Opinion & Comment
Uncle David Wants You
by Moshe Schapiro

Hizbullah raids on the northern front, nuclear warheads mounted on Iranian long-range missiles, deteriorating relations with the Palestinian Authority, skyrocketing unemployment -- these issues pale in significance beside the "real" cause for concern: why 27,000 aspiring young Torah scholars, who will ensure the propagation of our heritage for generations to come, are being given the opportunity to devote their best years to Torah study?

"Outrage!" the pundits of Meretz scream. Never mind that the Minister of Defense, Yitzchak Mordechai, has pleaded time and again to bury the issue once and for all. "We don't want them," Mordechai insists, and with good reason.

The IDF has more recruits than it knows what to do with, and the modifications it would have to undergo in order to accommodate the thousands of yeshiva bochurim would cost it a pretty penny. But Meretz and its trusty ally -- Aharon Barak and his Supreme Court groupies, joined lately by Ehud Barak and the Labor Party -- insist on sticking to their guns. Who cares what the military thinks? It's the principle that counts.

Not long ago -- the last time the issue reared its ugly head - - Yaakov Ne'eman, the Minister of Finance, proposed a solution to this "problem": conscript yeshiva bochurim for "only" one month of basic training. That's all. What's one month in a lifetime? Surely it is not too difficult a burden to bear! Today similar compromises are being discussed in the political arena, yet the gedolei Torah have stated emphatically that there is no room for compromise on this issue -- the Supreme Court's decision strikes at the very nerve center of Am Yisroel.

What we have here is a communication breakdown -- Meretz, Aharon Barak and his cronies do not yet realize that they are playing with fire.

We believe that the Torah learned by yeshiva bochurim is Am Yisroel's pulse beat. It is the only shield that protects us from our enemies, and it is the essential component of our "defense forces." Someone who sincerely believes that Torah study is the cornerstone of Jewish continuity -- in both the physical and spiritual sense -- would never dream of drafting yeshiva bochurim for a month, a week, or even a single day. This would be tantamount to ordering all Israeli troops stationed in the north of the country to abandon their positions for "just" one month. Hey, what's one month in a lifetime?

At this point in the discussion many people might interject and argue that not every person is cut out for learning. Of course yeshiva bochurim who are indeed holding up the world with their Torah learning should not be drafted, but what about the less capable ones? Why should they not join the army? Perhaps a tour of duty in the army would do them some good -- make a man out of them, so to speak. This is exactly what Ehud Barak has argued.

As a member of the Torah community who actively serves in the IDF, I would like to hereby explain why this is an untenable position. As will be evident from the experiences that I will now share, the army is no place for a religious boy, whether it be for a month or even a single minute. This is the second problem with trying to find a compromise solution -- in its present state, the Israeli army is poison to the soul.

I was married with four children and learning full-time in kollel when an irreversible bureaucratic snafu landed me in the army. To my relief, several other religious men of my age (I was then in my late twenties) were assigned to the same unit.

During the bus ride to our basic-training base in the south I carefully read the army handbook outlining a soldier's religious rights. To my intense relief I discovered that a soldier has the right to daven in a shul three times a day, eat glatt kosher food, and observe Shabbos and Yom Tov. The handbook read almost like a Kitzur Shulchan Oruch -- "every military base must have an eruv; the army prohibits mixing milk and meat!" What more could I ask for?

My disillusionment was not long in coming. We arrived at the remote training base at noon, just in time for lunch. Looking forward to a glatt kosher meal, about fifteen of us asked to speak with the base's Katzin Dat (officer of religious affairs). Strangely enough, no one seemed to know who or what we were talking about. We persisted on our search and accidentally wandered into the kitchen. What we saw there has remained indelibly etched in my mind ever since.

A portly cook was munching on a melted cheese sandwich (achieved by toasting a regular cheese sandwich between two hot frying pans) while at the same time slicing a huge piece of steaming-hot boiled meat. We looked on with mouths agape. The cook saw us and gave us a friendly smile. As far as he was concerned, everything was fine and dandy. Eventually a member of our group regained his composure to ask the cook whether he knew the whereabouts of the katzin dat.

"Who? Oh, you must mean Tzvikale," he said, pointing with his dripping sandwich to a young boy of about twenty, who was meekly sitting in the corner of the kitchen peeling potatoes. At that moment it dawned on me that the army regulation book and the reality in the field are two very different things.

When we lodged a formal complaint to the camp commander -- quoting chapter and verse in the army handbook that I had so avidly read -- we were sternly warned to stop making trouble or else. Being green recruits, we backed down and decided to go on a crash diet. We shared cans of tuna fish between us and subsisted on bread, cheese and fresh vegetables for the next week until our first furlough, from which all of us returned loaded down with non-perishable food items. These supplies sustained us for the next eight weeks.

That first night, before turning in, we assembled a minyan and davened under the stars outside our tents. The shul was locked, and from the cobwebs on the doors and windows, it didn't look like anyone had davened there since at least '67.

In the morning we were awakened at the crack of dawn and told to line up for morning inspection. It was a long and drawn out procedure, and as the sun rose progressively higher in the horizon, many of us looked with concern at our watches. What about Krias Shema? The inspection ended ten minutes before sof zman krias shema, yet to our dismay our commanding officer announced, "You have 15 minutes to eat breakfast, and then we begin morning exercises!"

When we explained to him that we needed time to daven, he said, "There is no time for that!" I waved my handy army regulation book at him, and he went into a fit of hysterical laughter.

