Strength and Peace: Serving In Israel’s Defense

Strength and Peace: Serving In Israel’s Defense

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Shabbat Yitro, January 25, 2019

My great-niece Opal enlisted in the Israel Defense Force last week. That makes four generations of my family who have served in the IDF during my lifetime.

Military service in Israel is compulsory for both men and women, with some exemptions offered for religious or other reasons. There are some who refuse to serve, while some others, particularly Orthodox young women, opt for community service. But on the whole, almost everyone serves.  It’s more than a rite of passage. It’s a responsibility as well as a privilege, fundamental to the People and the State of Israel.

The IDF is the great equalizer in Israeli society. No matter your ethnic, religious or economic background, when you’re in basic training and have to carry a fellow soldier on a stretcher for several kilometers, keeping an insane pace and trying not to stumble on a rock or sand dune, it doesn’t matter what your buddy’s skin color or social circumstance might be. All that matters is that everyone shoulder the responsibility equally. The result is a community that one can rely on in war or peace, a group of friends bonded for life.

The IDF provides other great lessons, too.  In the US, after high school many graduates go on to college, trying to find themselves and their life’s purpose in-between parties and hazing rituals. In Israel, more often than not you find that purpose and vocation in the IDF. In fact, chances are the army has had their eye on you and your education for years, looking for the best candidates for specific jobs—at the moment it’s cyber and high tech. 

While training you to be at your physical peak at all times, the IDF teaches you some real-life lessons, such as safety, responsibility and ethics. It teaches you to trust and act on your instincts—while at the same time expecting you to uphold the highest morals and ideals. Not an easy balance to maintain in the supremely challenging conditions that these 18-year-olds find themselves in for the first time in their lives.

I remember when I joined the IDF. I had received my call-up notice a few months earlier—and I have to admit, had nightmares up to the last night. I am not exactly what one would call military material. Would I find my place? Would I meet the physical and psychological demands of military service?

Yet within days I realized what a privilege was extended to me. Basic training, though not exactly fun, turned out to be one of the most fulfilling experiences I have ever had. Even when I was assigned to my permanent base—and it was the pits! One of the least desirable posts anyone could ever hope for—I found meaning in my service.

I remember one day in particular: July 4^th, 1976. America’s bicentennial.  I woke up as usual at 5:15 AM, stood at the outdoor, broken sink, shaving, listening to the morning news on my little transistor radio (OK—no laughing! Personal computers were not yet a twinkle in their inventors’ eyes in those days!). So here I am, my brain not yet engaged, barely seeing my reflection in the mirror, half-hearing the news, trying not to nick myself in the early morning light, and what I’m hearing on the tinny speaker just doesn’t sink in. Something about the Israeli Air Force and Uganda. Uganda?—that’s like on the far side of the moon, no? What happened?

Little by little the import of the news sank in. The Israeli Air Force had just carried out one of its most astounding missions ever. A few days earlier, an Air France plane carrying 248 passengers was hijacked by terrorists on route from Tel Aviv to Paris. Diverted to Entebbe, the capital of Uganda, at the time ruled by the monstrous dictator Idi Amin, Israeli and Jewish passengers were segregated from the non-Jews and held hostage at gun-point. Flying literally under the radar, under cover of darkness, the rescue unit reached Entebbe undetected, and within 90 minutes had completed its task. All but four of the passengers were rescued. Also lost was the commander of the unit, Yoni Netanyahu, Bibi’s older brother. That was the news I woke up to on that July 4^th.

By breakfast time, and now fully alert, I finally internalized what had happened. I remember the sense of wonder that pervaded my whole being: I may have been the least significant cog in the machine, but I was part of this incredible experience—a first in nearly 2000 years—of Jews defending themselves. Prior to the 20^th century, the last time this happened was during the second revolt against the Roman Empire, in the year 135. I could not imagine feeling a greater sense of fulfillment. 

Some think that Judea was destroyed with the fall of the desert fortress, Masada.  For years, “Masada shall not fall again” was the oath taken by almost all newly-recruited soldiers in the Israel Defense Force. But the truth is that the rebellion of the Judeans against their Roman oppressors did not end with Masada. It went on for another sixty years, ending only with the fall of Bar Kokhba’s last stronghold, Beitar. Hailed as the messiah by many, including the famous Rabbi Akiva, Bar Kokhba’s defeat was the last time armed Jews were able to defend themselves. Until, that is, modern times.

For centuries, the Jews had been at the mercy of their European or Muslim overlords, shielded or exiled in turn, locked in ghettoes or burned at the stake at the political whim or religious zeal of a monk, a baron, duke, king or pope. The Kishinev Pogrom of 1903 was no different. Following the pogrom, the Hebrew national poet, Hayyim Bialik, was sent as head of a delegation to witness and document the results of the vicious attack on Kishinev’s Jews. Bialik, however, could only register in words his shock and horror, not raise an army. While inspiring some Jews to organize into self-defense units and others to make Aliyah (immigrate) to Israel, the rest of the world remained silent. For Hitler, Kishinev was the very sign he was looking for: the world would continue to turn a blind eye to his plans for a “final solution” to the “problem” of the Jewish people.

