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The Magnetic

Tefillin

Rabbi Shlomo
Kimche

After repeated attacks by PLO terrorists operating in southern Lebanon, the IDF
launched לי ִל ָּג ַה םֹול ְ ׁש ע ָצ ְב ִמ, Operation Peace for the Galilee, on June 6, 1982. During
what is now known as the First Lebanon War, 654 IDF soldiers were killed and 3,887
wounded. In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the war and in memory of
the holy soldiers who gave their lives to defend our people, we share the following
reflections from Rabbi Shlomo Kimche, who served as a tank driver in the war.

ack in 1982, I was a highly
motivated IDF soldier. As the
first soldier serving in a Jewish
Barmy since the Bar Kochba
Revolt 1,850 years ago and a son of
Holocaust survivors, I bore a strong
sense of responsibility on my shoul-
ders. Named for my Uncle Shlomo,
murdered at the age of seventeen in
Auschwitz, Jewish vulnerability was
never far from my consciousness.

I was drafted to a tank unit through
my hesder yeshivah, Yeshivat Hakotel.
Baruch Hashem, I excelled at every
stage, became a tank driver, and was
encouraged by my officers to continue
on to tank commander and officer
courses. For various bureaucratic
reasons I wasn’t able to pursue these
opportunities, but I raised my eyes to Rabbi Kimche during the war in Lebanon.
Hashem and said: “OK, I will remain a In late May of 1982, we were training at The following Thursday, Shlomo Argov,
regular tank driver – but I will try to a base in the Golan Heights. Everybody Israel’s ambassador to Great Britain,
be the best one the IDF has ever seen!”
wanted to go home to spend Shavuot was shot and critically wounded by
I spent every spare moment learn- with their families, and so we drew Palestinian terrorists. Israel was on
ing more and more about my tank lots to decide who would have to stay high alert, but the IDF nevertheless
– an American Patton 6B. I found at the base to guard the tanks during allowed me to go home to my parents
an English copy of the manufactur- in Haifa. Over the course of Shabbat,
er’s instructions and maintenance the holiday. I ‘won’ the lottery and was our phone rang a few times, but we
manual and read it cover to cover. I one of only a handful of soldiers on did not answer it. Word soon spread
A member of became such an expert that IDF tank the base that Shavuot. I prayed with a that a war was about to begin, and
the Mizrachi
Speakers Bureau mechanics sought my guidance when minyan of tanks – though they weren’t the IDF was calling up combat sol-
mizrachi.org/ they encountered mechanical issues impressed with my reading of Megillat diers. On Shabbat afternoon, in con-
speakers with the Patton tank. Rut! sultation with Rabbi She’ar Yashuv

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