4. Ramifications of the Battalion (2024)

The Torah’s portrayal of the Jewish People leaving Egypt and traveling the desert is descriptive and deliberate: Bnei Yisrael are the tzevaos Hashem, God’s army. What message is this meant to convey?

The first association that comes to mind is that of soldiers training for war. This is certainly part of the picture, but it goes beyond what you may have expected. “War” in this context is not just the purview of the Israeli army, protecting Israelis and Jews across the world. In addition to that most literal element, we approach the world and its challenges with a unique perspective that often flies in the face of contemporary morals or ideals. Our insistence regarding the existence of holiness, life as a response to a Divine “call” or “command” rather than about self-fulfillment or happiness, gender norms, the traditional family unit, and values such as privacy and humility are just some examples of ideas currently not in vogue. If we want to preserve them, we need to teach our children to appreciate them and train our students to fight for them. That is one level of the Battalion metaphor.

Another aspect of the army analogy is the commitment that it demands. A number of examples come to mind from conversations with students who had enlisted in the Israeli army. One soldier was given a number of days off — his parents were in, he had a couple of doctor’s appointments, and whatever else was going on. By Thursday morning, he had taken care of everything he needed to do, so he updated his commander and was told to return to base. He settled in for the five-hour bus ride, arriving at the base in late afternoon. A bit more than twelve hours later, he was already on the bus back to Yerushalayim — having done nothing besides sleep on base. He was understandably frustrated; what had been the point of returning to base? But that’s not a question you can ask; you follow orders.

Another soldier shared that they were sometimes instructed to make rock art — seven minutes to make the outline of Israel, then take it apart and make the unit’s official symbol, or to spell out the unit’s motto. One time, a commander had the olim in his unit write on a sand dune, “Ani lo medaber ivrit — I don’t speak Hebrew.” Why? Because the commander said so. This training, while it might seem juvenile and ridiculous, pays off in the fog of war, when soldiers must follow orders without a moment’s thought.

Credit to Yonadav Rimberg

The same commitment should be expressed by our soldier in the Great Battalion. Most immediately, this entails punctilious observance of the halachic system, as transmitted by the experts, our rabbanim. Strict observance does not mean wholesale stringency; as Rabbi Mordechai Willig likes to say, every chumrah is also a kulah. Rather, it means wholehearted commitment to the system.

On top of this first meaning, commitment means that as much as it can be difficult to see the impact of my individual service among the larger whole, we must insist on a certain obstinacy that says, “This is my job, and I will do whatever I need to see it through.” When I was a youth director in Albany, NY, there were many times when I wondered about the impact of Shabbos morning groups or Saturday night parent-child learning programs, and how much I needed to invest in them. By now, as a parent and community member myself, I’ve come to realize how important those programs are to the spiritual vitality of a community.

One more feature of an army is the variety of roles that must be filled for it to function successfully. Vertically, there is a hierarchy of positions that facilitate smaller parts of the bigger machine working in tandem with each other, from the Commander in Chief on top to the basic foot soldier or “jobnik” on the bottom.

Horizontally, several categories comprise the army: Combat, Education, Intelligence, Medicine, and Support. Each one has an array of divisions; just within Combat, for example, there are the Givati, Golani, Nachal, and Kfir Brigades, each having their own specialty and way of contributing.

Rav Hirsch identifies this as one of the main features of the word “tzava.” He writes:

Israel is not called “tzava Hashem” but “tzevaos Hashem,” and in this spirit they are also called “kahal goyim,” not just “goy.” This is because Israel represents a diversity of national characteristics, which points to the fact that the Torah, the vocation of the Jew, is not confined to any particular social class or national characteristic. On the contrary, the Torah invites all of mankind, with all its diversity, to accept God’s authority… Israel is to be composed of people from various spheres, in various callings, and God’s Word is to rule over all of them, it being the Will the guides them all.1

The first time the word “tzava” is used in the Torah is at the end of Creation: “Va’yechulu ha’shamayim v’ha’aretz v’chol tzevaam.” There, Rav Hirsch points out a number of times the word is used outside of an army context: the Jews encamped around the Mishkan are counted as “yotzei tzava,” the Leviim are described as “kol ha’ba li’tzvo tzava, la’avod avodah b’Ohel Moed,” and the women gathering to donate to the Mishkan are portrayed with “ha’tzovos asher tzavu pesach Ohel Moed.” Thus, the word really denotes a gathering that is dedicated to fulfilling the word of one leader. About the creation of the world, he writes:

All things created in heaven or in earth constitute, together, one great tzava, one great host, whose center point is its Creator and Master, its Lord and Leader… All things are to perform their assigned task, each in its proper place, each with the powers given especially to it. The overall plan is in the mind of the Leader; each creature completely fulfills its mission, only if it carries out the part that was assigned to it. No one, great or small, stands in his station by his own authority or for himself alone… The greatest achievement of the individual is but a fraction of the whole, but even the smallest of his deeds is not lost or overlooked, provided that he faithfully carries out the order of the one great Commander… “Ha’lo tzava le’enosh alei aretz — In this world, we are all in army service (Iyov 7:1).”2

The same is true in the context of Bnei Yisrael as the tzevaos Hashem. No matter what role a person fills, he has a part to play in Hashem’s plan for the world. Together, the nation carries out that plan, each person doing their job in order to accomplish the ultimate objective.

Next week, drawing inspiration from… a Broadway musical?

Thank you to Akiva Rubin and Yonadav Rimberg for your contributions to this article.

This article should serve l’zecher nishmas my grandfather, Binyamin ben Shlomo z”l, who passed away this week. He represented my family connection to the world of German Jewry and Rav Samson Rephael Hirsch, who has had a significant impact on my thinking about Judaism and religious issues, including this one.