Miles to Go Before I Sleep

Yom HaKippur, my favorite day on the Jewish calendar, starts in a few hours. The year that was, the year that will be, this past week...

Like you, I have so much to keep me company over the next twenty plus hours of sheltered prayer. Too much of that remains buried within me, stories and ideas that have failed to arrive in this space.

In the days ahead, look for a blizzard of updates. Because it was quite the summer. And with what I discovered this week, the journey is now starting once again. Stay tuned.

Thank You. With special thanks to Robert Frost,
The woods are lovely dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.

But...Game Over

We came to the land to which you sent us, and indeed, it flows with milk and honey, and this here fruit. But (Efes) – the people of the land are mighty, their cities are greatly fortified and we even saw the children of giants... We cannot challenge such a mighty people.
Numbers 13:28-31

Buts have served as heralds of calamity throughout history. Everyone is familiar with the routine: words of praise are suddenly upended into the meanest censure by that single adversative: the but (except, however, only, and yet are all poor cousins by comparison). History's earliest case of a harmful but may come from the biblical story of the ten scouts sent by Moses to reconnoiter the land of Israel. Ramban, the thirteenth century Jewish sage also known as Nachmanides, writes that the use of the single word efes in the scout's report is the actual sin that doomed a generation of Israelites to wander and perish in the desert for forty years. Efes means but. Though the literal meaning of efes—nothing—is also crucial to understanding the damaging consequence of using this word. When all the praise in the world is followed with a but... the preceding words are worth nothing. If you are like me, preliminary words of praise are warning enough that a big ugly but is on the horizon.

And so when a senior officer in my unit began praising me a few minutes into my va'ada, I understood my days as a commando in Israel's most lethal ground force were over. Nine months in and like too many others, I was binned. Kicked out on Tzom Gedaliah of all days, the Jewish fast that commemorates the assassination of a Jewish leader by his own people.

Kicked out?! Why me? And why now?

Some context: Like elite military units around the world, Israel's top special forces maintain a thriving tradition of winnowing out troops over the course of training. A few soldiers do not finish training due to injury. Yet most are shown the door for other reasons, a fateful procedure that takes place every four months. A sociometry test, allowing higher ups to gauge each soldier's status among his peers, is quickly followed by ordering several soldiers to report for va'adot (meetings). If a soldier is lucky, the higher-ups have not predetermined his fate and the va'ada is actually an opportunity for the soldier to make the case why he deserves another chance. Most va'adot are simply a charade, with a few presumptory questions and then a hasty sentence of begone with ye.

None of that explains why I have been binned. How my storybook journey as a member of one of the most respected IDF units is now abruptly finito. As Bernard Lewis would ask, what went wrong?

In my all too brief va'ada, after a senior officer I had never met finished telling me how wonderful I am, the same officer said my time was up because my commander does not think I will manage with the demanding pace that awaits in the rest of the training. In other words, my commander does not believe in me.

It has been common knowledge in my squad for months that my commander does not have the highest opinion of me. I first noticed that I had slipped from his good grace during tironut yechida, the two months of intensive fieldwork that bridged basic and advanced training. At first the signs were somewhat subtle, such as his never tasking me with any of the choice assignments during field exercises. Gradually his negative attitude towards me became apparent from infrequent one-on-one discussions. From speaking to the other guys in my squad, I realized that their discussions with our commander were not exclusively ten minutes of the boss highlighting their faults. When I was selected for the first round of va'adot in May, it was apparent that of the officers in the room, the only one whose vote I could not count on was that of my own commander.

After surviving that first va'ada, my commander made clear to me that in his eyes I very much remained in the doghouse. As an inveterate optimist, I resolved to change his perception by working even harder. It was not long before the guys in my squad noticed and positive comments began coming my way. From my peers, that is. As far as my commander was concerned, my star turns in krav maga, stretcher marches and parachute course were immaterial. His opinion of me only worsened, headlined by my grenade and navigation blunders.

