Last week, a friend and neighbor approached me with a very strange request.
She was strange in itself, and even stranger was the choice of me to be her recipient. He told me that his son was serving in a hole in the north, and that many of the company's soldiers had shoes in bad shape, including some non-standard sizes: two pairs larger than usual and one pair in a smaller size. You, he said, must have something to do.
This is not the first time I have encountered such a request. The common perception is that if a person writes for a newspaper or broadcasts on the radio, he can also arrange military shoes.
The problem with this perception is that it is absolutely correct. And if so in peacetime, in the days of the unprecedented popular awakening of these days, all the more so. I have already told here several times about compassionate war rooms that I know, and this time I chose the Kfar Chabad war room, which in cooperation with a wonderful organization called "Ezer Lachayal" put together an outstanding operation in Kfar Chabad, and it is said that it is doing wonders.
Since it was a truly unusual request, it was also an opportunity for me to challenge the guys from Kfar Chabad a bit. I wrote to Eliyahu Gutman, who runs this thing, and I was sure that he would either wave me off or smear the matter by the time the hot summer days came, and the shoes would no longer bother the soldiers of the company. At this point, I think you can already guess the end: two days.
That's the time it took Eliyahu to invent these pairs of shoes in a unique color and different sizes and transport them from the war room in the center to an isolated spot in the far north.
I am telling all this both in order to raise Eliyahu and his war room and wish them continued success, but also to try to correct some serious discourse mishap of the past month.
The beloved, tired and old state is giving its all it can at the level of infrastructure, and enormous civilian forces, fueled by the fuel of Jewish morality and mutual responsibility, fill in all the gaps. They don't replace it, they complement it. They don't take her place, they help her
Too often the excitement and enthusiasm for the noble initiatives of civil society leads straight to a blow of steam and a complaint against the government, the state and public services.
Obviously, some of this criticism is true, but the underlying principled view is completely wrong, and this constant critical tone is a huge missed key point. What do we envision? I look at the events of the past few weeks and see a spectacular puzzle. The beloved, tired and old state is giving its all it can at the level of infrastructure, and enormous civilian forces, fueled by the fuel of Jewish morality and mutual responsibility, fill in all the gaps. They don't replace it, they complement it. They don't take her place, they help her.
This is not an activity of hindsight, it can be a formula for the beginning full of wisdom and sacrifice, which all sides enjoy: the weary state, whose fault not every mishap stems from laxity or laziness (some certainly do), but mainly from the natural clumsiness that accompanies every action from its actions, because of its size, etc. – enjoys filling gaps, and civil society derives strength and strength and cohesion from the opportunity to lend a shoulder and put a hand and bear the burden. This is how it should be seen.
And the steam? We will save for another opportunity. There will be enough.
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