedi spokesmen (for both internal and external consumption) say: Look how much chessed and Torah we have gotten the regime to “support” (ignoring the 70% loss for the state’s “overhead“)! Isn’t it great? “Mif’al Hapayis” now gives prizes in Torah essay-writing competitions! They still take our apples worse than ever, but now we have apple funding for our schools, our media, equal time among Cursedians for army Torah classes, forcing new Kallahs to hear Taharas Hamishpacha before governmental marriage registration in a nice environment (like Tzohar)!
Medrash Rabba Shemos 31:17:
מרבה הונו בנשך ובתרבית לחונן דלים יקבצנו… ואיזה חונן דלים זה עשו וכי עשו חונן דלים הוא והלא עושק דלים הוא אלא כגון הגמונים ודוכסים ואפרכין שהן יוצאין לעיירות וגוזלין ובוזזין וכשהם חוזרין אומרים הביאו לנו עניים ונפרנסם והמשל הדיוט אומר מנאפת בתפוחים וחולקת לחולין.
(By the way, this Medrash supports the saying “An apple a day keeps the doctor away“.)
And what of the other side of the coin: the many, many apple multiples which fund the opposite of Kedusha, in universities, the army cesspool, and anti-Judaism camps, the street culture influencing our youth?
But having sampled the seductive sweetness of stolen apples, it is nearly impossible politically to reverse the trend. Anyone trying to end funding of which Charedim get a (symbolic!) portion would — unbelievably — be seen as an enemy of the Torah…