31-Jul-06: Why We Will Win This War

We're grateful to our insightful neighbour and friend George M. Stanislawski for sharing with us the reflections below. He sent them out today to his email list, and they are excerpted here with his permission.

George's note began by referring to the heroic-tragic death of Major Roi Klein (on which we published Dr. Nathan Cherny's tribute a few days ago here), a friend of George's son's brother-in-law. In that connection, he referred to a Torah shiur (a lesson) given by the rabbi of his synagogue, reviewing the halachic rulings of Rambam (Maimonides) and Ramban (Nachmanides) on warfare when fighting for the Land of Israel. The rabbi opened his remarks by relating how, just two and a half weeks ago, he came home to find a young man, in uniform, barely 21, waiting for him.

The young soldier cheerfully greeted the rabbi and said "My name is Yiftach. I'm your son's commanding officer. Can I meet the rest of your family?"
Perplexed, the rabbi introduced the young officer to the rest of the family. After learning all the family members' names, Yiftach asked if he could inspect the son's bedroom. The rabbi agreed and led him upstairs to his son's bedroom. While in the bedroom, he browsed through the books on the shelf for several minutes, taking some down and thumbing through the pages. Yiftach then requested to be allowed to go through the Rabbis son's closet. Agitated, the rabbi asked "What do you want!?"
Politely, Yiftach answered: "I'll tell you when we get downstairs.
The two continued downstairs where Yiftach continued: "Our unit will be going into battle shortly. This is my first field command. I believe that to be a good officer… I must first be a good educator and lead by example. I can only do that by getting to know every detail about every man in my squad. That's why I came here today."
Our rabbi stood amazed by Yiftach's caring, insight and emotional maturity.
Unfortunately Yiftach's military career was cut short 12 days later. He and 7 of his soldiers were killed in an ambush in the southern Lebanese village of Bint Jbail as they were looking for Hizbullah missiles and rockets that have wreaked havoc in Israeli population since this war began.
Unlike our superpower portrayal in the western media, Israel is a small country outnumbered 200 to one by over a billion Moslems. Everyone in Israel knows someone fighting on the front at this moment. We don't have to look far to know somebody who is connected to one of this war's casualties. Our son's brother-in-law and our rabbi are just two examples.
Nevertheless, against all odds, we will achieve victory because we have no other choice. Unlike other nations we are not allowed the luxury to lose a single war. Against all odds, we will be victorious because of brave men like Major Roi Klein and Lieutenant Yiftach Shrayer who valued life above death.
Hassan Nasrallah has often bragged that Hizbullah will win this war because "the Jews consider life holy – we [Hezbollah] glorify death".
But soldiers like Roi and Yiftach will prove Nasrallah wrong. We will be victorious because, historically, sanctifying life has always triumphed over glorifying death. Intuitively, Roi and Yiftach felt this way when they went to and gave their lives in battle to help save others.
We owe it to them to continue their legacy.

Thank you, George.