The Second Lebanon War (2006) caught me at the age of 30 (my wife and sister celebrated my birthday without me) with two small children and my wife in early pregnancy.

As a paratrooper, the brigade in which I served was tasked with taking control of two villages in Lebanon from which rockets were constantly fired at Israel. I want to share with you two little stories, one about a tallit and the other about prayer. Stories that illustrate what it means to be an observant person who is also a warrior.

After a short training period, we began preparations for the ground entry into Lebanon. Since all the roads were loaded with explosive devices, it was not possible for vehicles to carry the equipment for us and we found ourselves preparing huge bags, 30 kg each, for the large amount of equipment we needed: Food, ammunition, water, night vision devices, and more and more.

The morning before leaving, I returned from prayer with my tallit and tefillin bag. Suddenly, I realized that I had to pack them too. But the bag was filled to capacity and there was no chance of finding a place in it even for the tefillin alone. After a short deliberation, I took out two cans of tuna from one of the pouches and in their place, I barely squeezed the pair of tefillin. But what about the tallit? The tallit that has accompanied me for years since my wedding and that symbolizes for me the connection with my wife. My heart ached ... but then I remembered Maimonides in the Laws of War and took solace (who would have believed that a day would come when the laws that were always only seen as "the laws of the messianic era" would be so relevant?!)    The Rambam says that when a person goes out to battle it is incumbent upon him to forget his private life, his plans and the most precious to him, his wife and children. In this way, the fighter becomes part of Klal Yisrael and can concentrate better on the fighting. For many soldiers, the moment when we were required to part with the cell phone that remained at the mother base in Israel was the moment of parting from the life that has accompanied each of us so far.  Parting from that which is dear to you, from what is familiar to you. For me, that was the moment I said goodbye to the tallit.

On Friday night we boarded the buses that drove us north to the front line. All the way we saw smoke mushrooms from shells and rockets fired by Hezbollah. We said the Friday night prayers while riding the bus. The verses "The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon" took on a special meaning that Sabbath ... when we got off the bus. Someone shouted the kiddush in an attempt to overcome the deafening noise of a 120-mortar firing incessantly in the direction of Lebanon. That was our cover.

A friend of mine from the department, a secular person from one of the kibbutzim, approached me a moment before we crossed the bombed-out perimeter fence. He pulled out an old plastic bag containing a tattered book of Psalms. "It's from my dad," he said. "The book accompanied him in the Yom Kippur War and now it is with me." We listened attentively to the prayer before leaving for the battle that one of the warriors shouted, and ... we entered. The incessant sounds of machine gun fire and shell whistles constantly accompanied us. I did not know if it was our fire or the enemy’s. In the sky, a plane without lighting flew over us at a low altitude.  I later found out it was our plane that evacuated a casualty and two wounded from previous night's fighting.

We walked 5 kilometers to the village of Debel where we remained over the Sabbath. On Saturday night we continued to the village of Reshef, another 10 kilometers deep into Lebanon. The walk was on a difficult route and the vigilance was immense. Towards morning, we stormed the village which was a stronghold of Hezbollah. I later learned that we had eliminated about 20 terrorists in this village. The rest fled as they left their weapons behind.

Towards morning we reached the village homes. We took over one of the homes and entered it, tired to death. The house had cracks in the ceiling from the air force bombings last night. The floor was covered with broken glass, which did not prevent the exhausted soldiers from falling to the floor and falling into a deep sleep. I volunteered to stay awake to listen to the walkie-talkie and keep an eye out, along with the force commander, to make sure there were no terrorists in the area. During the watch, I thought to myself, I have the opportunity to pray in the morning and when the watch and prayer is finished, I will be able to sleep continuously until the next guard. I put on tefillin, the tallit as I mentioned, was left behind.  My concentration during prayer was not great. I was exhausted, preoccupied, tired and hungry. Prayer without washing hands with my whole body wet, sweating from head to toe. Suddenly I heard the walkie-talkie alert: " Alert, incoming! Alert, Incoming!" - a familiar command from the training that heralds the impending shelling. I did as per the procedure and wore the protective vest. When I came to wear the helmet on my head, I remembered that there was tefillin there. Somehow, I arranged the helmet on my head adorned with tefillin. At this point the force commander shared with me the dilemma he had. Should they wake everyone up so that they too can protect themselves with a vest and helmet or let them continue to sleep which they so desperately needed?  I pointed to the cracked ceiling above us and resolved the dilemma: “If a shell falls here, the whole house will collapse on us and the vest and helmet will not really help anyway." The soldiers continued to sleep and I continued to mumble the words of “Pesukei Dezimra'. Suddenly, I heard a sharp whistle followed by an explosion that left behind a smoke mushroom. It was about half a kilometer from us. A short time later again a whistle, explosion and mushroom, only this time closer. The third time the explosion occurred about 100 meters from us. I realized that the next explosion might be upon us.  Suddenly I found myself saying a Psalm with great concentration:  "A song of ascents from the depths I called to you, O Lord ..." Then a strange thought crossed my mind. Here I am adorned with tefillin, in the middle of reciting Psalms from "Pesukei Dezimra: and at the same time, I recite another Psalm to truly pray. It was a prayer within a prayer, only that the second spontaneous prayer overcame the first prayer. Thank God the prayer was probably good enough because the shelling stopped.