For years, when they claimed against the ultra-Orthodox about the discrimination between conscripts and Torah scholars, they waved that they were "killing themselves in the tent of Torah," meaning giving up their souls and investing all their energy in Torah study.
If the full exemption in effect from recruitment, which the government has decided on, is indeed implemented - even this excuse will not be able to be used by the ultra-Orthodox.
It will reveal what everyone understands and does not say.
The unwillingness to enlist, while willing to impose on others the risk of dying for their protection, has long been unrelated to Torah study - but to what they perceive as a threat to the entire ultra-Orthodox way of life.
The beginning of the exemption of ultra-Orthodox from military service with the establishment of the state. Convinced that the exemption was essential to save the world of Torah, which was almost extinct in the Holocaust, Ben-Gurion agreed with him. The value "deal" around the exemption with the ultra-Orthodox was clear. The ultra-Orthodox, of whom the number of exempt recipients was 400 at the time, will dedicate their days and nights to Torah study, and therefore will not be drafted into the army, and according to Ben-Gurion, "the exemption applies only to yeshiva students studying Torah ... and as long as they study Torah."
Even as the exemption expanded and numbers increased, the nature of this "value-added deal," which could also be challenged, was clear. The ultra-Orthodox study and meditate day and night in the Torah, which in their eyes "protects and saves" the people of Israel. In doing so, and in return, if you will, they justify relying on the blood of others drained in defense of the state and Torah scholars. This value argument, which arose in countless public and legal debates, was the basis for the ultra-Orthodox 'justification for the continued blatant inequality and non-bearing of the burden created in Israeli society - in front of the general public, in the High Court, but also in front of themselves. Rabbi Kahneman, the founder of the Ponivez Yeshiva in Bnei Brak and one of the most prominent ultra-Orthodox leaders, warned his students during the Six Day War that anyone who withdraws from his teachings must enlist in the army.
But he asked in the face of the government's decision to lower the age of exemption to 21 - and thus in effect exempt the ultra-Orthodox from service in a sweeping manner - this argument is no longer valid. It seems to the leaders of the exemption, this value debate is already less interesting. The ultra-Orthodox are fighting to wage a war of attrition with nothing to do with their Torah study. The Ministry of Defense is probably tired of dealing with ultra-Orthodox recruitment targets and is desperate for it, and the Ministry of Finance is interested in the possibility of the ultra-Orthodox integrating into the labor market. No less puzzling is the sound of subtle silence on the part of politicians, who until two months ago recruiting ultra-Orthodox was their political flag - and now have folded it while boasting of a "historic achievement".
The new value equation that this exemption creates is distorted.
On the one hand, the willingness and duty of most Jews to enlist in military service, to contribute their best years to the army (in service that has been extended again) and, if necessary, to be wounded and die.
On the other hand, the ultra-Orthodox, whose only argument for evading military service is their unwillingness to endanger, if anything, the ultra-Orthodox way of life and their identity.
In the face of others' willingness to die for them, they are not even willing to leave the borders of their city and share the burden of living in the State of Israel.
The value argument of the proponents of the exemption is also problematic.
What to do, they say, if we do not succeed in achieving equality and recruiting ultra-Orthodox, at least they will work and thus perhaps save the economy.
It is highly doubtful whether this result will be achieved.
But on the way there, another and bad result will be: a severe violation of equality and the possibility of sustaining the IDF and maintaining its social resilience.
The exemption from military service for Torah scholars from the state of "their teachings and their art" to the existing extent is problematic, but at least it has, in a Jewish state, some kind of value justification. The new basis of the exemption, "their ultra-Orthodox art," is a bankruptcy of value. Even the ultra-Orthodox who have some emotion and moral honesty, should not accept it.