My six-hour guarding shift at our base near the gates of Gaza was almost over, following a four-hour emergency standby. Just then, shortly before sundown on Friday afternoon, I got the call from my company commander. “They need someone to help tonight in Gaza. The convoy leaves in 10 minutes. Can you go?”
I had already showered and put on
my clean uniform in honor of Shabbos. I was thinking through the Torah idea I
planned to share in the base shul that night. But the army was sending crews
every evening to install sophisticated security systems on the guard towers of
forward outposts inside Gaza. These outposts, which can accommodate up to 100
soldiers, include tents, fortified positions, and mobile command centers. Because
the roofs of the outposts are exposed to Hamas sniper fire from less than half
a mile away, they only work under cover of darkness. Every night’s delay in
getting the security sensors up there means another day our soldiers’ lives are
endangered. So, I grabbed my helmet, borrowed a bulletproof vest, and
ran to the mission commander’s warehouse to help load the truck. The commander,
a weathered lieutenant colonel who’d been doing this since before I was born,
looked me over, pointed to a large box, and barked: “Are you strong enough to
lift this?”
I picked up the box – it wasn’t
that heavy – and was thus officially accepted for my first active mission in
the heart of Gaza, together with two other rookies who, like me, had just
joined the army with the Shlav Bet program for older chareidi volunteer
soldiers.
* * *
As our Hummer bumped into Gaza,
with the last rays of Friday melting into Shabbos, I couldn’t help but laugh at
the strangeness of it all. I’m the guy who hires a fix-it man for anything more
complicated than changing a lightbulb, and now I was deployed in the world’s
most advanced army to secure Gaza – on Shabbos – using cutting-edge sensor
technology.
After driving west through one of Gaza’s shattered cities,
surrounded by endless piles of smashed concrete and rebar and, beneath us, who
knows how many Hamas tunnels, we finally reached our outpost and got to work.
For obvious security reasons, I can’t share many details. Suffice it to say
that on that Friday night I fastened more bolts, anchored more brackets, and
ran more wires than in all the rest of the years of my life combined.
For the first installation, our
colonel climbed halfway up a ladder to show us the process. After that, he
stayed below and guided us while we three rookies worked alone in the dark on
the roofs of Gaza’s watchtowers.
We were a motley team. The other
two fellows were from tank-repair units, loosely related to our mission. One, a
systems engineer who’d moved from America a year ago, knew the work perfectly
but didn’t know much Hebrew. (Our colonel soon appointed him foreman.) The
other, a Russian immigrant, spoke decent Hebrew and could somehow hold a nut
with one hand while screwing the bolt with the other. As for me, let’s just say
that handyman work isn’t exactly my strength. But as the night wore on, I found
my role in our mission. I translated for the engineer, did most of the heavy
lifting and climbing, and even found the courage to bolt some screws.
Under the noses of Hamas, our
unlikely group was bonding into a tight-knit team. The urgency, danger, and
importance of our mission pulled us together; we barely knew how to shoot a
gun, but we were risking our lives to make a significant contribution to the
security of our front-line troops and the success of their missions.
* * *
At some point,
we paused to join the men inside the outpost for kiddush and the Shabbos
meal. (In this outpost, there was even a
little shul caravan with a sefer Torah.) As I suspected would happen,
the soldier across the table had studied at Yeshivat Lev HaTorah, where I now
teach, and he was delighted to send regards from Gaza to his rabbis from a
dozen years ago. Over the meal, our colonel opened up a bit but still seemed
mostly uninterested in his three little helpers who’d been deployed only days
earlier. Yet I began to suspect that beneath his armor, he was starting to
appreciate our freshness, energy, and camaraderie.
Seven hours after entering Gaza,
at 1:30 Shabbos morning, we pulled back into base. After unloading the
equipment, our colonel turned to the engineer, the Russian, and me and growled,
“Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading back out to finish the job. We’re leaving at
5 p.m., because we must arrive during daylight to get everything ready.”
As we turned toward the barracks,
exhausted and overwhelmed, he blurted, “You have no idea how much I love you
guys.” Our colonel had cracked.