We skipped breakfast and used the time for davening. Even so, we arrived ten minutes late, which in army time is an eternity. Our commanding officer threatened to court- martial us, while I retorted by quoting the handbook. This confrontation would set a precedent for the next eight weeks - - we could not afford to back down. In the end we reached a compromise -- we would be given exactly 30 minutes to daven every morning, but if we would arrive even a second late to morning exercises, this "privilege" would be cancelled until further notice.

@BIG LET BODY = Obstacles to religious observance in the army are not confined to boot camp. The saga continues in reserve duty. When my unit was stationed in Hebron, the morning patrol was to leave camp promptly at 6:00 A.M., which meant that one had to daven approximately thirty minutes before alos hashachar (first light). I tried to convince the commanding officer to move the shifts forward by one hour out of consideration for the religious soldiers, but he categorically refused.

I devised my own solution to this problem: whenever I had the morning shift, I made sure to go out with the foot patrol. This patrol passed by a rooftop position near Me'aras HaMachpela which was manned by a fellow (non-religious) soldier who sympathized with my problem. Every morning I would duck into the rooftop position and he would take my place in the patrol. In the relative peace of the rooftop, I would don tefillin and daven there with one eye on the siddur and the other on the Arabs. (This was not exactly according to army regulations, but I had no choice.) When my patrol would double back on its route, I would climb down from the roof and we would switch places again.

On a certain Shabbos I was assigned the task of guarding the main gate of the Hebron compound. In the early afternoon -- just before mincha -- a large truck pulled up, out of which a Jewish driver emerged and vociferously demanded that I open the gate for him. He had been commissioned to clear away some debris in the camp, he explained. I refused to open the gate, quoting the regulation book: "Work which may be safely postponed until a later day may not be performed in an IDF installation on Shabbat."

I had no intention of playing a part in this needless incident of chillul Shabbos. The incensed driver went to call my commanding officer -- who himself wore a yarmulke, by the way -- and yelled bloody murder. My commanding officer tried to cajole me into opening the gate, but I stood my ground and refused to let the truck enter the compound. The commanding officer became somewhat unnerved by the driver's screams and curses, and so he turned his fury against me and threatened to court-martial me. I showed him the regulation book and said that it would be my sincere pleasure to be court-martialed, and when would he like to begin? Checkmated, my commanding officer left in a huff and the driver ended up waiting impatiently until sundown.

I had another surprise coming to me in Machaneh Ofer, an installation that once stood near Givat Zeev, a Jewish enclave north of Jerusalem. As we arrived for our tour of duty, I noticed some large gaps in the fence surrounding the camp. It was Wednesday. I hurriedly called up the army rabbinate and informed them that the eruv was down. "Don't worry," they answered, "it is under hashgacha." I was miffed by this answer. What hashgacha? Maybe they meant hashgacha protis?

"You don't understand," I said, "as I speak to you I am looking through the gaps in the fence! Believe me, the eruv is down! Down!" I repeated in exasperation. At this point the conversation kind of deteriorated, and I never did manage to convince them that hashgacha is all nice and well, but it doesn't help when the eruv is down. I spent my brief hours of rest between shifts concocting a makeshift eruv that miraculously stayed up the entire Shabbos.

Probably the most shocking incident in my army career occurred when I was assigned to do kitchen duty on a Shabbos morning. (The fact that I did not eat the food served in the kitchen did not exempt me from kitchen duty.) After placing the cheese containers on the tables in the dining hall, I went to the kitchen to get the traditional boiled eggs, a staple of army breakfast. (Yes, this is what they eat on Shabbos morning.) A few minutes later, a non-religious soldier mentioned to me that the eggs tasted kind of funny. He and I went to the kitchen to investigate, and to our mutual surprise, we found the cook fishing out the eggs from the fleishig cholent!

This was too much. I felt something snap inside. First thing on motzei Shabbos I called up the rabbinate and informed them of what had happened. They assured me that they would send mashgichim to take care of the problem immediately.

Next morning, two bareheaded young men came looking for me and told me in all seriousness that they were the mashgichim who had come to "set matters straight in the kitchen." I looked at them in disbelief. After a short conversation it became apparent that their heads, in addition to being bare, were also empty of the most basic knowledge of kashrus. They soon admitted to me that they had no idea how to go about kashering keilim, and would I mind showing them how it's done?

I have plenty of more stories like these up my sleeve, but I will spare the reader. I could talk about discrimination against religious soldiers, verbal abuse, rampant promiscuity all around, but there is no need to elaborate. My point is that the Israeli army is currently a hostile environment not only for yeshiva bochurim, but for all Torah-observant individuals. Obstacles are constantly coming up, and there is no religious infrastructure upon which to rely. Anyone who has been stationed in the bunkers near Israel's borders and has seen the state of the kitchens knows what I mean only too well -- there is not even a semblance of kashrus. Despite its many shortcomings, I am not convinced that the army rabbinate is to blame -- they are doing the best they can with the limited resources and manpower at their disposal. The root of the problem is located higher up in the hierarchy.

I was a self-confident married man and a father of four when I was drafted, yet I found it extremely difficult to fight for my rights. Soldiers in the IDF suffer from chronic lack of sleep and fatigue; the last thing one wants is to get into altercations about issues that are not directly related to food and sleep. It does not take too much imagination to envision how an impressionable eighteen-year-old yeshiva bochur would handle these situations. His nisoyon would be great indeed.

It makes no difference whether a religious person spends three years, one month, or a single day in the Israeli army. As things stand today, even one second is much too long.