By Rabbi Norman Lamm, zt’l
January, 1974—My recent trip to Israel was qualitatively different from any of my previous trips. I am still in the grip of the mood of the country. Indeed, too much so to be objective. I shall therefore leave my analysis for another occasion and offer instead my personal impressions, given without claim to special expertise and without being privy to any inside information.
The mood in Israel today is not simple or homogeneous. It is quite complicated and often contradictory. Instead of describing it in general terms, it is best to identify the ingredients of the mood.
Sadness remains a primary component of the mood, and it is very real. Avlus, mourning, grips so many of those who have lost family members or friends, or whose friends have lost family members. Never before have I seen so many people, especially children, reciting the orphan’s kaddish in synagogues. It is not uncommon to see maimed or bandaged young men on the street. In many neighborhoods or kibbutzim, the population is heavily female, with hardly a man in sight. A young lady from America, who accompanied her father on a trip, noticed that many of the bus drivers were wearing kippot far in excess of what they were three years ago when she previously visited the country. She was bold enough to ask one of the Egged drivers if they had suddenly begun to employ more datiim (religious Jews) as drivers. He explained that many of them are Sephardim, and their custom is to wear kippot for the entire year they are in mourning.
Even for survivors, there is no complete joy. For instance, youngsters in Jerusalem get nervous when they hear the sound of jet planes overhead, reminding them of the jet planes they heard during the Yom Kippur War. When I visited the yeshiva in Gush Etzion, I found a pervasive sadness because only a third of the students was present (those from overseas), while the Israeli students were serving at the fronts. Shortly after I arrived, a colleague of mine who teaches at Tel Aviv University called me, describing how so many of the students who survived were whole in body, but not in spirit. Some had been in Egyptian captivity, and reported to him the tortures were so sadistic they will never be the same again. My colleague was dreadfully upset that this was kept a secret, but apparently the government believes that, for diplomatic reasons, it is best not to publicize this fact. Some of the men who underwent these tortures were perplexed: at least the Nazis had an “ideology” about Jews being subhuman and dangerous, but the Egyptians had no reasons to perform these acts of sadism.
In addition to sadness, there is also an element of powerful anger. There is a feeling, especially among soldiers who served at the front, that they were betrayed by the government’s negligence. What is called the mechadlim, the terrible neglect and failure of the security apparatus is being investigated by a national commission of inquiry. But no matter what they find, the charisma of the old leaders is dissipated, the halos are wilted, and they no longer appear as shining, faultless heroes.
There is also an element of justifiable pride in what Israel has accomplished. Hebrew University President Aber Harmen was right when he said that Israel on Yom Kippur was defending the right of every little country to exist. Israelis know that if the Arabs were to destroy Israel, no little nation in the world would ever be safe. They take pride in the valor of their soldiers, non-professionals, who fought against overwhelming odds.
Especially magnificent was the role of the students of Yeshivot ha-Hesder, those “modern yeshivot” whose students serve in the army alternatively with studying at the yeshiva. These schools lost a disproportionately high number of students because they were serving in talk and paratroop corps on both fronts on that Yom Kippur day. Furthermore, students from such schools as Kerem Beyavneh, Har Etzion, Yeshivat Hakotel, Shalavim, etc., were also volunteering to serve as officiants during the High Holidays services. Their losses, their valor, and their bravery constitute a great modern instance of kiddush Hashem.
Finally, I detect a deep searching and questioning. What we are witnessing today is something slower than the surge of feeling that came after the Six Day War, when paratroopers cried as they embraced the Kotel. Today we are seeing something deeper, sadder, a larger view of the tragic dimension of life, and the resulting search for meaning. And the search for meaning is already a religious and spiritual quest.
One detects a kind of teshuvah, a repentance, for the previous arrogance, over-confidence, and cockiness of so many Israelis, a feeling of regret and contrition for their loss of idealism that made them look more and more like American middle-class Jews.
There is a vague feeling that the Yom Kippur War meant something, but they are not quite sure what it meant. Perhaps this feeling can best be explained in terms of something we read in this morning’s sidrah. Jacob, the dying patriarch, calls his children to him, “Gather around me and I will tell you what shall befall you in the end of days.” It seems clear that Jacob intends to prophecy for his children, predicting to them their ultimate fate. Yet, after we read his poetic words, we notice that they are predictive only to a very minor extent, that they are mostly a combination of rebuke and blessing, and of a description of the collective character of his children. Somehow, the majority of Jacob’s words do not follow clearly from his prefatory remark. Perhaps that is why the rabbis in the Midrash and Talmud maintain that something happened at this moment: Jacob indeed desired to reveal to his children the end of days, the advent of Moshiach, but at that moment the Divine Spirit departed from him and he lost his prophetic faculties.
