October 21, 2005

Alison on Aliyah:  A Mitzvah Like No Other (Part 2 of 3)

A short time ago I decided to visit some of the soldiers who frequent Tziki Aud’s Shabbat dinner table, and with whom I have grown quite close over the past year.  They were both serving in an area that was, at the time, considerably dangerous, and Tziki and I had become aware that they were both in particular need of support.  I decided that, with all that Tziki does on a constant basis, it was now my turn to take the reins and do what I could to let these boys know that we are all here for them.

Meir was the first soldier on my list to visit.  He is 20 years old, made aliyah from France nearly two years ago, and has been in an elite unit in the IDF for a year and a half.  When I arrived at Meir’s quarters, after a considerable amount of hassling and identity card checking to get through the checkpoints and into the camp, a quick tour of the dilapidated room made me want to put him in the car and take him home with me.  There was no running water, an array of holes in the walls, a visible layer of mosquitoes, garbage in every corner as well as in the toilet bowl, and of course, the entire room was piled high with army gear and weapons.  He had been chosen to guard the unit’s equipment for the day, and he was waiting for the rest of the soldiers to return from training so that he could sleep for the first time in 48 hours.  He was sitting on an inch-thick, filthy mattress on the floor, with a half-eaten can of pineapple chunks in front of him, no spoon or fork anywhere in sight.

            I sat with Meir, listened as he explained the complicated ambush mission he had been called in to do (in army-fashion vague detail), and gave him the chance to feel like a civilian for a couple of hours.  He rested his gun gingerly on his lap and grabbed hungrily for the now-not-so-hot meal I had brought into the camp for him, the temperature of which did not seem to bother him in the slightest.  He tore off the cover, exclaiming that he had eaten nothing but tuna sandwiches for days.

As I watched Meir voraciously filling his pita bread with humus and chunks of chicken, his mouth already full and his eyes shining, I was struck with the realization that what I was feeling must be what Tziki experiences every day.  There was such gratitude in Meir’s eyes, and he was so hungry for civilian human contact (in addition to good food).  I was filled with a deep satisfaction that such a simple mitzvah on my part had brought such joy to him.  I had always asked myself how Tziki can expend so much time and energy on helping these boys, and what drives him to do so, so selflessly, and in that instant, I had my answer.

Later, I went to visit the next soldier “in need,” Yehuda, a 19-year-old American who immigrated to Israel less than a year ago.  He is one of the youngest of the group and has been in the army a mere six months.  He had called Tziki in the middle of the night before in tears because the settlers protesting at his checkpoint had spit on him, calling him a “Nazi” and yelling at him to “Go back where you came from!”  He seemed to be nearing his emotional breaking point, and I promptly made it my mission to find him.

It wasn’t at all easy to find Yehuda in the literal sea of army bases, checkposts, and soldiers of all kinds, but when I finally did, he pounced on me, ensconcing me in a bear hug of suffocating proportions.  He had a huge grin on his face, and I’m pretty sure we both had a tear in our eyes.  I had seen him just three days before, at the regular Shabbat dinner, but now it was totally different.  We stood together on the side of the road, at the checkpoint he was guarding in the middle of the night, talking and smiling and hugging.  He had been ordered to be sleeping at that point, as it was around 1:30 in the morning and he was set to start another 4-hour guard duty session at 4:00.  He remarked, however, that he had been finding it impossible to do so.

An hour and a half went by on that roadside, and I began searching desperately for more things to give Yehuda, anything I could find.  The cigarettes I had brought at his request, I felt, didn’t even begin to suffice, as I felt that the more I could give him, the more I could make him feel cared about and secure in such an uncertain situation.  I handed over a half pack of Oreo’s I had been snacking on, along with a half-empty container of lemonade from the day’s travels.  This previously-not-hungry soldier of ours grabbed eagerly for both in the same manner as had Meir, devouring what was given to him with gusto.  I got the sense that it was the act of receiving something from me that was impacting him, whether it was time, energy, half-eaten food, or attention.  He seemed hungry for me just to be there with him.  And in fact, I was getting just as much out of the encounter as he was.

(To Be Continued…)