My War Effort

My wife and I hosted some friends at our home in Netanya the other day. We opened the window and let the sea breeze in. Just looking at the vast waters was enough to clear our heads. Halfway into a glass of white wine, the night approached perfection. All of our problems faded into the background of shared smiles across the table.

We tried to forget about it as best we could, but the first guest finally succumbed. The current terror wave has been wreaking havoc in our daily lives.

We began to argue. It was the usual. There were those who advocated brutality to the murderers and their supporters, and those who advocated looking at it from “the big picture.” On and on until the calming atmosphere was scorched by the intensity of the debate…

We were all upset. It was the same terror; the same situation. The same limited set of options our leaders were pressured by outside forces to work within. We felt trapped.

That’s when the most passionate among us, the real hardliner, shocked us all:

“I really feel bad for the teacher who got killed. He worked all his life for co-existence between Jews and Arabs. To get killed by the terror he was trying to diffuse is a real tragedy.”

I tried to break the silence.

“Are you all right? Do you need a glass of water or something?”

He smiled. That was also something new.

“It’s still me, Dov. I’m just a little different. Rabbi Brody’s lecture about baseless hatred really got me thinking.”

“But I love you Ari, you know that.”

“I love you too, but I mean how Jews feel about each other. I live in Judea and Samaria. You know my feeling about lefties and seculars. Well, I was wrong.”

His wife dropped her glass. None of us even noticed.

“I was wrong to see only the bad in everyone. I was wrong to disqualify a person simply because of their political beliefs. They rarely reflect whether or not they are kind, humble, or honest. G-d forgive me.”

His wife started to smile.

“For now on every Jew is wonderful. I don’t care if he is secular. I don’t care if he is gay. All that matters are the good things he does in his life.”

Then he looked at me with a focus I never saw before.

“Dov, I’m 52. My army days are done. This is my contribution. This is my war effort. As far as I am concerned, Bushi Herzog is the son of an IDF general, and the grandson of a Chief Rabbi who rescued thousands of Jews from the Holocaust and brought them to Israel. Yair Lapid is someone who continues to ask questions, even flirting with teshuva. Forget the rest.”

Then every evil and unscrupulous man of the men who had gone with David, spoke up, and said, “Since they did not go with me, let us not give them of the spoil which we have rescued, but each man his wife and his children, and let them lead them away and depart.” And David said, “Do not do so, my brethren, with that which the Lord has given us, and He guarded us and delivered the troop which came upon us, into our hand. And who will listen to you concerning this matter, for as the share of him who goes down into battle, so is the share of him who stays with the luggage; they shall share alike.” And it was from that day on, that he made it a statute and an ordinance for Israel until this day. (I Samuel 30:22-25)

I wonder if King David issued this order because he knew that regardless of where you were during war, and even peace, it was your every action that determined the level of stability Hashem would give us. Where the IDF and Police Force serve and protect us by being diligent at every moment, we must be equally as vigilant by never seeing the bad in our brothers and sisters.

My friend turned his entire spectrum of belief 180 degrees around to internalize this truth. I can’t believe it.