Joy Amidst Pain

And the question of the nature of Achdus

Israel is in a lot of pain right now. I wouldn’t say that it’s as bad as the days following October 7th, but it’s close. The murder of the six hostages has triggered a wave of despair. So many people have suffered so much in the past ten months, and there seems to be no end in sight - neither recovering the hostages nor eliminating Hamas (which has certainly been enormously weakened, but also just got 3000 new recruits and has no replacement in sight).

Meanwhile, last night my wife and I, along with our daughter who just finished her army service and our son who is starting this year, were invited to dinner with relatives and friends. It was at Pitmaster - a very unusual food establishment in Jerusalem which is hard to describe. Rather than being separate tables of people ordering food, it’s a single “event” every night. All kinds of meats are presented in a sort of combination of a show and a party. It was a delicious and fun experience, but simultaneously a very stark reminder of the situation we are in.

There were well over a hundred people there. The vast majority were dati-leumi or secular, but there were also a small handful of Litvish and chassidish charedim. They were of the decidedly unconventional sort who will only eat at places with a strict hechsher, but are also happy to engage in decidedly un-charedi activities such as dancing to Israeli songs with a non-charedi crowd.

The evening began with a video explaining that two workers from Pitmaster were killed on October 7th, and how we are remembering them and celebrating life. Later, the chef announced that there are many soldiers, wounded veterans, reservists and their wives in the crowd and called on everyone to show them some love and life. They played inspirational songs and everyone danced.

The soldier on the table next to me had left his family in Katzrin (itself a place under attack from Hezbollah) since October 7 in order to volunteer in the reserves. For the past eleven months, he has only returned home to his wife and four children after every ten days for three days. Another soldier in his unit - a “lone soldier” in the reserves who is the son of my friend Rabbi Pini Dunner from LA - said that he’s going to stay in the reserves until the war against Hamas is complete. There aren’t enough soldiers to replace them, he said, so they’ll stay until the job is done.

My wife went over to two other reservists who were sitting in uniform with their wives and invited them to join the dancing. One looked morose and tired and pointed to his gun and shrugged his shoulders. It turned out that he was the head of security in the Gush area and had a really hard week. Still, he then got up and danced a little while the other one watched over the weapons.

The crowd danced around an injured soldier in a wheelchair showing him love and support. It was very, very hard to see him in his crippled and mutilated state. And then our daughter told us that he was considered lightly injured.

I have to say, I was shaken by the evidence of the sacrifice that I was seeing all around me. And it was somewhat difficult for me to get into the mood of the singing and dancing. But most of the soldiers, even the injured ones, seemed to be really happy, celebrating the joy of Jewish life and the confidence that there will be better times ahead.

Meanwhile, one of the charedim said that he was very proud of the achdus displayed by his group dancing with everyone else. He contrasted them to the anti-government protestors in Tel Aviv who foment hatred and divisiveness. But personally, I think that he had it exactly backwards.

While it might seem that those protesting the government and those supporting the government are very far apart and in a non-achdus state, that’s a superficial difference. Underneath, most of the people on both sides are deeply concerned about Israel’s present and future; they just have different ideas about the best way to move forward. Many of the demonstrators are people who serve in the IDF and genuinely care about others, and their acts are not an indication of any lack of achdus on their part, just of their suffering and pain and dismay with a government that, rightly or wrongly but certainly plausibly, they consider responsible for much of the failures.

In contrast, charedi IDF-dodgers dancing in the restaurant are just enjoying a good time, not engaged in meaningful achdus. Claiming to be demonstrating achdus by dancing with non-charedim is a smokescreen. It distracts from their avoidance of genuine achdus via sharing national responsibilities and hardships. The reservists have been away from their families and enduring hardship and sacrifice for months, while tens of thousands of charedim who could have replaced them have instead lived their lives exactly as they did before the war.

It was inspirational to see how people who have sacrificed so much are able to rejoice in life. But in order to succeed, we are going to need everyone to be part of that achdus. And the first step is acknowledging what achdus actually means.

A full list of my posts on the topic of IDF service is at Torah and Army: The Big Index