We also got together for Purim (it was easy, we all had costumes on already) and we shook the lulav and esrog in the one-person sukkah we had built. We even had a bar mitzvah there for one of the soldiers and I remember thinking, “When was the last time a bar mitzvah took place in this country?”
It was an amazing feeling to be able to do so many mitzvos so far away from home in a region where mitzvos had not been done for years. Unfortunately, with the good times came some sad ones as well. One of my fellow congregants died when an explosive device went off near his vehicle. After the army funeral, with the gunshots still ringing in my ears from the gun salute, I stood there and answered amen to the Kaddish that followed. But I am now home, baruch Hashem, and it all seems like a distant memory or even – almost – a dream.
Some people look at me in my leather kipa and jeans and believe that I could do better in terms of my Yiddishkeit For instance, one of my rebbeim from elementary school told me last week that he must have not pinched and hit me hard enough when he taught me because look at the way I turned out.
While it’s true that everyone should always be striving to grow in Hashem’s Torah, one should also not judge a book by its cover. How many Jews can say they lost 30 pounds by living on tuna fish and matzah for a year in order to keep kosher? How many Jews have put on tefillin every day, kept Shabbos and Yom Tov, and lit Chanukah lights in the darkness of Iraq?
Now that I am back in civilization, they say it is time for me to find a job and a wife (though there is disagreement on which should come first). I want to thank all of the people who helped me get through my deployment with their thoughts, prayers, and care packages.
Just to mention a few: my mother and my entire family; the Jewish War Veterans of the United States; the Jewish Soldier Foundation; the Aleph Institute; The Jewish Press for sending a complimentary paper each week, the many schools whose students sent me so many encouraging letters, the Jewish communities all around the world; and of course my Jewish brothers and sisters who are still overseas fighting. My tefillos are with all of you.