In my va'ada the senior officer told me the grenade and navigation were not the reasons I was getting tossed. The smoking gun was a far more egregious failure, a charge so absurd I was unable to understand nor explain. I had failed Course Lotar, our three week course in counter-terrorism. When my commander had first informed me of the result, I was shocked. And confused. The guys in my squad felt just the same. Having performed as well if not better than my peers, none of us could understand why I alone had been singled out with failing the course. Several guys in my squad suggested that our commander had played a not so subtle role in producing the damning result.

I never was my squad’s Buzz Lightyear. Poor Hebrew and a hesitant attitude during basic training stamped me with a permanent identity of the “guy to help out” even as my language and confidence increased. And yet what sticks with me is my failure to bond with my commander. A young man (only a year younger than me) whose Zionism and desire to always be the best I deeply admire. Was it the cultural gap? Dumb luck that he overlooked my strengths? Miscues that are far more egregious than they appeared?

I will never really know. All I do know is that it is all gone. After flying through the clouds for a year my wings have been clipped. Curiosity forever curtailed. My disappointment runs deep, especially because having been on the inside I now know myth from reality. I know those who make it are not rare supermen but simply dedicated young soldiers. Like me (except for the young bit, I suppose!).

I never shed a tear. Yet I know the Fast of Gedaliah will never pass without me reflecting on what was and will forever never be.

BONUS
Ramban's comment on the term Efes immediately came to my mind when the senior officer prefaced news of my exit with effusive praise. To my surprise, another message lies buried in the full account of the Biblical scouts. I will leave you to puzzle out what the mysterious fallen ones (Nefilim) have to say about my future.


The Land through which we have passed as scouts is a land that devours its inhabitants. All the people that we saw in it were huge! There we saw the fallen ones, the sons of giants from the fallen ones; we were like grasshoppers in our eyes, and so we were in their eyes.


BONUS 2
I almost titled this post "I dislike Big Buts and I Cannot Lie." And then I decided no. Because hey, this ain't a joke. Its my life.

Running to the End

I have been keeping something from you all this week, something that kept me in my own little world during the m'sakem (war games). See, just before we set out on Sunday for the start of the m'sakem, our commander told me I had a va'ada at week's end. The same sort of va'ada we all know from last May, the sort of meeting which usually ends a soldier's service in our unit. It was difficult to focus on our first mission having just heard that this week could very be my last with you guys. Yet by midweek, when we were curled up next to each other in the bushes, what was a distraction became a reason to appreciate every moment. I know, it sounds silly, yet my secret made me treasure our lack of sleep, the heavy packs on our backs and especially the final stretcher trek up the highest peak in the Yizrael Valley.

One moment remains with me more than any other. Remember when the sun came up Thursday morning and we were ordered to scrap the original plan and make a run for the border? An hour into the march, with everyone pretty miserable to be trekking in the heat after three days of near zero sleep, we passed a Star of David and the words am yisrael sprayed sideways on an empty white hut. Crazy as it sounds, as I passed the graffiti I felt the same thrill from the day I made aliyah. My mind read the graffiti as proof that our dangerous mission into enemy territory was over. The aliyah-esque excitement, however, came straight from my heart. Seeing the graffiti reminded me why I am here. Why I always smile in disbelief when soldiers, even some of you guys, pester me about joining the IDF. Why did you ever leave the bright lights of New York City? How come you didn't enlist with the Marines? (side note: Israelis, like non-Americans the world over, believe that US Marines are the elite of the US Army. Why? Blame it on that Lava Monster ad).

That silly graffiti reminded me I am here because of my faith in this country. My desire to take part in the ongoing drama that is Israel. Faith, desire... fanciful words that disguise the simple answer: Israel has my heart. And what is love if not a relentless belief in the other, finding a partner with whom you can change the world?

I shared the above words (or at least an oral, Hebrew version of them!) on Friday night with the nearly two dozen guys that compromise my fighting team. We have been together since the first night of Basic Training in December. If my journey with them is to end in a few days, this shabbat was our last best chance to make sure they knew the real me.

My commander had a few words of his own to share with me the next day. Unlike my remarks (which he had not been present for), his words were caustically blunt. I don't think you should be in this unit, he said. If enough of your peers indicated the same on Friday's sociometry (a what? see here), you are done for. So, do you think the guys support you?

