I was driving home from Jerusalem last night and heard on the radio a brief interview with a commander in a military rabbinate unit of the IDF. They were talking about how for the first (so they said), the military rabbinate fully participated in the recent operation of the IDF in the Hebron area looking for Eyal, Gilad, and Naftali.

The participation of the military rabbinate was in the form of being out with the soldiers in the field, giving them motivational talks, describing to them how important a job they are doing, and generally keeping their spirits high.

It was not said explicitly in the interview, but it sounded like they were fulfilling the ancient role of the "Kohein Mashuach Milachama" - the priest that was appointed to escort the army out to battle and to speak to them with motivational messages.

One interesting thing said by this commander was that on his way to joining the soldiers one day, he was called by his father in an old age home. His father told him that the residents of the old-age home had put together packages for the soldiers and he wanted his son to come pick them up and take them to soldiers involved in the search. Our military rabbi said he was on the way to the area to join soldiers so would gladly pick up the packages right away and bring them with him to the soldiers.

The rabbi quoted one line from the letter that was attached to the packages. He described who the packages were from - these are elderly Jews, who were involved in so many historic operations themselves, such as the foundation of the State, one 90+ year old woman who was part of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, another old man who fought in the Palmach, etc. - and this is what they wrote to the soldiers (I am paraphrasing) .. we who laid the foundations of the State and the army want to thank you, for this sense of shared destiny, Jewish "gaurantorship", concern for the welfare of other Jews, this is precisely what we were trying to establish, and that is what you are involved in.

And the rabbi explained that all the issues of the State are important, but the State was not founded so that we could have a good economy,  live comfortable lives, etc. The State was founded for a sense of "areivut", and that is exactly what we saw in the recent operation.

I thought that was a beautiful message, and wanted to share it, that gives a great perspective on the State of Israel.