If you will allow me to offer an alternative explanation, I would say that Jacob never intended to prophesy to his children any detailed program of redemption at the end of days. Note carefully that the word he uses is not “yikrah”, which we would normally expect in Hebrew as “befall” or “happen,” but “yikra”, which literally means, “call.” What Jacob meant to tell his children is this: I want to describe to you your own inner qualities, so that, at the end of days, no matter what the situation is, no matter what events transpire, you will perceive them as challenges, as a summons from on high to respond with nobility and generosity, as a call from G-d to rise to new and greater heights.
Jews recognize that Yom Kippur War was such a call. It was a summons and a challenge. It revealed something. But we are not quite sure what that was.
Hence, requests for religious articles such as tefillin and copies of Tehillim (Psalms). I am fully aware that for many soldiers the little book of Psalms was more of a talisman than an opportunity to read words that inspire them religiously. The request for tefillin has been derided by some as “foxhole religion.” But that does not bother me. Better foxhole religion than penthouse atheism. I prefer that people come to religion out of gratitude and affluence, but the fact is that most people achieve a deeper recognition of their condition through crisis and hardship. What counts is the end result.
During the time I was in Israel, a small article appeared in the Israeli press that described how the tefillin campaign even reached beyond the Israeli troops. Chabad shluchim were at the Suez front, in the western bridgehead in Africa, and were offering tefillin to Israeli soldiers. A UN team was nearby, and engaged the shluchim in conversation, inquiring about the meaning of tefillin. One UN official was particularly persistent and upon inquiry, he revealed that he was a Swede by the name of Joseph Bergson. Are you Jewish? One of the Lubavitchers asked. Yes, he was. Within five minutes, Joseph Bergson of the UN commission was “davening” with tefillin…
In conclusion, I would like to share with you one story that I heard directly from a cousin of mine. It tells us something about the hopes and the feelings that motivate our Israeli brothers. This young man emigrated with his young family from the Lower East Side and became an Israeli citizen. He was assigned to the reserves that served on the Bar Lev Line on that fateful Yom Kippur day.
Ephraim was one of 200 men whom he referred to humorously as “third class infantry soldiers,” most of whom were married with children, in the 24–38-year-old bracket. These were part of the brigade of soldiers from the Jerusalem area, the one that was most hard hit during the war, stationed near Kantara. Ephraim told me how they were attacked by 50,000-60,000 Egyptian soldiers, how the more he picked the enemy soldiers off with his machine gun, the more swarmed over the Canal. After several hours of battle, his group was mauled and many of his close friends killed or wounded. Shortly thereafter, there came the order from his commander to withdraw back into the desert toward the Israeli lines. Some 47 men departed and broke into two groups as they made their way through the minefields back to their own lines. Ephraim and 22 others broke off from the rest of the troops, and decided that each could take but one object with him. Most men chose an Uzi submachine gun. Ephraim took an Uzi but also decided to take along his tallit, and one of the other men chose a pair of tefillin. For one and a half days they made their way through the desert, avoiding enemy fire. Then they noticed that they were caught in cross-fire, in between the Egyptian and Israeli lines, both sides firing on them. The Egyptians assumed, correctly, that they were Israelis. The Israelis thought, incorrectly, that they were Egyptians. At one point they made their way to the top of a hill, behind some bushes. The Israeli tanks thought they were enemy tanks, and instead of firing with machine guns, aimed their cannon at the 22 Israeli soldiers. The cannon fire kept on getting closer, while the soldiers tried desperately to get a wavelength on their wireless radio to contact the tanks and tell them they were Israelis. But it was to no avail and they expected the worst. At what seemed to be the last moment, Ephraim realized that he had the best form of communication: he unfurled his tallit and waved it. At first, the Israeli tanks thought it was an Egyptian robe, but they quickly recognized it, got out of the tanks and beckoned to them to run over. Twenty-two Jewish souls were saved because of Ephraim’s tallit.
I conclude this description of Israel’s mood with the story of Ephraim Holland and his tallit, not because I believe in the magical properties of religious artifacts, but because these religious objects symbolize the eternal nature Israel, their faith, and their great hope for the future. The tallit is the symbol of Israel, both the state and the people, and it is the tallit and the faith in the Almighty that it represents that can and will save us. Before donning the tallit in the morning, we recite: “And by virtue of my observance of the commandment of the tzitzit, may my soul be saved from all dangers and demonic forces in the world. May the tallit raise its corners over me and protect me, like an eagle spreading its wings over its nest to protect its young.”
May that tallit be the symbol of the wings of the Shechinah, as the Almighty G-d of Israel offers us protection, security, and love so we may go into the uncertain future calmly, prayerfully, successfully—and peacefully.
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