I was in no mood to defend myself against this unexpected onslaught. But I was determined to respond. And so I admitted that some of my peers likely gave me less than sterling marks on the previous day's sociometry. Lets face it, public blunders have a way of making bad impressions and I have a can't-take-it-back grenade and a nightmare of a navigation to my name.

Demonstrating leadership and responsibility, on the other hand, is how good impressions are made. Since the army is largely a top-down affair, leadership positions are not so much earned as bestowed by all-powerful superiors. Call me spiteful, yet since avoiding an early exit from the unit in May I never received a crumb of extra-responsibility. Everyone on my squad had a turn at team leader--save for me. Everyone was tasked with responsibility over a particular supply depot (signals, vehicles, warehouse gear, etc)--except for me. With guys as motivated and capable as they are, I told my boss in closing, chances to lead are chances to shine. Hamlet, not Horatio, wins accolades come sociometry time.

It was not necessary to spell out to my commander who may be responsible for keeping me from the limelight. Nor was it necessary to wonder if I had the support of my peers. Late on Saturday night, a dozen guys sat with me to put on paper a rationale for why I deserved to remain on the squad. The paper was their idea, not mine. As were the signatures of my entire squad that covered the final draft.

BONUS
My va'ada was later postponed till after the Rosh Hashana (Jewish New Year) weekend. The delay meant I had three days at home to reflect on the portentous meeting. Three days that included a two day holiday dedicated to reflecting on the past and future years. Ironically, it was not until after the holiday that I finally came to terms with what awaited me on the morrow.

My thinking space came on a long Saturday night run. With no destination in mind, I let my feet and the occasional green traffic light guide my way through Jerusalem. For two hours my steps retraced nearly every path they have taken in the capitol. I ran by the tayelet overlook in the south; the dazzling Calatrava bridge at the western entrance to the city; the imposing Belz Temple in the ultra-orthodox northern neighborhoods; Hebrew University up on the eastern slopes of Mt. Scopus; and around the golden walls of the old city.

I doubt I blinked once. It was the people, fur-lined wide-eyed Belz hassids, nervous Arab couples cuddling by the wall, seminary girls touring the tayelet, haughty arsim racing past me in the shadow of the bridge, that held my attention. Their faces remind me why I am in uniform. The looks we exchanged remind me that despite the frustration of serving with a commander who looks and does not see, I cannot despair. Because my service is a privilege, a promise to defend all the eyes that crossed my own during my late night run.

Bike Light Nights

Dark skies torn apart by spinning helicopter blades and neon tracers were the lasting images from my first m'sakem. This time around a simple blinking bike light is what I will remember from the week long war-games that came to test what we had mastered over the past few months of training.

Like the first m'sakem in late April, this installment was mostly about lugging heavy packs in the dark of the night and hiding out from the enemy as dawn beckoned. Although we rubbed out a few pretend terrorists over the course of the week, the main idea was to remain undetected. So one night when our lead scouts spotted red lights approaching our ranks, the entire squad quickly concealed themselves in nearby bushes. Red lights, we had been told, meant terrorist baddies. With bated breath, two dozen camouflaged commandos prepared to fire as a strange pair of bobbing red lights approached our position.

As the seesawing figure grew closer, I struggled to keep the 100 pounds of kit on my back from throwing off the view through my gunsights. I had no idea of knowing when the order would come through to initiate contact with the enemy. But when the sound of heavy breathing grew so close that the leaves beside me seemed to stir from its breeze, I readied my finger on the trigger. Looking around, I saw my peers doing the same. Lucky for the other team our guns were stocked with phony bullets that would produce nothing save a bang and some smoke when fired. In our keyed up state, the result of our momentary broadside seemed beside the point. In seconds a symphony of violence would shake these woods.

The symphony never happened. Discipline trumped nerves when the bobbing red lights turned out to be the front and rear lights of two bicycles out for a late night ride. The bicyclists never knew what did not hit them. As they pedaled off into the night, my squad coolly stepped from our hiding places, shouldered heavy packs and moved off into the night.

