Reflections on Watching the Israeli Army Practicing Their Marching

Rabbi Melanie Aron

Saturday, May 6, 2006

One of the fun moments on our recent congregational trip to Israel was when we were visiting Mt Herzl and happened upon a group of Israeli soldiers practicing their marching. It must have been a rehearsal for theYom HaAtzmaut, Israeli Independence Day commemotration, and there were representatives of all the different services, the navy, the air force, the paratroopers. The soldiers looked very young and with them were some older officers conducting the drill. Yom Ha Atzmaut was this past Wednesday and we were in Israel at the end of March, so it was towards the beginning of these preparations.

What was most amazing to me was the lack of decorum. After they ran through a bit, they would stop and then there would be intense discussions about what to do next. It would begin among the older staff people but soon you would see the younger soldiers joining in. Meanwhile the rest of the soldiers acted a lot like high school seniors during graduation rehearsals, talking with friends, wandering from their spots, and in general fooling around. There was little evidence of spit and polish. It was hard to believe that this is an amazingly effective fighting force.

In the section of the Torah that Max and Ben read this morning, we find evidence of an orderly hierarchical society. The kohen gadol, the high priest, was at the top of the pecking order, and others, priests, Levites, Israelites, understood their appropriate roles. You were born into your position in society and it was fixed throughout your lifetime. To some extent this was a good thing. Someone was in charge and the work of the community was completed. Imagine the chaos each time the tabernacle had to be moved in the desert, if there hadn't been set details with set responsibilities. You wouldn't want to wake up one morning in Kadesh Barnea wondering if the sacred table for the altar had accidentally been left behind at Sinai.

On the other hand, the Haftarah reminds us that order is not our highest value. The role of the prophet was to disrupt the order of society. For God, the human pecking order was irrelevant: Are You Not To Me Like the Children of the Ethiopians O People of Israel. The prophet stood up and challenged those who were in power, they disputed the accepted wisdom of their time, and they reminded the people that conventional practice is not a replacement for righteousness and justice.

In our own modern Jewish history we have learned the danger of too much deference to authority, of following orders, just because they are orders. Jewish law tells us-ein shaliach ledavar, you can't excuse your own behavior by saying that someone told you to do something. On the other hand Pirke Avot, the Ethics of Our Fathers which we read this time of year, advises us to respect the government, for without authority, human society would revert to chaos. As we read in this week's chapter: R. Chanina, the Vice-High-Priest, said, "Pray for the welfare of the government, since but for the fear thereof men would swallow each other alive."

Ben and Max, as you reach the age of personal responsibility we pray that you will recognize those times when it is important to defer to authority, and to give up one's own desires and preferences for the good of the whole. But we pray too that you will recognize those times when you must speak up, when individual conscience compels you to disobey unrighteous orders.

This week of Israel's Independence Day, we also commemorated Yom HaZikaron, the memorial day for Israel's fallen soldiers. We recognize our debt as a people to those who gave their lives for Israel's safety. And we are proud too that goose-stepping is not one of the Isreali Defense Forces' most outstanding skills and that included in Taharat HaNeshek, the Isreali Army's code of ethics, is the provision that one is required to disobey an unethical order.