He's Prepared to Die for You, Too - How we look at soldiers

A Charedi rav puts into words what so many of us feel in our hearts — and it's beautiful!

It is, as he calls it, a difficult sugya — this inyan of Charedim and the army. But listen to how he speaks about it. There's no anger in it, no defensiveness. There's love. And the moment you hear it, you recognize it, because it's exactly what you already feel.

He begins where every Charedi begins — and he holds it with full strength:

No matter how much we believe — and we do believe! — that limmud haTorah, and kiyum hamitzvos, and avodas hatefillah have an awesome power to protect Yidden… fortunate is the one who invests himself in Torah and tefillah, in mitzvos and good deeds, in order to protect Klal Yisrael.

That is the bedrock, and it never moves. What he adds is the most natural thing in the world for a ben Torah to feel — and so do we:

We need also to carry ourselves with a little humility and gratitude toward those who are out there in the army.

We see it. And we are grateful.

He says it plainly, and our hearts say it with him. Those who go out to fight — and among them so many deeply religious, shomer Torah u'mitzvos soldiers — are literally being moser nefesh. They have wives. Young children. Parents waiting at home. And they place themselves in danger to protect Klal Yisrael.

When I see a soldier, I need to feel respect for him. Humility before him.

And then the line that says it perfectly:

It has nothing to do with "Zionism." It has nothing to do with "hashkafos." It has to do with the simple, essential fact that this person is ready to give his life on your behalf — and he has a father and a mother, a wife and children — and he does it anyway.

This is not a chiddush to us. This is what a Yid feels when he sees another Yid put himself in harm's way for him. It's hakaras hatov in its purest form. When the Rav says it, he's not teaching us a new emotion — he's giving voice to the one already beating in our chests.

Why he speaks — and why we should too

The Rav's only sorrow is that the noise of the matzav — the politics, the headlines, the giyus fight — sometimes drowns this voice out, so that the world never gets to hear how Charedim truly feel. And that's the real loss. Not that the love isn't there. It's overflowing. It's that too few people know it.

So when he says it out loud, the right response isn't "finally, someone said it" — it's "yes, and we need to say it louder."

At the end of the day, this person is sacrificing his life for me as well. He's prepared to die for you as well.

This is how we feel — let's make sure everyone knows it

He closes without giving up a single one of his convictions — and that's precisely what makes it ring true:

Even with a completely different worldview from this person — this humility, this gratitude, this tefillah that the soldier should succeed and come home unharmed — this we certainly feel.

You can hold every Charedi conviction with full strength and still — when you pass a chayal in the street — feel a swell of gratitude and whisper a quick tefillah that Hashem watch over him.

That's not a contradiction. That's the Charedi heart.

The Rav gave it words. Our job is to make sure the whole world hears them — because this is how we feel.

יהודי לא רודף יהודי. יהודי אוהב יהודי.

Share this widely. Let people see what's really in our hearts.

(If anyone knows who this Rav is, please contact us and let us know.)