When Aryeh Gross was born, a few
years before the founding of the State of Israel, his birth certificate stated
that he was born in Palestine. Years later, when he was in the USA and applied
for his first passport, he put Palestine as his place of birth. The agent told
him that he had never seen a Palestinian with a Jewish kippa, and then added in amazement, “There is no state called
Palestine.” Aryeh replied, “That is what I wanted to hear from the State
Department.”
As a child, Aryeh
attended a chareidi cheder, Yesodei
Hatorah, in Tel Aviv. Some of the boys there had long pei’os behind their ears, and he asked his parents if he too could
grow pei’os. Their answer was that he
could make that decision after his bar mitzvah. This cheder taught limudei kodesh
until 3 p.m. and, unlike nowadays, offered a complete secular curriculum from 3
p.m. to 6 p.m. That changed a bit when Aryeh was in fifth grade. Chinuch
Atzmai was founded, and his school joined that educational system.
Later, after eighth
grade, Aryeh was a talmid at Yeshiva
Kol Torah in Yerushalayim, but, being fascinated with science, he very much wanted
to study secular subjects as well. At that time, there were a handful
of yeshivos that did teach secular subjects, like Hayishuv HaChodosh in Tel
Aviv or the Bnei Akiva yeshiva in Kfar HaRoeh, but his family was chareidi, not dati le’umi (religious Zionist). Aryeh knew that only in America
could he find a makom Torah that addressed
limudei kodesh as well as chol. His father, who was from Hungary,
was skeptical about his plan, but his mother, who was born in Stuttgart,
Germany, backed him up. His father reluctantly gave him permission to look into
the matter.
Aryeh proceeded to visit
several yeshivos in Israel, asking to speak to bachurim from chutz la’aretz.
They gave him three names to check out: Chaim Berlin, Torah Vodaas, and Telshe.
He wrote a letter to each, and the first one to respond was Telshe in Cleveland.
So, Aryeh Gross, at age not-yet-17, came to Cleveland. He was the second
youngest boy in the beis hamedrash. The youngest was Avrohom
Ausband (today’s Rosh Yeshiva of Riverdale). Meanwhile, he attended the English
classes in the afternoon and got a high school diploma.
*
* *
All Israelis are
called to military service at age 18, and Aryeh was no exception. He asked for
a postponement, and they let him finish his high school courses but told him
that American yeshivos did not qualify for “Toraso
umanuso,” the postponement provided to those engaged in full-time Torah
learning. That only applied to Eretz Yisrael yeshivos. So Aryeh returned to
Israel and received his draft notice. This was in 1962.
On the bus with the new
recruits, he was the only one wearing a kippa. Although other boys were processed and sent to
various divisions of the military twice a day, he was not. So, for days, the
officer in charge, looked at his kippa
and said, “mitbach” – go to the
kitchen. The idea was that religious boys were only good for kitchen duty, perhaps
to be a mashgiach. The fact that he
was a high school graduate and not your typical chareidi didn’t figure into the equation. The first time Aryeh
went into the kitchen, he observed a “fight” going on. The cook was holding a
“blue” pot used for dairy, insisting that he needed it for a meat dish. The “musmach kashrut” (mashgiach) was
physically pulling in the opposite direction, saying he couldn’t have it. Aryeh decided then and there not to eat anything cooked
in the army kitchen. He saw that although kashrut
was the regulation, the implementation was spotty.*
After a month of waiting
around for an assignment, he finally met with Rav Goren, the Chief Rabbi of the
military. He was sufficiently impressed with Aryeh and said, “Your military
career will be in the Rabbanut, and
you will be trained and promoted to a higher position. There are three levels
in the Rabbanut: Musmach Kashrut, a mashgiach; Samal
Dat, like a sergeant, responsible for the day-to-day religious needs; and Katzin Dat, an officer. Aryeh refused to take the higher position. He told
the rabbi that he would not take responsibility for the kashrut of an army base.
He was given a choice
of Rabbanut or Golani, a regular infantry unit, which was not as prestigious as
it much later became. He chose Golani. He called home and told his father the
situation, that he ate only raw food and had been shunted aside because of his kippa. His father pulled
some strings, and Aryeh was transferred to Nachal. (As I once heard from Rabbi
Berel Wein, “If you know the right people, you don’t need proteksia.”) Nachal, which stands for Noar Chalutzei Locheim, pioneer fighting youth, was comprised of
those who came from the various youth organizations. After military training, they
were placed on small bases, usually on the border; their mission was to prevent
infiltration and keep empty areas from being overtaken. Because of his father’s
“pull,” Aryeh got assigned to an Ezra Nachal unit from Poalei Agudath Israel.
Poalei Agudah was a faction of the Agudah, whose members lived in agricultural
villages and also believed in joining the army and participating in the
government. At one time, it was a separate political entity and had a co-ed youth
group, called Ezra.
