The Lonely Soldier

Being a lonely soldier in the IDF is not the easiest thing in the world. Your life consists of little sleep, loneliness and hour to hour challenges. You carry heavy equipment, hike all night, and do guard duty in the snow. Sometimes however when you are feeling down, Hashem sends a messenger to lighten the burden.
 
I was counting the hours before my Grandpa was to land. No soldier had a better grandpa than I did, coming to visit me at least four times from Chicago during my two year service in the 13th Battalion of the Golani infantry brigade. Each visit had its own unique feel but what was always the same was the luxury of eating in restaurants and sleeping in nice hotels, heaven compared to the foam pad mattress and rifle for a pillow. 
 
We had finished our training exercises for the day north of the Sea of Galilee; I looked forward to checking my voicemails to hear that Grandpa had landed safely. To my dismay, I could tell from the tone of his voice that the news wasn’t good. The flight was canceled. I felt completely deflated.
 
A long time had passed since seeing family. Our unit was about to head to the Lebanon border. This was one of those situations that really shook my Emuna. I think we all have it happen to us, we are engaged within the teachings of Emuna from Rabbi Arush and all sounds great on paper but then you get hit by what I called the slugs. I made up this term for all the nasty depressing thoughts that I encountered while under stressful situations in the army. They consist of all the self-defeating phrases that we can say to ourselves. The point however is that I was really sad and found it extremely challenging mentally to apply what I was reading.  Nevertheless by sticking to the emuna books by the Rav, more often than not I was able to overcome whatever challenge I faced if I desired to, using the principles of Emuna found in the book The Garden of Emuna.
 
The next day everything we did felt heavy. But I had to put it behind me at once and move on. We started the next drill in which we were driving Hummers through the forest in the middle of nowhere, and practicing ambush attacks when in that kind of terrain. The team of Hummers would drive through the dirt road and then come to a screeching halt. We needed to jump out and run through the forest as if we were taking out a group of terrorists. The maneuvers went well, it definitely took my mind off of what had happened to me. But just as they ended, and as I headed myself back to the Hummer to return to base I figured I’d take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to do a quick two minute hitbodedut session in the forest.
 
“Hashem, you know I believe in You, I’ve left everything behind to join the IDF, its not easy, but I believe in what I am doing. Help strengthen me, I don’t want to give up. I can’t help it, but I’m feeling kind of down right now and just need You to show me that You are with me, that You love me, and that what I’m doing here means something to the American Jews. Please if You could, show me a sign that you are with me.”
 
Within a few moments a very beautiful butterfly crossed my path that caught me eye. “Hashem, wow, thanks so much for the quick response!” I carried on my way back to the Hummer, going over and down small hills with a small smile on my face. As my friends and I got closer to the vehicles, suddenly a huge white minivan sped by and slammed on the breaks, causing dust to go up. Before the vehicle had even stopped, the slide door had already been popped open. To my astonishment it was an American family! They all jumped out of the car with bright smiles carrying loads of cakes, drinks and other sweets. It was so bizzare and surreal what we were all experiencing. This family from New York made a special trip to Israel to solely show support for soldiers by driving to some of the most remote areas of the country in search of units like ours. 
 
Rav Arush says that the downs in life will always come. There is no way they won’t, the trick however is to constantly be reinforcing our emuna. By doing so we can turn to Hashem in prayer and handle the situations the best way we can. This is what it means to fight for happiness.