2 Responses

1. Once, Nachal soldiers from the religious kibbutz Chafetz Chaim arrived at Tse’elim Army Base for advanced training. Moshe Shinkolbski went to check the kitchen and found that the cooks were mixing meat and milk and had absolutely no desire to keep the kitchen kosher. On the contrary, the sergeant in charge of the kitchen ordered him to be removed from the premises. Moshe Sachs, secretary of the division, went to talk to the commanding officer of the base, a second lieutenant (in Hebrew, Segen Mishneh) who happened to be a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, who laughed at him and was not willing to a lift a finger in order to kosher the kitchen.

   The soldiers decided go without eating cooked food from the kitchen and get by on army rations which they managed to obtain only following an unpleasant argument. On Friday morning, however, the rations ran out, and they were left without any food for Shabbat; they couldn’t eat the food from the kitchen because in addition to the mixture of meat and milk, it was obvious that food was also cooked on Shabbat. In their distress, they called the military rabbinate on Friday morning. The phone-call was transferred directly to Rabbi Goren, who notified them that he would arrive at the army base promptly, on the very same day, and asked that they notify the second lieutenant of the base of his expected arrival at noon. They passed the news on to the officer, but he laughed, saying: “Good for him, let him come!”

   Shortly before noon, the IDF Chief Rabbi’s car pulled-up to the base. After a brief argument between the driver and the guard at the gate, the car stopped in front of the Officers Headquarters. General Rabbi Goren entered the headquarters with a frown on his face, and demanded that the officer report to him immediately.

   A few minutes later, the officer arrived with a smirk on his face. Rabbi Goren instantly gave the order: “Attention! Leave immediately, and come back the way a soldier is meant to appear before a General!” The smile disappeared from the officer’s face, he left the room in a panic, and stood at the doorway at attention. Rabbi Goren barked: “Left, right, left! Attention! Listen to me carefully, ‘segen mishuneh c’mocha’ (literally, ‘you strange lieutenant’, a play on words of the Hebrew word mishneh, meaning ‘second’, and ‘mishuneh’, meaning ‘weird’). You do not know to honor a General. Today, I’m going to teach you how a General who announces his arrival to an army base is meant to be greeted! You have fifteen minutes to prepare an honor guard at the gate of the base. I command that when I enter the base, I am escorted by an honor guard, until I reach the Officer’s Headquarters. At the headquarters will be waiting for me the division of soldiers from Chafetz Chaim, prepared for line-up. In the meantime, I am going check the kitchen. I brought along with me an officer from the Rabbinate, and he will give you all the instructions about koshering the kitchen. Do you have any questions, segen mishuneh?!” The officer, of course, had no questions, and ran to prepare both the honor guard at the gate of the base, and the division of soldiers from Chafetz Chaim for line-up in front of the headquarters.

   Fifteen minutes later, Rabbi Goren returned and re-entered the gates of the army base with an honor guard. When he arrived at the Officer’s Headquarters, he stood in front of the Nachal soldiers and said to them: “Shalom, soldiers! I came here to arrange the kashrut matters that have been utterly neglected. This is a serious offense in contradiction of General Staff regulations, and those responsible will be brought to account for it. I would like to point out that the ‘segen mishuneh’ who fills the role of commanding officer here, learned today how to greet a General, and I hope he’ll remember it. Shabbat Shalom.”

2. Nice start, now lets ban all Hilltop Youth from the Shomron