Friday, January 25, 2019

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 4th, 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 4th.

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 20th 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 2nd 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

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