Interestingly, the
two religious youth organizations, Ezra of Poalei Agudah and Bnei Akiva of the
Mizrachi, both sent their youth members to the army as a group. It was because
Aryeh was not part of a youth group that he was sent for higher level, command
training. The others, who knew each other, wanted to remain together.
Aryeh recalls his
army experience as there being no ill will between him, a chareidi, and the others, many of whom were from Hashomer Hatzair,
a far left-wing movement that had nothing to do with religion. They got along,
and he even explained things to them, like tefillin,
which they had never heard of or seen.
One Shabbos, Aryeh
was assigned to go on an ambush patrol against infiltrators. A guy from
Hashomer Hatzair offered to go out instead of him, because he knew Aryeh was a shomer Shabbat. Aryeh told him that, no,
this was a vital matter for the defense of the country, and he would not shirk
his duty since he knew what he was halachically allowed to do.
At one point, during
a three-week military field operation, he insisted and demanded that an eruv be installed in the encampment, or
he would sit a whole Shabbos in his little personal tent.
The military does not
serve cooked milchig meals. During
officers training, this regulation was observed, but when the supply came, they
also delivered hard yellow cheese. The unknowing kibbutznik soldiers innocently
mixed the cheese into hot noodles in a fleishig bowl. Aryeh went to one of the
officers, who was from Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim, and told him the if he would have
known ahead of time that a frum
person cannot eat in officers training, he would have had a choice not to sign.
But now, he was in. In the morning’s military order, the officer spoke to the
group and reminded them that there were a few Orthodox soldiers who kept kashrut, and they might not be able to
eat if cheese was mixed into fleishig
dishes. It was very well taken, and there was a definite acceptance.
Another time, Aryeh was third in command at a
Nachal base. He entered the kitchen and told the mashgiach and staff that he had called the military rabbinate to
come and re-kosher the kitchen, and he would be inspecting the kitchen every
day to make sure all was proper. This surprised them, but it enabled Aryeh to
eat cooked food after a long period of vegetarianism. Interestingly, this
base was called Ha’achzut Modiin, located where the city of Modiin is today. It
was on the border and barren at the time. (If only we had bought land then;
it’s worth millions today!)
*
* *
After 33 months in
the army, Aryeh wanted to continue his education and returned to the United
States. He learned in yeshiva during the day and went to City College at night.
First, he was in Chaim Berlin; then he transferred to the yeshiva Beis Shearim of
Rabbi Menashe Klein. The Rabbi was somewhat surprised as it was a chasidishe yeshiva. Aryeh explained to
the rabbi that he wanted to learn the Gemara through the halacha, and that was the
derech limud of this yeshiva.
Over the years, Aryeh
also attained several advanced degrees in electrical and electronic engineering.
However, his involvement in the military did not stop. Fast forward to 1973 and
the Yom Kippur War: After the war, Aryeh and his family moved to Israel and were
involved in establishing the settlement of Moshav Elazar (a story by itself) in
Gush Etzion. One of the lessons of that war was that remote yishuvim in the Golan and Yehuda and
Shomron have to hold the line for 72 hours in any surprise attack, to allow the
military to get organized and complete a quick draft of reserve units.
To achieve this,
local units were established, drawing reserve soldiers from their military
units to establish a multi-disciplinary fighting force. Training drills were
conducted locally with a focus on defending the local settlements and holding
the lines until the military could take over. Every one of the settlements had
its own force for routine security duty. This included nightly watch in the moshav, which was enhanced by military
reserve soldiers.
Local members of
Moshav Elazar were drilled from time to time on what to do in times of
emergency and how to behave if there was a suspicion of terrorists in the moshav. As an officer, Aryeh was appointed
to head the Moshav Elazar security unit and was also involved with the Gush
Etzion military force. That required a weekly meeting with the military
governor and officers to exchange plans, learn about the activities planned by
the local military government, and get needed intelligence information. Things
have changed over time, but the picture given is from 40-some years ago.
After many years in
Baltimore, where both Aryeh and his wife Judy were involved with important
community endeavors, they returned to Israel 10 years ago. They live in Ramat
Beit Shemesh Alef but maintain a residence in Baltimore and spend part of the year
here, near family.
I spoke with Aryeh a
few days before they returned to Israel. He is the exception, a chareidi boy who valued a secular
education and achieved his goal without sacrificing his hashkafos. He is a fine example of what we can aspire to become. May Hashen give him and his wife health and continued
nachas.
* The kashrus in the military in the early years of the state was a
translation of the basic halachos of kashrus
into military language, and it became a military law. The laxity of application
in those years was not intentional but a process of learning and placement. The
public areas, like dining rooms and recreation clubs, had large signs that said
no smoking or radio playing on Shabbat. The best units in the military in those
days comprised young men/women from non-frum
kibbutzim. Today’s Hesder guys, whose ideology is that military service is an
integral part of their Torah and mitzvos, have other and more complex issues to
deal with.