It remained for Israel, and the IDF, to rise up in defense of the Jews, and the year was 1947, a mere two years after the end of the Holocaust.

To be sure, during the 2^nd World War, there were Jews who fought. Some famously resisted the Nazis at the ghetto uprisings in Warsaw, Sobibor and Kovno. Others fought as partisans, taking direction from the Russian Army, or the Polish or French underground. In 1944, with victory nearly accomplished, the British finally allowed Jewish soldiers from the Land of Israel to join what became known as The Jewish Brigade.  It too, however, was led by others—by Anglo-Jewish commanders serving in His Majesty’s Royal Service. But there was no independent Jewish defense force. That dream became real only after the establishment of the State of Israel. Then, for the first time since Bar Kochba, Jewish soldiers were assembled, trained and sent to battle under Jewish commanders, under the flag and banner of the Jewish State of Israel.

In 2006, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said that if the Arabs ever laid down their weapons, there would be no more war; but that if Israel ever laid down its weapons, there would be no more Israel. The sad truth of this statement has been proven time and time again since 1948. 

But it isn’t only Israel that the IDF is protecting. It’s all Jews, wherever they live. The IDF is one of Israel’s chief sources of pride and strength. Its soldiers are trained not only in the use of the most modern and sophisticated weapons, but also in ethics and morals. Quite simply, there is no other army in the world that is as powerful, yet also compunctious and empathetic as the IDF.  It has empowered Jews all over the world, inspiring us all to stand up for our rights as human beings, rights that for too long were denied us, chief among them the right to self-defense.

The Israel Defense Force bears its historic responsibility seriously. It understands what it stands for; it rises to the highest expectations—not without the occasional mistake or failure, yet always striving to be better, to do better, to mitigate collateral damage—either to the enemy or to its own fighters. 

In Psalm 29 we read, “The Lord gives strength to His people; the Lord blesses His people with peace.” We may wonder, why does the Psalmist ask first for strength, and then—and only then—for peace? The answer is clear. It was made clear to the Jewish People throughout the last two thousand years. The way this world is, you can’t have peace without strength. It would be nice—very nice—if no one had resorted to strength or violence; if the entire world agreed to live in peace and dignity, and mutual respect, without relying on its militaries and weapons. But it just isn’t so, and the Jewish People has learned its history well.

Still, our ultimate prayer is for Peace. The vision of the prophet Isaiah is for a time when “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them.” It’s a beautiful and inspiring vision.  But until that day, we need to be strong.

My prayers and thoughts are with my great-niece Opal and with the unit she serves, as well as all those who wear the uniforms of the Israel Defense Forces. May they be strong, and may God bless us all with peace.  

© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman

The Legacy of Moses: Bo.2019

The Legacy of Moses

January 12, 2019  Shabbat “Bo” 5779

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

When they first arrived, there was shame.  And silence. What they had seen, what they had lived through, what they had to do to survive, were unspeakable. The shame came from inside; but it also came from others, who weren’t there, and failed to understand. 

And it didn’t matter what country they came from, whether from the east, west, south or north. Europe had destroyed its Jewish communities, one after another.  In Egypt, Iraq, Libya and Yemen, violence broke out against the Jews, forcing survivors to escape with only the shirts on their backs, their passports stamped, “Exit, with No Return.”

They left by the hundreds of thousands, all remnants of what had once been glorious communities, centers of learning and culture, forced to leave behind any material goods they might still have had—today estimated in the billions of dollars. Many, however, had nothing to leave behind.  Not even memories. Children who had been orphaned; some who were adopted or hidden by Christian families, or in convents and monasteries, raised as Christians and taught to forget their Jewish roots. 

In the renewed Land of Israel the survivors were encouraged to Hebraicize their names; to submerge and abandon whatever elements of the past they did manage to bring with them, and bring new life to an old land. To begin writing a new history, for a new people. If you spoke Yiddish, the traditional language of Ashkenazi Jews, you were shamed: Yiddish was the language of the Diaspora, of the people who allowed themselves to be led to the slaughter like so many sheep.  If you spoke Ladino, the language of the Sephardi Jews, the Jews who came from northern Africa, the Balkans, from Greece, you were told to forget your native tongue and learn modern, living Hebrew, not the language of the long-gone past. If you came from Morocco, Tunisia, from Iran or Iraq, you were shamed as backward, primitive, naïve, even stupid.

The horrors you had lived through gave you nightmares, from which you awoke screaming, until you learned to push the memories deep enough into your subconscious so that you could actually go through a day without seeing ghosts.

Slowly a new people did emerge in the renewed Land of Israel. They awoke to a new day, started new families, raised their children to be fearless—and ignorant of the past.  Yes, here and there a mother couldn’t help telling her children of the hell she survived. Some of the older folk still listened to radio broadcasts in the language of the countries they had left behind. Some never managed to overcome the intricacies of Hebrew and thus never learned the language their own children and grandchildren spoke fluently.  I still wonder at how well I communicated with my grandmother, whose knowledge of Hebrew was limited to a few words, yet who managed to transfer intense love to my brother and me, all the strength of a courageous survivor who only a few years earlier had helped dozens, perhaps hundreds, of refugees escape the clutches of their Nazi hunters.