A Test Without a Rope

The rope would have done me in.

Like the wall that nearly prevented me from passing the Bochan Maslul (army obstacle course), a twenty-foot rope threatened to ruin my Bochan Lochem. Used to evaluate the physical fitness in the top IDF units, the Bochan Lochem includes a 5 km run, maxing out on pull-ups and dips, and climbing a 20 foot rope without the use of your legs. For weeks my squad had included rope climbs in our daily workout. And for weeks I had never once succeeded in making it to the top without help from my legs. With the Bochan Lochem only days away, my only hope was that gravity would miraculously turn on its head and sweep me up the twisted twine.



The Bochan Lochem was to be administered by a brash new fitness officer. Days after arriving in the unit, his reputation was sealed when he led us on an early morning run. Coming on the heels of a tense all-nighter, the run was welcomed by no one. Even less welcoming was the nonstop instructions of the fitness boss-- arms should be at a 70 degree angle... The ceaseless chatter finally drove one guy to shout, "How about you just shut up!" Of course, the officer was too into his own verbal flood to hear the words that finally succeeded in waking (and cracking) us up.

Someone was apparently conscious enough during the run to report back to our commander that the fitness boss had voiced his approval for running shirtless. Our commander was not pleased. Okay, he finally agreed, from now on you can run without your shirts. But perhaps I should utilize the same guideline my commander applied when I was a trainee. He had us lift our shirts, my boss concluded with a smirk, and allowed the rest of the squad to decide whether a soldier looked good enough to run around topless.

Nearly everyone doffed their shirts a few days later for the 5k run of the Bochan Lochem. With all the guys that had joined the unit in November 2009 taking part, the race was a lot of fun. My squad embarrassed the competition, claiming twelve of the top fifteen spots. The best part of the run was having one of my best friends unexpectedly pass me during the final half-mile. I loved the statement he made by running a race no one suspected him capable of pulling off.

The rest of my love was reserved for the new fitness boss. Surprising everyone, he imperiously announced that the rope climb would not be a part of the Bochan Lochem. My joy was boundless as I cranked out dozens of pull-ups, eyeing the sinister rope whose clutches I had barely avoided.

Facebook Vigilance

It is not easy meeting girls as a soldier. So when gorgeous female strangers request to become my friend on Facebook, it is easy to say yes. Especially when the girls, whose profiles always depict a curvaceous babe, list their alma mater as Baltimore Hebrew University and other very Jewish academic institutions. Strange, I wonder to myself as I deny their request for online friendship, all those years as a student in Baltimore and I never knew how many cute girls were studying for an advanced degree in Jewish Studies down Park Heights Ave.

The most curious part about these girls, and the reason I deny their requests without a second thought, is the names of their listed Facebook friends. No Sara Raizels or Rochel Lay'as here. In fact, they never have any female friends. Instead their online buddies are a bunch of Beirut based guys named Mohammad or Ahmed, with the occasional Abu Jihad thrown in for good measure. Aka, Hezbollah techno-terrorists fishing for info. So much for online romance.

The lame attempts to access my personal information on Facebook disguise a real threat. Not that I have any information or images about the army on my online profile. The danger comes from the facts that way too many Israeli soldiers do place way too much personal information online in the public domain. Such thoughtless online activity has led to a series of minor catastrophes. In March, the IDF was forced to cancel a raid after a soldier wrote about the upcoming mission on his Facebook page. In July, the Israeli media had a field day when they discovered that alumni of a secret IDF base formed a Facebook group to trade pictures and stories. And this week, another media firestorm erupted when the papers caught wind of the pictures a former female soldier had posted to her Facebook depicting her standing next to blindfolded captive Palestinians. In a Abu Ghraib conscious climate, the humiliating images did little to help Israel's global image.

I was reminded of my own run-in with the Hizbollah geek squad in a comment from a member of Israel's own cyber unit. "Beyond national security, it is also a safety issue. Hizbullah operatives set up profiles pretending to be Israeli women and ask to be friends with soldiers or join soldiers’ groups on Facebook. Over time, through the status updates, Hizbullah learns a bit about the soldiers, where they live and are able to connect the dots. In theory, they could eventually kidnap that person."

