Josh's War Journal (Days 19-21)

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Wednesday-Thursday

Well, that's new! GPS scrambling has me located in Cairo! (I'm the yellow triangle)

More importantly:

What a treat! Within 24 hours all three boys are reunited, if only for a few hours, with their loved ones! (note: I call them boys... to the world they are MEN!)

Akiva L., from the south, gets to spend some time with his fiancé Moriya! Yonatan visits us from the north, to be followed by Yedidya who visits us from the center.

I can tell you this: they look good. And they look ready. I have no doubt that there is a high likelihood of major combat ahead. The war is not over. We only ever know how wars start, but never how they continue.

If you've ever been on tour with me, you know "Josh's timeline rule." I am a student of the past, I present the present, but I DON'T DO future!

So even if I prepare myself for even worse events to come, I constantly believe: "ישועת ה' כהרף עין". "God's salvation is at the blink of an eye." The Iranian Shah was overthrown basically overnight. Who is to say that the reverse can't happen? Israel is fighting a deadly entanglement of Iran and Palestinian nationalists. But one without the other is a very different threat...

Friday

A company of about 60 reservists is stationed in the Jordan Valley. Through the grapevine, our neighbors understand that they have plenty of 'food for Shabbat,' but not really 'Shabbat food.' Within hours the neighborhood has two meals of homecooked Shabbat food for 60 people!

I drive and escort (armed escort) my friend Eitan to make this delivery. It's an hour's drive through beautiful biblical landscape.

We drive through the agricultural Palestinian village of Jiftlik. 4000 Arabs here live with no fences - as there is no security threat of an Israeli invasion. The Muslims here exit their mosques as we drive by - as there are no Jewish-imposed religious limitations here. The EU's money has built these "refugees" villas that eclipse my apartment, and cars that no other Middle Eastern farmer has. I know... I've said it before: Don't think their material status has diminished their hopes for creating their own statehood... nor their dreams of dismantling ours.

I love the opportunity to bring the soldiers food for Shabbat.

Not because they will go hungry. They won't.

And not because the food is yummier. It is.

But because I remember all too well what it is to be a soldier and to feel weakened when you can't see the faces of those you are protecting (as characterized by my stints in Lebanon) or feel empowered when you get a visit from those civilians you are sworn to defend.

Poignantly, in 2006, 2nd Lebanon War, on Tish'a B'Av I drove 200 KM to the north to deliver goods to the front-line soldiers. On the 10th of Av (the next day) I was back in the north, but this time as a combat soldier in my tank. Can you imagine??

Both episodes highlight how in Israel's society the lines between soldiers and civilians are blurred. Or maybe not blurred, but rather the "line" is a circle.

We are all in it.

We are all one.

It turns out that I have worked with Eitan's friend in the tour-guiding business. And it also turns out that both of us have been fighting in the media war! He has been active on social media and some of his 60-second messages have tens of thousands of views! Check him out at: Yairbjab

Last thought for this week: Our war's first week, B'reisheet, was certainly the chaos of Genesis... and from chaos, there is a new order. The second, Noach, explicitly says the earth was destroyed by "hamas." (Really.). The third, Lech Lecha, is about journeys.

Am Yisrael is at the beginning of a new journey. What was, will not be again.

I hope and pray that we stay true to the course and emerge as Avraham did - victorious through faith in Hashem.

I hope. And I pray.

(On another note: I have 2 unpublished pieces. One about my 2nd Lebanon experience. Another is about "Determination and Volunteerism." Not sure I'm ready to publish either, but if you want me to, send me a comment and I'll consider based on the numbers)

Shabbat Shalom - Josh