A Soldier and an Old Woman

<a href="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/01/19/art_israeltank_gi.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/01/19/art_israeltank_gi.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 292px; height: 219px;" /></a><br />From Aish by <a href="http://www.aish.com/jewishissues/israeldiary/A_Soldier_and_an_Old_Woman.asp">Ruchama King Feuerman</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">The Six Day War had ended. The generals assembled the commanders and foot soldiers for a customary review and analysis of the battle. After the military questions had been asked, and the investigative committee was about to disperse, a commanding officer pointed to one of the soldiers. "Wait a minute. I have a question for you. Yes, you, the soldier who put up the flag on the Temple Mount."<br /><br />The soldier nodded.<br /><br />"Where did you get an Israeli flag, and why did you put it up?"<br /><br />The soldier spread out his hands and smiled, a gesture that indicated that here was more than just a one sentence response. He told the following story:<br /></span><br />The night before the Old City was liberated, a contingent of soldiers fighting near the Old City took cover in a shelter in a Jerusalem neighborhood. Hordes of children, mothers, old men and women packed inside the bunker alongside the soldiers. People looked frightened and bereft. The government had imposed a news black-out so that the Arab countries wouldn't be able to figure out their positions. And the news -- originating from Jordan, Egypt and Syria -- was enough to induce hysteria: calls from Saudi King Faisal for the total elimination of Israel, calls from every Arab country to push the fledgling country into the sea.<br /><br />Things looked so bad, Israelis famously converted public parks into mass graves, in preparation for the expected casualties. (Israel's Chief of Staff, Yitzchak Rabin, had even suffered a nervous breakdown.)<br /><br />As the soldier sat there in the bunker, hopeless and uncertain, he saw an old woman slowly make her way over to him. "Excuse me," she said, standing at his side. She held a satchel in her arms.<br /><br />He lifted his eyes. "Yes, Doda. Tell me, what is it?"<br /><br />"Tomorrow you'll go to the Old City and you'll go to the Kotel."<br /><br />He shook his head at the absurdity. He said, "No, we won't." There were no army plans to liberate the Old City. First, they were fighting just to hold their positions. Also, overtaking the Old City would entail hand-to-hand combat which was greatly feared: Many people would die. Moreover, any bombardment of the Old City might demolish even more of the holy sites than had already been destroyed by the Jordanians. He tried to explain all of this.<br /><br />The old woman looked at him, steady-eyed. "No, you will go," she said, not as if she were trying to convince him, but as if relaying simple facts.<br /><br />He shrugged. An old woman's delusions. He wasn't going to argue with her.<br /><br />Before he turned away, she said, "I have a favor to ask you." She reached into her satchel and took out an Israeli flag. From the way she touched it, it was clear the flag had some personal meaning for her. Had she made it? Perhaps it had been draped over a loved one's grave? But what was she now saying? "When you go, please take this flag, and when you get to the Temple Mount, I want you to hang it up there." She held out the flag.<br /><br />The soldier repeated, "We're not going into the Old City."<br /><br />"You're going," she said. Again, she held out her arm.<br /><br />A thought struck him. "I can't take it," he told her. "It's against army regulations."<br /><br />"It'll be all right. Just take it."<br /><br />"I'll get in trouble. You're only allowed to carry a few specified items."<br /><br />Please," she said hoarsely. "Do me this favor."<br /><br />He shrugged again. Why was he arguing with this old woman? Let him take the flag, let him make an old woman feel good. He could always get rid of it later.<br /><br />The next day, the Israeli army, contrary to everyone's expectations, took the Old City. Sure enough, the soldier's unit ended up at the Temple Mount. As he and the other soldiers came close to the Western Wall, he suddenly remembered the flag and the old woman's words. Yes, he would do it, he would! He enlisted two buddies, and together they draped the flag over the grating on the upper left most side of the Kotel, and there they hoisted and hung the Israel flag.<br /><br />The commanding officer conducting the investigation said to the soldier, "And what were you thinking when you put up that flag?"<br /><br />The soldier said, "I was thinking that this was the answer to 2,000 years of Jewish suffering."<br /><br />And so ends the story of the soldier, our hero.<br /><br />But there's an unsung hero, too. What about the old woman who supplied the flag? One wishes the investigating officers had tracked her down. What did she have in mind as she entered a shelter with an Israeli flag in her satchel? And who was she, anyway? The only identifying feature is that she was old and carried a bag. But her advanced age already tells us plenty: that she knew something about Jewish history, probably having personally lived through it...World War I, Arab attacks, the Holocaust, the War of Independence, 1956. What hadn't she seen?<br /><br />There, in Israel's darkest moment, outnumbered and surrounded by enemies, terrified that the next morning there will be no Israel, the old woman sees what no one else can see, what no one else is capable of conceiving. She insists on her vision, she practically browbeats the soldier into carrying out her plan. We'll never know how she knew, only that, like many Jewish women before her -- the Matriarchs, the midwives in Egypt, the righteous women in the desert -- she just knew. There are two kinds of prophecy. One that predicts the future, and one that makes the future.