This theory turned to tragedy with an Israeli teen named Ofir Rahum. In January 2001, Ofir traveled to Jerusalem to meet a young woman with whom he had conducted a relationship over the internet. The woman turned him over to Palestinian terrorists. Hours later the boy's bullet riddled body was discovered outside Ramallah. A tragedy that began with an innocent friend request from a young lady not unlike my Beirut babes.

The IDF is very aware of the dangers posed by Web 2.0 information sharing. My unit probably stresses the importance of operational security more than your average brigade. Yet the challenge remains difficult. In the words of the IDF cyber-warfare officer quoted above:

"It’s a significant problem for the IDF because soldiers have cellphones and any of them can take a photo or make a film and upload it to the internet. Soldiers themselves don’t really know what can cause harm. For example, a soldier might think that a simple photo of a room inside a base is harmless, but there is a poster on the wall with a map or operational details."

Some advice:

(a) Do not advertise your Israeli armyhood all over your online profile, if at all. Pictures in green, army related status updates, etc. Being proud does not have to mean being dumb.

(b) Be skeptical of anyone you do not know personally who takes too much interest - through email, cold calls, weekend run-ins - in your army doings. Even if the interested party is a seminary girl. Because not all dangers have a terrorist address.

(c) Confidence & Humility. As always.

Terrors End

What does a day in the life at Israel’s elite anti-terrorism course sound like?

Yo dawg, give me back my weed. Wazzat you sayin’? Now ya got me angry, and you don’t want to see me…BAM, BAM BAM.

Who would have thought that providing Israeli teens with handguns would unleash their inner American gangsta? Such was the case during the early goings of Course Lotar, the Israeli army’s anti-terrorism course. Lotar is designed to give a select number of elite units the basic skills to respond to terrorist attacks. So over the course of three weeks, I was reintroduced to my rifle, taught the basics of firing a pistol and drilled repeatedly on how to neutralize a hostage crisis.

Before slipping off to Entebbe, however, I was fed a steady diet of terror. And I do mean fed. Alas, the food is only one of the many terrors that make up this top level course. Logistics on base are a terror. Nothing is located close to anything else so an inconvenient system of buses is necessary to move around. Facilities are a horror of their own. During one of the hottest summers in years, I had the good fortune to be on a base that has close to zero water taps or accessible bathrooms. A two hour “final drill”—which had me and my guys running around in the summer heat to pulsing heavy metal music, dry (no-ammunition) weapons in hand—almost came apart when no drinking water was available. Even activities that have no business being terrifying, like the army-wide Bar-Or fitness test, are dressed up as something special and renamed, honest to G-d, the ‘Bar-Or Terror!’ (Ya get the rhyme, right?)

The climax of gratuitous terror had to be when my guys were tasked with moving heavy boxes of ammunition. With sentries looking down from nearby towers, snarling dogs from the grounds of the IDF canine tracking unit (Oketz) and a barbed wire fence blocking any means of escape, onlookers would be forgiven for thinking that the two dozen soldiers laboring shirtless in the hot sun were cons. By the time our chain-gang had finished invoking 1960 era prisoner flicks (I was thinking Newman’s Cool Man Luke) even the threatening dogs had slipped off to the shade.

Ironically, the daily krav maga sessions were one of the few activities devoid of terror. Part of the credit goes to Baboon and the Salamandra, two animalistic drills that quickly became legends. Baboon is a life-sized punching toy whom everyone had to run to and slug when the instructor suddenly announced “Baboon!” The Salamandra is a devious punishment drill that has us do laps lying on our back, feet in the air with only our scrunched stomachs providing any momentum across the floor. Both drills involve smacking into each other more than anything else—getting caught between the Baboon and twenty frantic guys was a mistake only the most foolish did not quickly master.

