Having arrived as a bochur in Bnei Brak close to fifty years ago, it is hard for me to wrap my head around the news emanating from the city that I once knew; that part of the world known as the Ir HaTorah in Eretz Yisroel.

When I first came, Ponovezh Yeshiva stood on its hill, overlooking the city not only with grandeur but with a sense of authority, if not gravity. Across town stood Slabodka. Their stature was not in the stone edifices but in the Torah that echoed from their walls, in the quiet dignity of its talmidim, in the gadlus of their roshei yeshiva who walked its corridors carrying earlier doros of mesorah on their shoulders, transmitting to talmidim, who were the jewels in the crown of the Ir HaTorah.

The streets were so holy. Talmidei chachomim walked them slowly, deep in discussion. You could hear a Tosafos being debated from across the block. The city hummed with spirituality. I can’t recall even a pizza shop. If a guest wanted somewhere to sit and eat, you had to walk a good twenty minutes to find a fleishig restaurant, often occupied by Europeans who had come to do business in the nearby Tel Aviv bursa. Children played with a temimus that felt almost European. Shabbos descended with an aura of the original Shabbos. The air itself seemed to rest.

Yes. There were provocations at the edge of the city. I recall someone from outside attempting to breach the sanctity of the city with an attempt to drive through on Shabbos. I remember the story of the young man who roared in on his motorcycle, unaware of the metal chain that marked the no-drive zone. It ended tragically.  More than his helmet was severed from the rider. The city was shaken. But even that episode felt like an intrusion from elsewhere, and on the outskirts, almost like a Heavenly macha’ah against a breach. It did not come from the inhabitants.

It is because of the memories of such serenity that make it so difficult for me to process images of violent clashes in those same streets.

I am not here to vilify protesters. I do not know what they felt. I do not know the precise circumstances that brought female soldiers to a home, or what sparked the confrontation that followed. Human beings react. When something sacred feels threatened, emotions are stirred. I am not in their place, and I will not pretend to be.

But I cannot deny the sadness and emptiness within me.

I remember learning in Philadelphia under my rebbi, Rav Yitzchok Perman. On occasion, he would interrupt shiur to analyze world events through a Torah lens. Nixon visiting China. Golda Meir visiting the Pope. Chief Rabbi Goren and the mamzeirim controversy, and other controversies that shook the Jewish world. He once referenced a theory circulating from a so-called Rabbi of more modern circles that yeshiva boys were so pent up, so insulated, that their frustrations expressed themselves in petty acts like graffiti on the walls of a yeshiva. Particularly in the bathrooms. Rebbi dismissed it with a mocking smile. He would name the finest bochurim in the bais medrash and say, “Can you imagine Yankel or Meir scribbling on bathroom walls?” These were young men wrestling with a Rashba, sweating over a Tosafos. The bais medrash was not a prison. It was their oxygen. The concept of pent-up energy being released anywhere besides in the milchamta shel Torah does not exist!

That memory echoes now.

When I see videos of young men in the streets in the middle of the afternoon or toward evening, screaming and fighting, I ask myself quietly, “Who are they? What sugya did they leave behind?   What Tosafos was waiting? How did the pull of protest become stronger than the pull of the shtender?”

Is it pikuach nefesh? Is it confusion? Is it anger? Or is it that the world around us has changed so profoundly that even the Ir HaTorah feels the tremors?

We live in a new world order. Everything is filmed. Everything is shared. Every confrontation is amplified within minutes. Protest has become a global language. Demonstration is no longer rare. It is almost reflexive. The broader culture thrives on spectacle. It rewards visibility. It normalizes confrontation. Even a city built on quiet ameilus seems to have absorbed the new reality without realizing it.

My Zeide once spoke at an Agudah convention not long after a renegade group created a painful chillul Hashem in the streets of New York while protesting policies of the State of Israel. He spoke about Shimon and Levi. Both were kano’im. Both acted out of zeal. But history carried them in different directions. From Shimon emerged Zimri, whose zeal became public defiance and chillul Hashem. From Levi emerged Pinchos, whose zeal was crowned with a bris shalom from the Ribbono Shel Olam.

The difference is that one was a kanoi who spent 210 years in Mitzrayim, immersed in Torah. The Torah framed his protest. The other spent 210 under the whip of the Egyptians. His zealousness was framed by a different medium. Zeal alone is not the measure. The question is what it produces. Does it bring peace, or does it deepen the fracture?

I held my peace in questioning the actions until I heard the strong and unequivocal words of Rav Dov Landau and Rav Moshe Hillel Hirsch, together with other gedolei Yisroel, decrying participation in protests that lead to violence against police, soldiers, or fellow Jews. Their words were not political. They were pained. They were protective of the kavod of Torah.

I have to assume that many who found themselves in the streets did not fully grasp the depth of that displeasure. Perhaps I am naive. Perhaps I am simply hoping that the gap between the bais medrash and the street is not as wide as it appears on a screen.

I remember the story of Ben Gurion visiting the Chazon Ish. He was greeted with firmness and resolve. But I do not recall ever hearing stories of protest and chaos upon his visit. The strength of Torah did not require violence. It did not require burnt vehicles and tefillin. It required clarity.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if that meeting were to occur today, eighty years later. Would the city respond with the same quiet confidence? Would a message be delivered from behind a shtender rather than from the middle of an intersection?

Perhaps I am romanticizing a past that is lost forever. Every generation faces tests. But the essence of Bnei Brak was never chaos. It was consistency. It was the slow, steady accumulation of Torah. Thousands upon thousands of yungeleit learning, day after day. A kollel model once mocked, now emulated. A world built not on headlines but on chiddushim.

The sight of soldiers entering a home may trigger pain. The fear of coercion may stir hearts. But if the bais medrash empties in favor of the street, something deeper is being tested.

I write this not with anger but with a heavy heart. I do not doubt the sincerity of many who feel compelled to act. I do not question their love for Torah. But love for Torah is most powerfully expressed by learning it, living it, and protecting its kavod with dignity.

Chaos is loud. Torah is steady.

The Ir HaTorah that I remember was not defined by its protests but by its persistence. Not by confrontation but by concentration. By sheer kavod haTorah that was once plastered across the world through its great leaders, Rav Shach, the Steipler, Rav Shteinman, and the myriad gedolim from both the Lithuanian and Chassidishe world whose very presence spoke volumes that were way louder than anything we recently heard.

I still believe that is its true face.

Just saying.