* * *
After a few fitful hours of sleep,
I was back at my post for a Shabbos morning guard shift. Afterwards, I joined
my company for the tail end of the meal. They were shocked to hear my story. You
see, we fresh recruits generally have no business in Gaza, except occasionally
as armed escorts for truck guards (with strict orders to never, ever shoot).
But our company commander is a man with a mission; he wants all his soldiers to
go home and tell their chareidi communities about their time in Gaza. He
wants their families and neighbors to respect the many religious men who left
their homes and jobs to defend our nation. So, whenever the army asks for an
armed escort, he sends three.
Still, it’s hard to get these
missions. He prioritizes soldiers who’ve been on base for weeks or months, and
nobody goes twice in a row. But the army is full of opportunities for those
willing to step up. Something in our team’s energy had clicked with our
colonel, and he had the rank and pull to bring us back in.
My commander still needed to
approve it because, ultimately, he was responsible for my safety. If something went
wrong on the roofs of the watchtowers of Gaza, he’d be blamed for sending in a
soldier who could count on one hand the days he’s been serving in the IDF. So,
we cut a deal: he’d let me go again, and I’d cover an extra guarding shift the
next morning.
Late Shabbos afternoon, our little
convoy was back in Gaza. We unloaded, waited for nightfall, said a quick verbal
Havdalah, and climbed the towers. We were supposed to return by 11 p.m.,
but repairs dragged on, equipment broke, and before long it was midnight, and
we’d barely begun.
Our colonel, now openly enjoying
our night out in Gaza together, fried some eggs while his adjutant chopped a salad,
and we shared a meal that would make even the Hamas men below us jealous.
That night, a brigadier general
happened to visit the outpost on a secret tour. Our colonel cornered him,
reported on our mission, and introduced his three recruits from Shlav Bet. The
general shook our hands, thanked us, and nearly smiled. Then he vanished into
the dark with his finger-on-the-trigger bodyguards, and we climbed back up the
towers.
We finished screwing in the final
sensors just before the first rays of dawn exposed our position. A few minutes
later, the local Hamas men peeked from their tunnels and saw an outpost harder
to attack than before. I hope that made them sad. But we were happy, and our
colonel was even happier. He said we did in two nights more than most crews do
in two weeks, and his adjutant said he’d give us all rank if he could.
To my great relief, my commander
let me off the morning shift I’d promised to cover. It would’ve been rough
after 14 hours on the roofs of Gaza.
* * *
My Shabbos in Gaza wasn’t only
interesting and exciting. It was profoundly meaningful and was perhaps the
holiest Shabbos of my life, just as my army service in general has been one of
my holiest experiences. “You shall sanctify Me among the children of Israel,”
reads the mitzva that Rambam presents immediately after the basic tenets of
Jewish faith, right at the start of Mishneh Torah (Hilchos
Yesodei HaTorah 5).
The more dramatic sanctification
happens when we give up our lives instead of violating the cardinal sins of
idol worship, murder, and immoral relations. And in certain situations, we must
die for any mitzva when there are 10 Jews present. Why does it make a
difference how many Jews are around? Because the Torah prescribes
holiness among the children of Israel. In fact, the Rambam taught,
we don’t need to die in order to live with Hashem’s holiness. When our public
behavior is exemplary, both in our interpersonal relationships and religious
observance, then “… everyone praises him, loves him, and longs to follow his
deeds, [and] this is one who has sanctified the Name of G-d. About him
Scripture says: ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be exalted.’”
There are many situations in which
we can sanctify G-d’s name and join its holiness. But there are times when the
holiness is so palpable that it’s the purpose of our lives on earth – not only
when we choose to die. In the past two years, hundreds of thousands of our
brothers and sisters have left their families and jobs behind and risked their
lives to allow you, me, and 7.5 million other Jews to live in relative peace in
Israel. Whenever I do a six-hour guard duty shift on our base at the edge of
Gaza, hundreds of these brothers and sisters pass by me; they see a rabbi with
a full beard, wool tzitzis, and a big black yarmulka wearing the same uniform
as them, toting the same M-16, and take his part in protecting our people. They
see that I care enough about them to close my Torah books, leave my students,
and do what I can to lighten the tremendous load they’ve been carrying. I’m not
better, different, or more Jewish than they are. We’re fully in this together.
