[Avodah] [Areivim] chareidi soldiers in zahal

[Liron Kopinsky]

Not sure if this is for Avodah or Areivim, so I'm sending it to both.

>From Areivim:
"Yesterday on Galei Tzahal, a soldier who served in the Nachal Chareidi
spoke about his service. He mentioned three incidents in which he and
his buddies needed to call a rav. 1) They were to protect some citizens
on Shabbat who were doing some Chillul Shabbat (they were told that they
would be doing this on Friday). 2) They were searching for a terrorist
in the Beqqa on Tisha B'av and the officer, after several hours in the
field, ordered them to drink 3) They had to get on a helicopter to
pursue a terrorist and upon getting in they saw that the pilot was a woman.

In the first they consulted with Rav Elyashiv who told them to refuse.
>
Presumably there are other, non-frum soldiers, who would have been able to
take over the watch, and R' Elyashiv felt it was important to not actively
enable Chillul Shabbos. There is a big difference between protecting people
who are mechallel shabbos and actually providing those people with the
ability to do so.


> In the second they consulted with some rav who told them that it was OK to
> drink
>
I'm surprised this is even a shaila at all. Why weren't they drinking all
day? It would make sense to me that soldiers doing active operations would
be required to drink and eat. I would even be unsurprised if soldiers who
were "on-call" and not in the middle of actual operations were allowed to
eat and drink.


> and in the third the officer forced them to get on board and didn't give
> them a chance to call."
>
I echo RJK's request for someone who actually served to pipe in here, as
I'm confused. On the one hand, the army seems to have failed their
obligations to these soldiers by not providing them a male pilot. This is
an issue which needs to be taken up with the army after the fact. But if
you are actively chasing a terrorist, and every second is precious, why
would there even be a question as to whether you should ask a shaila at the
moment?


> RJK wrote:
>
I am sure that all of the armchair soldiers sitting comfortably thousands
> of miles away have opinions about the issues raised by this.  But what I'm
> interested in is the opinions of those on this list who have served, or are
> still serving,  in the IDF.  Help me out, please.
>

-- 
Liron Kopinsky
liron.kopinsky at gmail.com
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