Why I'm Going to the Celebrate Israel Parade for the First Time on Sunday

My family and I will, IY"H, be at the Celebrate Israel Parade this Sunday (June 1) for the first time. I want to share a few thoughts behind this decision. 

First, it is not because I have undergone any recent change in ideology. I still love the fact that we have a state in Eretz Yisroel built by Jews and hope that it will continually become more alligned with the Torah as time goes on. I still say tachanun on Yom Ha'atzemeut. [Incidently, when I saw what occured on Yom Ha'atzmeut in YU, it appeared to be somewhat haphazard because everybody did different things and no one knew what to do. It left me feeling like the whole thing was somewhat made-up.] I am still grateful to Hashem that His providence has caused the beginning of the ingathering of the exiles and the building of Eretz Yisroel even before Moshiach's arrival.
 

Putting aside my natural quality of laziness, I have not felt a strong desire to go to the Israel Parade before because it has always struck me as too modern and/or secular a way of showing appreciation for the Jewish state. And I still basically feel that way, but other things have caused me to want to find new ways to show my support and gratitude to Hashem and the Jewish people for the existence of a thriving State of Israel in Eretz Yisroel.
 

Here is what has pushed me in the other direction so that I would like to try going to the parade this year. First, I have friends who often go and have told me about the beauty and inspiration of seeing tens of thousands of Jews, from the most secular to those who are very religious, getting together to express their gratitude and love for the same thing. I have heard that there is an incredible positive energy. It is almost unheard of to find secular and religious Jews taking part in something together so I love there idea that we have at least this one thing, the State of Israel, that can bring people together in a positive way. We often find such unity when tragedies like 9/11 or Hurricaine Sandy strike, but almost never for positive things.

 

The second thing is the toxic negativity toward the State of Israel and those associated with it, including the IDF, that I very often hear from various parts of my community. It goes without saying that, as a Jew who works to be religious, I recognize that there are many things wrong with the State, its army, and its laws. But there are so many positive, beautiful things happening as well. And so many of even the people who do harmful things are sincerely trying to do what is right as they (albeit wrongly) understand it.
 

The derech in Torah to which I am drawn is one which sees good in things. Even when Jews do bad things, this derech seeks to avoid whitewashing the bad while still looking beneath the surface to appreciate that those doing it are not inherently evil or malicious, but are simply wrong or confused. A chareidi MK in a recent article in Mishpacha Magazine actually claimed that non-chareidim hate chareidim so much that it would be futile to even attempt to reconcile with, talk with, or even persuade secular Israelis of the correctness of the chareidi position.  See my letter to the editor in response to that on the right. Such extreme negativity which blinds itself to seeing any positivity in "the other" pushes me to try even harder to see good in those who are condemned as evil and malicious.

Even drashos speaking against the current government of Israel by tzadikim who I respect and look up to, like this one, push me to see the good that other tzadikim and my own gut tells me is there. So even though my positions regarding the state have not changed, I am frustrated by the lack of an appreciation for the goodness within Jews whose beliefs and actions may be wrong. And that frustration causes me to look for more ways to see, be grateful for, and celebrate the good.


My family is now getting very excited to come to the parade as well. My somewhat vertically challenged oldest daughter (a good Bais Yaakov girl) was a little bit concerned that she would not be able to see anything because of her height, so I suggested that we march in the parade so she wouldn't have to worry about the view. She very much liked that idea, so IY"H, we will be marching in the Celebrate Israel Parade with YU, my alma mater.  Hope to see you there if any of  you may be joining!


I do not know whether I will come to future parades, but IY"H, may this one reveal more goodness, gratitude, and achdus in as broad a specrum of the Jewish people as possible!
 

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Things I Learned Spending Shabbos with CEO of Nachal Chareidi Amuta

Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow, CEO of Nahal Haredi, is on the right

I learned a lot over the Shabbos I just spent with the CEO of Amutat Netzach Yehuda, known colloquially as Nachal Chareidi, Rabbi Tzvi Klebanow. I also got to have, as a Shabbos seuda guest, one of the current chayalim in Netzach Yehuda, Nesanel Silverman, a bearded bochur from Brooklyn who joined Nachal Chareidi as a volunteer from America but has since made aliya. Here are a few of the things I learned about Nachal Chareidi:

 

• Nachal Chareidi was started in 1999 primarily through the initiative of a rebbe in yeshiva ketana, Rabbi Yitzchak Bar Chaim, who found that there was, at that time, no productive, satisfying life-path for the many bochurim who were not destined to learn full-time in kollel for decades.
• One of the most important forces in the IDF helping Rabbi Bar Chaim and others set up a kosher environment in the army for chareidi boys was and is retired General Yehuda Dubduvani, who described his mission in life, after helping found Nachal Chareidi, as working to "mend the tear in the Jewish nation."
• There are now about 1,400 boys in Nachal Chareidi, which is a three year program. The first two years involve training and combat and the third year is a program to allow boys to either prepare for their high school equivalency exam (bagrut) or study a profession.

