Our Son’s Mission In Lebanon

Photo Credit: Chaim Goldberg/Flash90

Israeli soldiers from the Armored Brigade operating in a village in southern Lebanon, on November 20, during Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon.

There was our son, clad in his Israeli army khaki-colored uniform, riding inside a military Hummer vehicle making its way to Lebanon. Aside from him and the driver, there were three other men inside the Hummer. They had an atypical mission to accomplish. They crossed the border, drove approximately 1/3 of a mile and then the vehicle stopped. They were met by six Israeli soldiers, whose job was to protect our son Eliyahu Yeshaya and the other three men as they performed their mission.

At the close of the first day of Succot (in Israel only the first day of Succot is a yom tov while outside of Israel there were two days of yom tov followed by Shabbat), Yair, a friend of our son, who had studied landscape architecture with him, called and asked if he was interested in joining a mission going into Lebanon. The mission was to cut down trees and shrubs in a wadi that was not accessible to army tractors, since the trees and shrubs were amongst boulders and mountainous terrain. The purpose of cutting them down was to prevent Hezbollah terrorists from hiding behind them, as well as make the army’s search for weapons and terrorist tunnels easier.

Our son told his friend, “Let me think about it.” He proceeded to call Lior, who established the Neve Ori Farm where Eliyahu Yeshaya volunteers for the IDF as a guard. The farm is named in memory of a nineteen-year-old Jewish woman, Ori Ansbacher who was doing her National Service in a place called Ein Yael (the Yael Spring) outside of Jerusalem, and who was murdered by an Arab. Our son had to check with Lior if there was someone to cover for him. Lior told him that he could be absent for a few days. He then called Yair back and answered in the affirmative. Eliyahu Yeshaya then called the other place where he works as a guard and informed them that he couldn’t come to work because he would be going into Lebanon.

It wasn’t clear when they would need to go, but he was told to pack his personal chainsaw. The chainsaw accompanied his army rifle and his personal handgun. The call came before Shabbat of Succot, and he was told that he would need to leave on Shabbat at 3:00 a.m. Later on he was called on Shabbat and told to leave at about 2:00 a.m. He slept in his bedroom and not in the sukkah, so as not to awaken the others when his alarm would pierce the silence.

Shabbat is a very holy day, but in the case of pikuach nefesh (saving lives), one is allowed to transgress the laws of Shabbat. It is a very strange feeling as a religious Jew to get into one’s car and drive off on Shabbat. But the mission needed to be accomplished, and it would most likely save lives.

The twenty-three family members (fourteen of them children and infants) who were in our home and sukkah slept while Eliyahu Yeshaya prepared himself to leave. Actually, at 1:45 a.m. I awakened and looked to see if his door was open, in order to give him a hug and another blessing. The door of his bedroom was closed, and in case he was still sleeping, I didn’t want to rob him of even a few more minutes of much needed sleep.

Throughout the day I thought about Eliyahu Yeshaya, and wondered how he was, for how long he would be away, and prayed for a successful and safe mission. A family member informed me that my cell phone had rung while I was taking a Shabbat nap. I wondered what that was about, but since it was Shabbat, I did not check my cell phone.

On Saturday night we were having a melave malka in our sukkah, when some of the kids looked up and said excitedly, “Shavua tov!” I was sitting in the corner and could not see the entrance to the sukkah. I figured that it was our younger daughter, who had not been with us for Shabbat, surprising all of us with a visit. But it wasn’t our daughter. It was our red-eyed, sleep-deprived, dusty from the Lebanese soil son, back from Lebanon. He had been there for less than a day.

We plied him with questions. He was the star of the sukkah! He told us that he had driven to the location that he had been instructed. His friend Yair, as well as two non-religious men in their 50s, who were seasoned in the chopping down the tree business, were there as well. Into the armored Hummer vehicle they went to the Lebanese border. Inside Lebanon they were met by soldiers whose task was to guard the four of them.

Eliyahu Yeshaya hadn’t thought about bringing challot and grape juice with him, but along with the battle rations – canned goods such as tuna, pineapple, nuts, etc., – there were rolls. He made kiddush with the rolls. A sukkah to eat in was not part of the landscape.

They worked from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. The army provided jerry cans filled with gasoline for the chainsaws. “It was surreal,” he explained. “There we were cutting down the trees and there were loads of rockets whistling over our heads, heading to Israel. In the near distance there was smoke from Israeli rockets, which had bombed a Hezbollah site in a Lebanese village.

While working, they found rifles, various kinds of weapons, magazines, bullets, mines, missiles, ammunition, and tunnel piers. Their work enables the army to destroy the stockpiles of weaponry and to destroy the tunnels intended for an attack into Israel. Our son said that he wanted to take photos and videos of the countryside and of their work, but since it was Shabbat, and doing so was not included in pikuach nefesh, he refrained from doing so.

They did not come across any terrorists. It seems that Hezbollah, including the elite Radwan Forces, have mostly fled from southern Lebanon, leaving stockpiles of weaponry, food supplies, motorcycles – like those used in last year’s October 7 attack, etc. It reminded me of the story in the seventh chapter of Melachim Beit:

And they arose in the evening to come to the Aramean camp. And they came to the edge of the Aramean camp, and behold, no one was there.

Now the L-rd had caused the Aramean camp to hear the sound of chariots and the sound of horses, the sound of a great army. And they said to one another, “Behold, the king of Israel has hired for us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to attack us.”

And they picked themselves up and fled at dusk, leaving behind their tents, their horses, and their donkeys, the camp as it was, and they fled for their lives.

After their exhausting day, the four of them discussed whether or not to continue the next day as well. The two older men said that they did not have the energy for another day of such back-breaking work, so the four of them were driven back to Israel.

Baruch Hashem, mission accomplished!