My 2 Sons: An IDF Paratrooper and a Yeshiva Student

By Rabbi Mendel Schwartz – Director of the Chai Center in Los Angeles

When I was 17 years old, my parents sent me to Brunoy, France for my 1st year of Yeshiva. I left home in September 1993. Since my folks weren’t able to afford an airline ticket and bring me back home for Pesach, they made a ticket on TWA Airlines all the way to Israel, with a stopover in France for 6 months.

When Pesach arrived in March of 1994, I flew to my cousins in Israel in Kiryat Malachi. This was a period in Israel when the tension and conflict between Jews and Arabs were very high. People were staying home and avoiding outdoor and dangerous areas as much as possible. 30 days prior was the “Chevron Purim Massacre.”

My father (Rabbi Shlomo Schwartz “Schwartzie” OBM) called me from Los Angeles to see if I arrived safe and sound, to which I replied yes. He asked me, “Did you go to the Kotel yet?” I said, “Things are pretty murky right now and nobody is going anywhere.” He said, “If you’re on the way to do a mitzvah, then nothing can happen to you. I want you first to travel to Hebron and pray at the cave of the matriarchs and patriarchs. We are Jewish, and you can’t be afraid of them.”

My cousins in sleepy town Kiryat Malachi urged me not to go. Of course, I obeyed my father and took an Egged bus the next day to the main bus station in Jerusalem, and from there I would take a bus to Hebron. When I arrived at the bus station in Jerusalem, I waited by the platform where the destination read “Hebron”. Sure enough, a few minutes later, a bulletproof bus rolls in and I board the bus with maybe 4 other people. One stop before Hebron is a small town called Kiryat Arba where I notice the 4 other passengers exiting the bus. Now it’s just me and the driver sitting on this bulletproof bus. As we pull out of Kiryat Arba and head to Chevron, I notice an Israeli army jeep with four soldiers pull up in front of the bus, and then another army jeep with four soldiers pull up in the rear of the bus as our escort. Each jeep had an M60 anchored to the back. At this point, I was truly petrified.

Five minutes later we arrive in Hebron and the driver yells “last stop”. I exit the bus, and I am now standing alone on a dirt road as the bus and the two jeeps leave. This is my first time in Israel, first time in Hebron, and I don’t even know where the cave of the matriarchs and patriarchs is located. I hear Arab music on the loudspeakers. I am not sure where to walk. All I can think of is, why would my father do this to me? I noticed a huge Turkish looking palace, the stones looking a bit similar to the western wall, and figured this must be it.

As I am walking the 200 meters to get to the entrance, I am feeling tingles in my back ready for a knife attack. Thank G-d this didn’t happen. I am now ascending the stairs to enter the cave of the matriarchs and patriarchs (In 1994 there were no security booths to enter), and to my relief, I noticed five paratroopers of the IDF standing guard. I of course had no idea where to walk once I entered, nor had I any idea where Adam & Eve were buried, or Avraham and Sarah were buried, or Yitzchok and Rivkah, and Yaakov and Leah.

Luckily, these soldiers were happy to have a visitor as there were no tourists for 30 days, and they showed me around.

It didn’t escape me how ironic it was to have secular soldiers without a Yarmulka, with little religious upbringing, giving a tour to a yeshiva student. Of course, I learned all about the founding fathers and mothers of Judaism, I studied the map and the division of the map of Israel during Joshua’s time, Dovid Hamelech’s time, and again during the aliyah with Daniel, Ezra, and Nechemia. I knew these subjects well. But I never walked on its soil. I never prayed at their burial plots. I had no idea which room belonged to Abraham and which to Isaac and which to Jacob had it not been for these paratroopers as my tour guides.

Last week, my oldest son Ari Schwartz also became a paratrooper. He trekked for days with his platoon of 35 soldiers. The training over the past 12 months was grueling and difficult. Many different treks of 35, 40, and 50 Kilometer jogs. The last jog with his entire battalion of 100 soldiers lasted 12 hours, carrying soldiers on stretchers, with his ankles duct-taped.

This culminated with a ceremony with all soldiers receiving their red beret. This ceremony is called a Masa Kumta and has many songs and traditions reserved exclusively for this ceremony once a year. He even received the highest honor possible at this ceremony of being gifted from the lead commanding officer his very own red beret that he wore over the past many years. In turn, my son will do the same if he chooses to become a commander and give this red beret to one deserving soldier.

My son was just notified that he will be deployed to Hebron with his platoon.

How Hashem works in beautiful ways. Now it is my son’s turn to stand guard at the cave of the matriarchs and patriarchs to help the next group of visitors feel safe, and of course act as security for the entire Jewish community in Hebron of 600 Jews amongst 90,000 Arabs. May G-d protect him.

My second son Mayshe Schwartz who is 17 years old is a real yeshiva boy. I’ll see him at the house on a Sunday night davening Maariv with his black hat and jacket. He’s the real deal. Last week he asked my wife and I that he would like to move into the dormitory of the Yeshiva. I told him we live a few blocks away from the yeshiva and I don’t see the point of him sleeping in the dorm. He responded that he’s missing a lot of the Chassidic gatherings at night and after class programs, and he feels it would be nicer for his yeshiva experience to be in the dorm.

How pleasant is the ways of G-d that in one week I have one son excelling with an untamed drive to succeed in the IDF; and the same week I have another son that’s not satiated with his day at the yeshiva ending at 8:45 PM, he wants to be even more entrenched in the Yeshiva walls and its atmosphere.

These two brothers are such beautiful friends to one another and so happy for the other’s success.

True unity and harmony are not when I finally get you to agree with me. Harmony is not getting you to compromise your belief or values and see things the way I do. That’s simply crushing anyone or thing or ideal that doesn’t fit in your box. This is the opposite of unity.

Harmony is when people have different paths, even excel in different paths, reach the very top of their roadmap, and yet are still happy for the other person and their life choices. When individuals with a different set of values, and possibly opposing values, come together, by recognizing a rainbow needs different colors the same way the Jewish ppl needed 12 tribes with 12 different priests, this is true harmony.

Nothing makes a child happier than their parents getting along and being happy. And nothing makes a parent happier than their children getting along and being happy.

May we all give our father in heaven happiness by living in true harmony with one another.