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#462 (s5767-01 / 5 Tishrei 5767) Elevating a Tank "With the Intifada violence, I knew that there were only two ways to reach Netzarim: by tank, or by helicopter." Elevating a TankOne Friday night, after the Shabbat evening prayers, Rabbi Simcha Kook, the chief Rabbi of Rechovot, Israel, related the following. The eve of Yom Kippur is a busy time for Rabbis, but Yom Kippur 5761 [2000] I received a most inspiring question. A young soldier, an American named Motti, called me from a Jewish town in Gaza/Gush Katif called Netzarim. This latest Intifada started on Rosh Hashanah so by Yom Kippur the fighting was quite fierce in Gaza. At first I questioned the soldier. "You don't mean you are in Nitzarim, you mean you are in an army base near Nitzarim." "No," came the reply, "I am in Netzarim." I knew that there were only two ways to reach Netzarim: by tank, or by helicopter at night. So I asked him: "How did you get there?" "I told my commander that it was my custom to go to the mikveh before Yom Kippur and the only mikveh around was in the Jewish community of Netzarim. So he let me use a tank." Now came the reason for the young soldier's call: "I am borrowing a Torah scroll from the community synagogue to take back to the base. And the Jews of Netzarim have donated enough tzitziot [fringed garments] for my whole platoon. My question is, what kind of Yom Kippur prayer can I conduct? Besides myself there is only one other Orthodox soldier on the base. Most of the other soldiers, believe it or not, have never attended a Yom Kippur service in their lives." "Don't worry," I assured him. "You just conduct the service and you instruct them to listen carefully and say 'Amen' to your blessings and it will count as if they were praying themselves." The soldier called me after Yom Kippur to tell me that the prayer turned out to be the most incredible one of his life. "All the soldiers put on the tzitziot provided by the Jewish community of Nitzarim. They listened attentively as I lead the prayers and answered 'Amen' to my blessings. I read from the Torah and my friend and I took turns calling each other up to the Torah. Soon other soldiers requested an aliyah to the Torah too, so I called them up and showed them which blessing to make. We ended calling up no less than 20 soldiers to the Torah that day!"
"Dear G-d, there are many countries in this great world of yours who have armies. And nearly all of these armies have tanks. Some have many tanks and some have fewer tanks. But G-d, is there another country in this world that used a tank to help someone go to the mikveh before Yom Kippur? Is there another country that used a tank to bring a Torah to an army base to they could have a minyan for the Yom Kippur prayers? G-d, only in Israel are tanks used this way -- so please, you must protect your country Israel." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Added by Yoni in 2001: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yrachmiel Tilles is co-founder and associate director of Ascent-of-Safed,
and editor of Ascent Quarterly and the AscentOfSafed.com and KabbalaOnline.org
websites. He has hundreds of published stories to his credit. |
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you can imagine I was greatly inspired by the courage and determination of this
young man. In fact his phone call right before the start of Yom Kippur inspired
me to deliver what was probably the most effective sermon of my career. At the
beginning of Yom Kippur, before starting Kol Nidrei, I rose and spoke
to a packed audience. I said: "Dear friends, I want to pray to G-d. You
are all invited to listen, but I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to G-d."