The lack of krav maga dread really stems from the staff trying too hard to amp up the shock value. Granted only seven minutes to prepare for a surprise session, guys played up their distress until the rest of us were shaking with laughs. When an instructor showed us a truly vile video of Islamic terrorists cutting off someone’s head, the attempt to get in our heads lost its edge because the video was screened on a grainy cellphone screen. And when the three weeks ended with a brutal round of one-vs.-everyone kravot bouts...Okay, so that last bit was still pretty scary. Terror, it seems, has not yet been vanquished.

BONUS
A twenty-five year old officer from an outside unit joined my team for the duration of Course Lotar. While he left an indelible impression with the guys (mostly by his attempt to use Arabic—Ahlan Wa'sahlan, Bahnu b’Shalom…—to talk down some baddies during a simulated hostage crisis), our thoughts were on the soldier who joined a neighboring squad for Lotar. This other soldier was dropped from my squad in May during the infamous va’adot. Now he was almost but not quite back with us. It could not have been easy to play soldier when the two dozen guys—and the commander that had sent him packing—were training alongside.

American Eagle is Down!

The night began with a toast. Two dozen glasses were raised at the foot of Mount Carmel as each member of my squad was granted the name of a Haganah legend. My radio call-sign for all future navigation exercises would be Gandhi, the nom de guerre for the slain Israeli minister and former military icon Rehavam Ze'evi. The naming was our unit's way of commemorating the start of the solo-navigation exercises that my squad had begun earlier in the week. With more than twenty weeks of solo-navigating to go, our toast was a small testament to the importance the unit places on insuring its commandos know the lay of the land.

Toast complete, the real commemorative work began in earnest. While tonight's navigation exercises was to test my ability to navigate across the Carmel mountain range, I would first have to get to the planned start location atop the mountain. In a surprise announcement, my officer declared that per tradition everyone had less than two hours to get to the top. Footpaths of any kind were forbidden. One look at the thick undergrowth that blanketed the steep ascent gave me a good idea of what to expect. So much for lessons learned, I thought, as I tugged my fifty pound pack close and set off up the mountain.



Scaling the Carmel in less than two hours was epic. The real drama came hours later when calamities of every kind forced the supervising staff to finally suspend the all-night exercise. While the abrupt end of the final navigation of the week left everyone disappointed, my distress was nothing compared to what I felt five nights earlier at the tragic fall from grace of the American Eagle.

No one in my squad could match the enthusiasm I felt when our first week of solo navigation finally arrived. Despite an uneven performance in prior navigation exercises, my natural self-confidence and passion for the art of navigation left me convinced I had the potential to now excel. My conviction was rewarded early when I aced the obligatory oral walk-through everyone must pass before a navigation exercise. As the night-long navigation got underway, the sight of two dozen radio antennas bobbing off into the Galilee hillsides gave me a final surge of excitement. American Eagle is good to go, I radioed in, trying out my new call sign for the first time as I ascended into the darkness.

All was well as I neared the halfway point several hours later. Then disaster struck. The halfway marker, a jug of water with a glowing stick-light, was nowhere to be seen. Hours later I finally discovered the missing marker some fifty yards from where I had first realized I was in trouble. With little time left to collect the remaining points (confused? check this out), I slipped into navigation crisis mode. One thing led to another and a short time later I decided to take a shortcut through a dark slice of undergrowth in the hollow of a sharp valley.

Big mistake. Trapped in complete darkness, breaking through the rope like vines and their inch long thorns became an apocalyptic struggle. The vines and branches within the hollow tore me up in their vise-like grip. I crawled on all fours. I fell from trees. My reality became a sea of thorns reaching out from the darkness, refusing to let me go. My own private Fire Swamp, except with no Buttercup (or maybe I was the princess bride?!) at my side to stave off the nightmare.


Online image that gives a sense of where I was

Worse news greeted me on the other side of the undergrowth. Equipment was missing from my vest (the ripped cords that had secured the equipment to my vest testified to the violence of the vines), ten-foot high thorned bushes blocked any forward progress, and my radio could not work from this low vantage point. Needing desperately to radio in a status report, I was forced to turn back and make a second go through the dreaded hollow.