• Nachal Chareidi is a real combat unit. They have primary responsibility for two major Arab population centers, Jenin and Tul Karem, and the surrounding towns.
• One of the battalion's major functions is that when the Shin Bet provides them with detailed intelligence, they go into Arab cities and towns to extract specific individuals in the middle of the night, with the unit making approximately 2-3 arrests per night. They avoid doing this on Shabbos whenever practical.
• They were instrumental in the major extraction of Hamza Abu Alheja in March, which involved an armed conflict. You can see Netanyahu praising the unit starting at about the 0:30 mark in the above video.
• The organization, Amutat Netzach Yehuda, provides approximately 14 rabbanim who constantly travel wherever members of the battalion are at any given time. They give shiurim, chizuk, and guidance on a constant basis. They also help the chayalim with any personal issues that come up, including working with families that may not appreciate their decision to join the IDF.  The organization also provides  other services, including  housing for boys that can't return home for whatever reason, for Shabbos, and a keren chassanim, among other services.
• The Amuta also acts as a watchdog, ensuring that the army fulfills all of its promises in terms of religious accommodations. Some of these are mehadrin kashrus, separation from women in all aspects of the program (even though 95% of the IDF instructors are women), and times for davening every day. The organization puts the "haredi" in "Nahal Haredi."
• One cute story is how, about 1.5 years ago, the battalion was participating in a major maneuver lasting the entire night. The maneuver involved several other battalions as well (which are not chareidi). At about 4:30 in the morning, one of the commanders asked Nesanel, one of the Nachal Chareidi chayalim (who told us the story), what time sof zman krias Shma was. The commander wanted to know whether there would be time to do the next portion of the maneuver (which included mostly non-chareidi battalions) before sof zman krias Shma, or whether they should do it after davening!
• To understand more about how effectively the unit accommodates the chareidi chayalim religiously, see Akiva's post on the topic, which he wrote when his son was about 2.5 years into the 3 year program. It sounds like it's pretty good but not perfect. He wrote: "armies...excel at killing people and breaking things – that is, after all, their primary purpose. At everything else they do it just barely well enough not to be totally messed up and completely dysfunctional. Barely."
• Because I think this is something that people really want to know, I asked Rabbi Klebanow and Nesanel how many bochurim grow religiously, stay the same, or go down religiously; comparing how they came into the program and how they left three years later. Nesanel felt that 90% of the guys were stronger religiously when they left compared to when they came in, though many (just like outside the army) had ups and downs in the middle. Rabbi Klebanow felt that Nesanel's number was accurate among guys whose parents started off supportive of them, or became supportive at some point in the process.

I'm excited about this program because it's one way, among many relatively new efforts, to get away from the unnatural policy of offering all boys exactly one choice about how they live their lives: long-term, full-time kollel learning. And if they're meant to do something else, for whatever reason, such a policy breaks people and is not the ratzon Hashem. One of those efforts is the relatively new Lomda Institute in Yerushalayim for vocational training founded by Rivka and Yaakov Yerusalvsky (pictured on the right). Another is the Chareidi campus at the Ono Academy, also in Yerushalayim. There is also the Shahar program, allowing chareidim to learn a profession as part of the Israeli Air Force. And there are many others which are beginning to give people the options they need.

 

Hatzlacha raba to Rabbi Klebanow and the army's efforts at recruitment to the Nachal Chareidi program! May many more people join so that our people can avoid the inevitable conflict and toxic language that will inevitably result when the army attempts to draft people by force if the chareidi recruiting goals are not met! And may the program continue to benefit of the guys and may they grow in midos and ruchnius there, as this will ultimately strengthen them in Torah as well!

 

Update 5/14/14: The below video in English, featuring information on Nachal Chareidi and an interview with R. Kelbanow was just put online today. Enjoy! 

 

 

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