Every time I wave a car in or tell
someone politely they can’t enter, I’m making a kiddush Hashem “among
the children of Israel.” And when I showed up on the forward outpost in Gaza,
surrounded by hundreds of combat troops heading out on dangerous missions,
risking my own life to make their little island safer, I was making a kiddush
Hashem “among the children of Israel.” Who knows? Maybe the general told
his staff the next morning how surprised he had been to meet a rabbi installing
sensors on Gaza’s watchtowers, because that rabbi’s Torah had taught him to
care for his nation.
* * *
This is the simple reason I joined
the IDF. But there’s an even simpler reason: by joining the army, I’m joining
the Jewish nation. To belong to the Jewish nation, I can’t just perform a bunch
of rituals perfectly. Being part of a nation means expanding my sense of self. I’m
not only Shmuel Chaim. I’m one of a people bound by Torah, mitzvos, and our
land. Because I am my portion of the nation, I share in its choices and
responsibilities. That means supporting and protecting everyone in the
community, whether or not they look or think like me. This is a spiritual
value, not only a social norm.
The Rambam (Hilchot Teshuva 3:1)
taught that Hashem judges not only each person, but also every community and
the entire world. These three levels – individual, community, and world – mirror
the Torah’s first stories: Adam (individual), the Flood (world), and Sdom and Amorrah
(community). Every choice I make isn’t only mine. It’s also the choice of my
portion of the community, and my portion of humanity.
Thankfully, Israel today is no
Sdom and Amorrah but a thriving country where millions of Jews live lives of
Torah, prayer, kindness, family, and community. Millions more, though less
observant, still strive to live as Jews in their homeland. I own a part of
their world, and they own a part of mine.
This would be true even in an
imaginary Jewish province in Alaska. But it’s infinitely more so in Israel, the
land without which our nation could not exist. Besides being the living body of
the Jewish people (that’s the subject of my book, Land of Health),
Israel is the only place where Torah law recognizes a group of Jews as a
community. In fact, the Torah delegates only the sages of Israel with the
authority to set the Jewish calendar for the entire world. No calculation done
outside Israel, however brilliant it may be, can fix our months and years.
Without Israel’s Jewish community, there would be no Jewish calendar. But the
Rambam reassures us, “G-d forbid that will happen, for He has promised never to
erase all traces of our nation.” No Israel means no Jews. So, Hashem’s promise
to preserve us includes preserving the Jewish community of Israel.
The Rambam wrote these words in
the 12th century, when only a few thousand Jews lived here. Today,
thankfully, we are 7.5 million. By serving in the IDF, my life expands to reach
every single one of them, because I’m taking responsibility for their security.
* * *
My brief stint in army service has
shown me how practical this principle is. For my first guarding shift, the
commander paired me with a veteran to teach me the ropes. As we sat together in
the predawn chill, he gave me a piece of advice that I’ve found to be deeply
true.
“If you want your service to be
meaningful,” he explained, “look for ways to contribute to the company and its
mission in any way you can. If you just try to get by with the bare minimum,
you’ll see it’s often possible to get away with doing little – and then you’ll
go home and tell everyone there’s nothing to do in the army.”
The success of soldiering is
growing beyond my small self by sacrificing my time and maybe even my life in
service of the nation, sanctifying the Name of its G-d.
* * *
The morning after we returned from
Gaza, I saw in the news that a terrorist team had been caught and eliminated in
the neighborhood we’d been in the night before. I tracked down our colonel and
asked him if it was our sensors that had found and tracked them. He checked
with his contacts and saw that it wasn’t. “But don’t worry,” he added. “The day
for our sensors will come.”
Rabbi Shmuel Chaim Naiman
is a rebbi and mashgiach ruchani in Yeshivat Lev HaTorah of Ramat Beit
Shemesh, a foraging guide and certified health counselor. He recently published
a book, Land of Health: Israel’s War for Wellness, and writes
a weekly newsletter, Healthy Jew. In September 2025, he enlisted in
the IDF. Learn more at healthyjew.org, and reach out
at contact@healthyjew.org.
