benig: Perhaps Rav Chaim Kanievsky should join Hatzalah. And Rav Shmuel Auerbach can be a policeman. And we’ll draft the Roshei HaYeshivos into the Army to be soldiers. After all, all those positions need to be filled and Rav Shmuel and the Roshei Yeshivos, too, ought to “share the burden” and “risk their lives to protect fellow Jews”, as you so elequently put it.
Why should Rav Chaim be exempt?
Whatever your answer to that question is, that is the same answer why the yeshivaleit and kollelleit should be exempt. For the same reason the Rav Shmuel Auerbach’s of the world ought to be exempt.
There aren’t too many Rav Chaim’s in the world. And there aren’t too many kolleleit in the world. The number of men in kollel n Eretz Yisroel is a very small percentage of the Jewish male population of the State of Israel. We should actually increase how many men are in kollel. It would in fact be better to take some Israeli soldiers in the Army and tell them they no longer need to fight and they should instead join a kollel full-time. There isn’t a current shortage of able-bodied men in the Israeli Army. If they spare a few, they wont be short-staffed.