Maddie Got A Gun

And a Tanach (complete Jewish Bible).

My granddaughter was inducted into the Israel Defense Force last week and my wife and I were there. It was just outside of Ashkelon, right by the Mediterranean. And we were proud.

We had just arrived in Israel a few hours earlier for a planned visit, and decided that with a little help from our son (the inductee's uncle) we could get to the event. He was also visiting but had arrived about a week earlier and he planned on driving to the event. So we hitched a ride. And we didn't regret it. It all took place in a dirt field and was very amateurish, but we didn't regret it at all.

There are several reasons why people enter military service. Among them are the draft, the hope of learning a useful occupation, time out for people who don't know what they want to do with their lives, the wish to kill, and other such admirable goals.

But Maddie joined for another reason. Like many of her cohort, she did what she thought was right. Yes. Some people join the military because they believe that the defense of one's country is a noble goal. Maddie is from New Jersey, but seems to have committed to moving to a country that embodies her ideas and ideals, notwithstanding the view of others. It is a country that issues a Tanach along with a weapon, because it believes the faith and the history in that book will help inductees better understand their mission.

Patriotism and the conviction that your home and your people are worth defending are powerful motives for enlistment when there is a threat. However they're anything but the universal justifications for service or for waging war. All too often war is a quest for “things,” a wish to get more, and the actions of the opponent a desire to keep what it has. The things may be territory, resources needed by a country, a conquered population, or wealth and status for those directing the attack. They may be political, economic, or religious, but the “bottom line” is that the provokers want something that they don't already have – something that is not theirs.

According to Jewish law and tradition there are legitimate reasons for war, including defense, but an attempt should be made first to avoid the war – to find a way to attain peace. War has, for millennia, been imposed on the Jewish people not only by the nations that surround Israel but by those who want to eliminate the religion altogether. Unfortunately that mindset persists, and the primary wish of the countries that occupy the region (apart from Israel, of course) is to destroy the nation and drive its citizens “into the sea.” Indeed, the main occupation of the United Nations is to find fault with Israel which, despite its tiny size and despite the conflicts, killings, and refugees all around the globe, it has made the butt of its righteous indignation, condemning it more that all other countries put together. It's an obsession promoted by many of its members; an obsession which has been made the main distraction from the world's other problems and, very specifically, from the nations that are promoting the vitriol.

It is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, but the two together, ideas and arms, make for the best defense against the spiteful nature of wars and people who are acting with only their own benefits in mind.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (Isaiah)

In the meantime, however, a gun and a bible make a good start. And Maddie has them.