By the time I succeeded in raising my commander on the radio, my skin and gear were in a sorry state. My arms, hands and face were covered in angry red lines, criss-crossing every which way like Ishmael's cannibal friend. All of my missing gear was quickly recovered after a brief search in the early morning. One of the guys who swung by to help in the search sized up the ground I had covered and declared it was without a doubt the meanest looking undergrowth in northern Israel.

My commander wasted no time in ripping me apart over my decision to enter the undergrowth. What he could not understand, and what I could not find the words to explain, is why I did not immediately turn back after realizing the enormity of the challenge that breaking through the vines entailed. The gloom played a role in convincing me the hollow was not as bad as it was. Yet my own pride, a mix of stubbornness and curiosity, is really what drove me on. I felt fated to test myself against the darkness.

My commander's rebuke barely touched my own devastation. I was torn by the knowledge that I had bungled a navigation that had been in the palm of my hand. One slip up by the halfway point, a fateful decision to enter the undergrowth, and the golden chance of having a stellar week was forever lost.

My loss was put into concrete terms the next day. For the rest of the week, I would not be allowed to navigate alone. Keeping me company would be a guy from our squad whose slow return from injury prevented him from navigation by himself. Any chance at proving myself in solo-navigating would have to await the future.

Loving God in Green

Kippas are an all too common sight in my unit. The presence of so many religious soldiers even led a former commander of my unit to prepare the first report on what is in fact a phenomenon throughout the Israeli army. According to the report, published this week in the military journal Ma'arachot, the percentage of religious Israeli combat officers in the IDF has leaped from two to thirty percent over the last two decades. A similar story is evident in the dramatic increase in religious soldiers in most elite units. These trends reflect the ideological strength of religious Zionism in a post-modern society that has largely turned away from traditional Zionist values.

For all the attention such findings provoke (some pundits worry that the Israeli military is falling under the influence of the religious right), my own squad remains an antiquated bastion of proud secular Zionists. Perhaps this explains why we ended up spending a recent shabbat on a secular kibbutz.

The other religious guys (dosim, singular dose, is the common Israeli slang) and I were rightly concerned about what we would eat over shabbat. Our prayers were another matter. Recognizing that we lacked a minyan, the secular guys in the squad joined us for Friday night prayers. Together we sang the tunes of Kabbalat Shabbat facing the dark hillsides we would be navigating in subsequent nights. Never did the words of Psalm 92, "It is good to thank G, to sing praises...to share Your faith in the nights," seem so appropriate.

My commander inadvertently echoed another line from Psalm 92 ("a boor cannot know, nor a fool understand") in the words he shared with us following the prayers. Drawing on his past as a trainee in our unit, the boss recalled coming to terms with how little he knew of religious traditions. "As a secular Israeli, I was simply a boor. My own people's heritage a blank." By asking questions of the religious guys in his squad, my commander began to educate himself. Education brought appreciation, not conversion. Learn from each other, my commander concluded. Religious and secular. Native Sabras and immigrants from Ethiopia and America. We all have many questions to ask and answer.

I appreciate my commander's words. Yet the prayers we occasionally share only tap the surface of what it means to be religious in the IDF. For all the religious guys in my unit, the mainstream culture remains very secular. Religious observance is respected yet often must battle for time and attention amid military pressure. So while a few minutes can always be found every morning to don tefillin, the morning ritual comes at the expense of regular activities.

Loving God in green also means that observant soldiers have extra restraints during down-time. Shabbat in the IDF is uniformly the day off; training is absent and guys are given twenty-five hours to do as they wish. In my unit, where the frenetic work week includes bans on cellphone usage, Shabbat is the time to take a breather, to meet with family and friends during Saturday afternoon visiting hours and to call up a buddy on the phone. Visits and calls, of course, that dosim like myself cannot share.

Of course, Shabbat provides the faithful few with its own delight. We welcome the seventh day with prayers and songs that remind us of the sacred covenant that directs our lives. Shabbat, in short, provides us with a spiritual faith that our secular peers cannot fully appreciate. The challenge, as ever, is to ensure that faith grows ever stronger come what may.