David Ben Gurion, one of the founders of the new State of Israel, was determined that a new chapter would begin for the Jewish People in the Land of Israel. The extent of his success is immeasurable.  Everywhere you go in Israel today, you hear Hebrew. The beggars beg in Hebrew. The singers sing in Hebrew. Soldiers swear in Hebrew.

But then, some time later, something new happened. Young people began to return and discover their old, forgotten roots. Today in Israel you can see these old cultures and traditions revived and flowering again.

It isn’t that the many communities which combined to make up the modern Nation of Israel, are breaking down today, as that they are uncovering the cultures that made them who and what they are: The foods, the music, the language. The memories of the past are unearthed and are reborn, finding new life, forming new branches, giving forth fresh flowers and fruit that enrich the land, life and culture of modern Israel.

The incredible achievement that Israel is today is nothing short of a miracle—a miracle no less wrought by a supernatural God as by the hands of men and women whose will to survive is as powerful as any force of nature. The State of Israel in the 21^stcentury isn’t only the result of a modern-day Exodus, but also of a transformation that weaves the past and present, creating a new, multi-colored tapestry.

Yet such a miracle is not new in the history of the Jewish People. Two thousand years ago, a rabbi named Yochanan ben Zakkai transformed Judaism, a religion centered in the Temple in Jerusalem, and turned it into a world-wide faith, where prayer, study and acts of kindness were the new pillars of a new sort of temple, one not unlike this one, and all other temples and synagogues that Jews worship in today.

Similarly, after the destruction of the Spanish Jewish community, five hundred years ago, new rabbis and community leaders restructured the remnants of their ancient traditions, creating what is known—and is still practiced today—as Sephardi Judaism.

But none of these amazing transformations even comes close to the unparalleled achievement of the man we know as Moses, who, more than 3000 years ago, first set the Jewish people on its historical path.  

Stories, myths and legends surround the birth of Moses, his youth as a prince of Egypt, his maturation into a man who stood up to power and demanded freedom for his people.

In this week’s Torah portion, Bo (“Come,” Exodus 10:1—13:16), we hear Moses’s demand of Pharaoh, to “Let my people go!” It is in this portion that we read of the last three of the ten plagues that God in turn inflicts upon the Egyptians—locust, darkness and the death of all the firstborn. We recall the dabbing of blood on the Israelites’ doorposts, to ward off the Angel of Death, even as the cries of agony coming from within Egyptian homes continue ringing in our ears to this very day. 

It is in this portion that we witness the end of the four hundred years of slavery in the land of Pharaoh, and our emergence into freedom.

But even as the Israelites leave Egypt, even as they begin their long journey into the Promised Land, Moses manages to turn the chaos and confusion that must have characterized the Exodus, into order and purpose. It isn’t easy to leave everything behind—the homes and neighbors, the old way of life. And so Moses instructs the Israelites not only to remember this day, but also to tell and retell the story of the Exodus, from generation to generation. “Tell your children, and their children…. How with a mighty hand did Adonai take us out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” We must never forget our past, Moses warns us.

History is more than a random collection of relics and artifacts. A people’s history is its lifeline, a thread that extends into the past, going back to the very soil that first gave it birth. Our history tells us much about ourselves, who we are, where we came from and how we became what we are today. It gives meaning to our existence today, and also direction and purpose as we move forward. 

For while supportive, and nourishing us both physically and spiritually, our past cannot tell us what we must now become. That is up to each of us, based on every individual’s own story and background.  It is through our interaction with the people we live with, with the environment and culture that surround us today, that tomorrow is created. 

Israel today is at a new beginning, a new chapter in our history. There, as well as in many other places around the world, Jews are experiencing a renaissance. Having escaped yet again from the hands of tyrants, the Jewish People still follows Moses’s instruction. Parents are still telling their children, and their children’s children, about the past, about the path they took to reach this place and this day. The exodus that Moses led more than 3000 years ago is reflected in the journey that our parents and grandparents took. The transformation he brought about so long ago is anchored in the changes we see around us today. 

The Exodus from Egypt is a story repeated and recreated throughout our history. And just as it was 3000 years ago, it is a story not only of escape, but also of redemption. It isn’t only about suffering and misery, but also about victory and joy. 

And our story is not yet over. We take the past with us, our traditions, our music, our customs, and we weave them into a new pattern. The past gives us the strength to continue. And the future is still unfolding, created every day by each one of us.

This is Moses’s legacy to us: a role in our history, our lifeline; a never-ending story of escapes and survival; of miracles and courage; of love, faith—and, above all, perseverance.

May our journeys forward always be filled with joy and wonders. May the stories of the past we tell our children, and our children’s children, always be told with love, music and pride. They are all—our stories, the stories of our people—the story of the Jewish People.

© 2019 by Boaz D. Heilman