My feeling about the situation in Israel is that people ought to learn Torah. This is based on an event recounted in the Gemara. There was an excessive tax decree that was being collected by the Roman rulers. so all the Jewish citizens that were ignorant of Torah of the city came to R. Yehuda to see if he would contribute. He said 'Run away.' ,They said "If we do so, you will be left alone." He said that is ok. Some did so. Then more came and he repeated 'Run away.' Finally all the ignorant people ran away, and the Romans nullified the decree. R Yehuda said ''All problem that come into the world, all come only because of people ignorant of Torah.''
''Torah''in this sense means the Old Testament and all of the books of the Oral Law written from about 160 AD until 500 AD. Those books written by the sages of the Mishna and Gemara all bring the authentic oral law. but no books written later can be called Torah. At most, the better of them can be counted as learning Torah in so far that they attempt to explain the Oral and Written Law. ''Just like you can not add to the law of Moses and the prophets, so you cant add to the oral law.'' [Letter to Yemen of Maimonides ]
However there is learning of the Seven Wisdoms [Quadrivium, Trivium] that are important to understand Torah, the Gra said ''One who lacks knowledge of any of the seven wisdoms, will lack in understanding of Torah a hundred fold.''] [SO the natural sciences are important. The rest of secular subjects are Bitul Torah. ]
