Sunday, June 16, 2013

Who is "Torani"/ Hardalnick?

I wrote in the past about the increasing use of the term "Torani"  to rebrand the term "Hardal" (חרדי דתי לאומי). In the ten months that have passed since I wrote that post, the rebranding has more or less become a done deal.  As I wrote in my previous post:

However, if Hardal was offensive to "Hardalnickim" the new term they are using "Torani" (Literally "those of the Torah") is even more offensive for those of us who consider ourselves true Religious Zionists. Torani implies that the rest of us are somehow less religious than they are  - that somehow they are closer to the Torah. 


This past weekend, Harav Eliezer Melamed was quoted as saying that the Hardalnick education system was superior to the Dati-Leumi one, because it had a much lower rate of people who became non-religious. In the article he gave the following definition of who is "Torani":



"אני מעדיף את ההגדרה הציבור התורני (על פני ההגדרה החרד"לי). הציבור התורני מכיל את כל מי שקובע עיתים לתורה באופן משמעותי, והוא לומד על מנת ללמוד לשמור ולעשות, או לכל הפחות מצהיר שהוא מחוייב לשולחן ערוך, ציבור זה בדרך כלל לא מסתפק בשליחת ילדיו לבית הספר ממ"ד, אלא מפנה אותם לבית ספר תורני או דואג שיוסיפו וילמדו תורה מעבר למה שהם לומדים במסגרת בית הספר ממ"ד. בדרך כלל הציבור התורני חי בקהילות תורניות יותר. אמנם יש לא מעטים שחיים בקרב הציבור הרחב, תוך הקפדה אישית על קביעות עיתים לתורה".
Roughly translated:

I prefer the term Torani (as opposed to Hardalnick). The Torani public includes all of those who set substantial time for Torah learning, and learns inorder to keep and act, or at the very least declared that he is committed to the Shulhan Aruch. This public ususally is not content with sending his children to religious-state schools, but sends them to a Torani school or makes sure they learn Torah beyond what they are taught in the Religious-state school. Normally the Torani public lives in more Torani communities, even though there are not too-few who do live in the wider community...

And there you have it. This is how the Hardal community sees all non Hardal Dati-Leumi. We don't learn torah, we don't have a commitment to Halacha...

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