A Soldier and an Old Woman

From Aish by Ruchama King Feuerman The Six Day War had ended. The generals assembled the commanders and foot soldiers for a customary review...

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Am Yisrael remembers its heroes

<a href="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45354000/jpg/_45354929_funeral_getty466.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45354000/jpg/_45354929_funeral_getty466.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 466px; height: 300px;" /></a><br />On this day, we pause to remember the 22, 570 Jewish soldiers who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel and the Jewish people since 1860, the year the first Jews built neighbourhoods outside of the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Only in the merit of the sacrifice of these brave soldiers can we have a state. Their courage and self-sacrifice is testimony to the strength of the Jewish people. We bought this land with blood and fire. <br /><br />When HaShem promised our Father Avraham the Land of Israel, he asked G-d: <em>Ba'meh eda ki erashena</em> - How will I know that I will inherit it?. HaShem answered: <em>bazeh</em>, with this- sacrifices. Thousands of soldiers gave their lives to liberate this land and protect their people. 61 years after the re-establishment of the State of Israel, we continue to fight and struggle. The Eternal Nation is not afraid of a long journey.<br />***<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The Silver Salver</span><br />"A State is not handed to a people on a silver salver"<br />Chaim Weizmann, first President of Israel The Earth grows still.<br /><br />The lurid sky slowly pales <br />Over smoking borders.<br />Heartsick, but still lving, a people stand by<br />To greet the uniqueness<br />of the miracle.<br /><br />Readied, they wait beneath the moon,<br />Wrapped in awesome joy, before the light.<br />-- Then, soon,<br />A girl and boy step forward,<br />And slowly walk before the waiting nation;<br /><br />In work garb and heavy-shod<br />They climb<br />In stillness.<br />Wearing yet the dress of battle, the grime<br />Of aching day and fire-filled night<br /><br />Unwashed, weary unto death, not knowing rest,<br />But wearing youth like dewdrops in their hair,<br />-- Silently the two approach<br />And stand.<br />Are they of the quick or of the dead?<br /><br />Through wondering tears, the people stare.<br />"Who are you, the silent two?"<br />And they reply: "We are the silver salver<br />Upon which the Jewish State was served to you."<br /><br />And speaking, fall in shadow at the nation's feet.<br />Let the rest in Israel's chronicles be told.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">O G-d, full of mercy, Who dwells on high,<br />grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence -<br />in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones,<br />who shine like the glow of the firmament -<br />for the souls of the martyrs of the Israel Defense Force,<br />who gave up their lives<br />for the Sanctification of the Name <br />and the Conquest of the Land,<br />because, the entire Nation of Israel mourns for them.<br />May their resting place be in the Garden of Eden -<br />therefore may the Master of Mercy<br />shelter them in the shelter of His wings for Eternity;<br />and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Life.<br />Hashem is their heritage,<br />and may they repose in peace on their resting place.<br /><br />Now let us respond: Amen.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/Hebrew/heb_n/html/img/dvir.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/Hebrew/heb_n/html/img/dvir.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 198px;" /></a><br />We cannot fathom the magnitude of the loss. I would like to remember one soldier in particular, Dvir Emanuelof, the first IDF casualty to fall in Gaza. Fighting there as a staff sergeant in his infantry unit, the elite Golani brigade, he was felled by Hamas mortar fire. Though Israel has a conscript army, Dvir did not have to be in Gaza, as he had received high marks as instructor of a squad leader course, was asked to go to officer school, and would still have been in training had he accepted; he deferred, however, saying he would not be fit to command until he had first fought alongside his comrades. In fact, Dvir did not have to be in any front-line position: His father Netanel had died of cancer at age 46, shortly before Dvir's service began; as an only son in a single-parent family, Dvir was exempt under IDF rules from combat duty. Before accepting him to Golani, his commanding officer visited Dalia and asked if she acquiesced in her son's opting for a dangerous path he was not obligated to choose. Her answer: "If this is how Dvir wants to serve his country, then this is what he will do." Two days before entering Gaza, Dvir had called home and said: "Mom, I have to fight. I have to be there." He fell defending the Jewish Nation in Gaza. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><span style="font-style:italic;">May his memory, and those of all of the fallen heroes of Israel, be a blessing.</span></span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDYYaAIm_6F-Ld4Bq0NnPSsUUsktb_dQEgsXLvriR-jH9VdEcDrkhBGgnB36Tfy4IBpjAS1ik-mfjXNrENt8kqIG60m9lC8FixW_fyuFOuDJYLc1z7rt2pGpkQfPSpBh3tKx3kUp5DfkU/s320/yizkor.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTDYYaAIm_6F-Ld4Bq0NnPSsUUsktb_dQEgsXLvriR-jH9VdEcDrkhBGgnB36Tfy4IBpjAS1ik-mfjXNrENt8kqIG60m9lC8FixW_fyuFOuDJYLc1z7rt2pGpkQfPSpBh3tKx3kUp5DfkU/s320/yizkor.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 95px; height: 150px;" /></a>

Am Yisrael remembers its heroes

On this day, we pause to remember the 22, 570 Jewish soldiers who have fallen in the defense of the State of Israel and the Jewish people si...

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