Today, my daughter got her first gun. In the eighteen years since Ariella’s birth, there have been many things that I have aspired for her but I can honestly say that a gun has not been one of them. My daughter’s weapon came courtesy of the Israel Defense Forces. On December 10th, her long-held dream of joining the IDF became a reality and, in turn, my husband and I became the parents of a “lone soldier,” a serviceman or woman without any immediate family in Israel.
As parents, we hope and, indeed, expect that there will come a time when our child will move on to the next stage of his or her life. That’s as it should be. Yet, this move is something that is far greater in every way. Growing up in our Modern Orthodox household, attending Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy and then YULA Girls High School, Ariella’s love of Israel was nurtured and strengthened both at home and at school. However, her desire to do more than support Israel from afar crystallized during a B’nei Akiva summer program between her sophomore and junior years in high school. She didn’t say anything then but, towards the end of 11th grade, she started talking about joining the army. While my husband was immediately supportive, I was not. I certainly wanted her to go to Israel but my preference was that she spend ten months studying in the seminary of her choice not 18 months as a soldier. I was very vocal in my opposition. I spoke with her principal and some of her teachers. Everyone said the same thing: Ariella has always been very mature for her years, this was not a rash decision and she had some very cogent arguments as to why this would be the best thing for her to do. My last hope centered on the fact that her first choice university, Brandeis, stated very clearly that it would not grant deferrals of more than one year. After being accepted, however, she wrote what must have been a very persuasive email about her dream of becoming an Israeli soldier. The university agreed to give her a 2 year deferral. Her path was set and I realized that I needed to “get on board.” It wasn’t easy but I told her how much I admired her determination and her decision and my words were sincere and heartfelt. I am, indeed, very, very proud.
Ariella left for Israel at the end of August and spent the next several months acclimating to the country and going through the lengthy process of joining the army as a foreign volunteer. Finally, the paperwork was complete, the tests taken and she had her date of induction.
On December 9th, the night before she was to report to the Tel HaShomer military base, she wrote the following: “Tomorrow my whole world changes. Tomorrow I enter adulthood. Tomorrow I put on the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces and become a soldier in the Jewish People’s army. It boggles my mind and sends my stomach into a gold medal-worthy gymnastics routine. I don’t know anything for certain, yet I know for certain that almost nothing will be the same anymore. Tonight is my last night of the kind of comfort I’ve known being under the care of an adult much older than myself for eighteen and a half years. Tonight is my last night waiting for the day I become a soldier. Tonight is my last night being the person I am right now, at this very moment. I don’t know how I’ll change, but I hope and think I will, as I run and crawl down this new road.”
This is indeed a new road, a very new road and it is my deepest hope and prayer that it will be a road filled with everything that my daughter aspires for it to be and more. May HaShem watch over her and each and every one of her fellow soldiers in the “Jewish People’s army.”
