Machine-Gun Emuna

It was the beginning of advanced combat training. My unit was camping out in the beautiful northern countryside of Israel. It was the first time that as soldiers we were to practice in a huge live fire exercise at night with hundreds of soldiers participating. The excitement was contagious amongst my brethren. For me, I was the unit’s machine gunner and carried a huge responsibility.

Let’s back up for a minute. For several months I had been adjusting to what is called the MAG. It is a huge machine gun that I had to carry everywhere I went. It is by far one of the deadliest weapons any combat soldier encounters. It’s heavy, long, uncomfortable and carries major firepower. I am lucky to have survived basic training with this thing. On one occasion I didn’t pull the firing pin back enough for it to lock and accidentally lost control and shot a bullet which could have seriously or fatally wounded me on the target range. It was a really scary experience and consequently I never felt completely good with the beast. Luckily however all the guys in my unit were extremely supportive of me being a Lone Soldier, carrying the heaviest gun. The honor went to my head and mistakenly clouded my real level as a soldier who knows his weapon inside and out.

So there we were going through the dry run of the maneuvers. It involved walking at an intensely high speed and going up and down valleys, not always seeing where your feet are going. Our job was to go up to the highest point of the valley to provide firepower cover for the other groups of soldiers to advance below. What this meant was that it all was dependent on me, the machine gunner. My weapon, the MAG, carries the intense capability of firing hundreds of bullets within a few short minutes, making it the perfect choice of weapon when providing cover for soldiers to advance. This maneuver had put me in the position of leadership and I needed to be on top of my game in order to provide cover.

Nighttime fell and the moon was shining. It was amazing to see hundreds of soldiers all walking so intensely through the wide open valleys one by one. Occasionally you saw a guy fall down from dehydration or exhaustion. Everyone knew where they had to go, and I knew that these soldiers were all counting on me to light up the sky toward the end of the live fire drill. All of the groups of soldiers were positioned. We were all given the signal to start moving to our targets. We were already exhausted from the hike. My individual group scaled a rocky cliff to reach its pinnacle where we would overlook and start the fireworks. The glasses on my nose were fogging up, and my heart was pounding, I could hear the commanders from a distance saying “MAG, MAG” a signal for me to lock up and bombard the targets with lead. My legs were cramping up as I fell literally into position on my stomach. I opened up the chamber to put my 120 7.62mm bullet chain into fire mode, and then cocked the weapon. “Here goes nothing! Let’s DO THIS! I screamed…..” And click – a jam.

“Where’s the MAG, where’s the MAG? MAG!!” I could hear the commanders screaming at this point, but no matter what I did, the gun wouldn’t shoot. I tried fussing with it, sweat was pouring down my forehead while I disconnected a part of the chain in hopes that the new feed into the weapon would fire smoothly, but nothing worked. Within moments the exercise drill was over. The once head honcho gunner of Golani now got a good dose of humility.

There are a few lessons that I learned from this and can connect them to Rabbi Arush’s teachings. The first thing is that we have to be aware of the tendency to do things without prayer, as I did. We think we can do anything, that we are smart enough, talented enough, strong enough, etc. We rely on our own skills and competence or IQ. But the Torah warns us in the portion Ekev to stay away from such beliefs as “My strength and the might of my right hand.” Granted we all have special skills that we use, but the end result of success or failure lies solely in the Hands of God. This is in following the main Jewish principles of faith codified by the Rambam where he states, “He alone did, does and will do every act.” Meaning that both success and failure come from him.

Many people fail when it comes to this. They figure if everything comes from God so I don’t need to do anything. This position is incorrect. According to a lesson I heard directly from Rabbi Brody, “A person needs to make every bit of effort for success before the actual event, but once the event occurs, we accept the end result as God’s will. Our successes are attributed to God, and our failures are ascribed to Him. This eliminates the endless emotional roller coaster that leads to arrogance or depression. Whatever the result we apply the three levels of Emuna.” 

1. Everything is from God
2. Everything is for the good
3. There is a reason for everything
   

So what’s the remedy for success? First, praying beforehand and acknowledging our gifts and talents as tools given to us by God and thanking Him and acknowledging him in our moments of triumph.  Secondly if we do fail, like I did, we don’t get down on ourselves, “What?!?! God wanted me to fail??” The answer is yes! Not only that but it’s for our ultimate good! Thank God this was only a practice drill. I clearly wasn’t ready for combat at that moment. Can you imagine?!? Sure, I was embarrassed to the bone, but it was for a purpose! Sadness only breeds continued failures. We simply need to lower our head, accept what happened, try our best to be honest and figure out why God didn’t let me succeed. Then you recommit to be your best. The best thing is that normally a second best effort brings great success and gets us to our goal.

I came back to the base a bit distraught but had these Emuna principles running through my mind. Yeah it hurt, I really wanted to show everyone that it was me who was pulling the trigger on the baddest gun there is. My ego got in the way and God showed me it’s Him who is ultimately allowing us to hit the target and that honor is solely His. I brushed off my failure and recommitted myself as to why I enlisted and dedicated all my time to making sure I knew my weapon in and out and that it was always in top shape and ready for war. From that point on I became the best I could be and knew nothing could stop me from becoming better. Take it from me, if Emuna works for combat soldiers, why not for you?