After speaking out against the Draft Law on Purim, Rabbi Moshe Tzadka, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Porat Yosef Yeshiva in Jerusalem, stated that haredi men should not enlist in the IDF even if they do not learn all day in yeshiva.
"We have to believe with complete faith that the Yeshiva boys who study the Torah are the ones who protect the soldiers, they are the ones who protect the wounded, and they are the ones who protect the prisoners," Rabbi Tzadka was quoted as saying by the Kikar Hashabbat website.
According to him, "even young men who do not engage in Torah all day, who are a little weak in Torah, we are not allowed [to allow them to enlist], and God forbid we send them to the IDF. Because they both pray and study, and therefore, in that place if they go to the army, there are many temptations that they will not be able to withstand. And we thereby would lose a great force for the defense of the people of Israel."
"We are losing a great deal of strength for the protection of the soldiers. The protection of the soldiers depends entirely on the yeshiva boys, even on the weak ones, with what they do with the Torah and guarding against iniquity. And it is very, very difficult there in the army to guard against [Torah] violations," he said.
He insisted that in order to save and protect the soldiers, "no yeshiva boy can go there."