About a month ago, the late Walnut officer Itamar Elharar was killed during a report incident in Nabi Musa, during which a member of the unit, the late Major Ofek Aharon, was also killed.
Yesterday, a memorial service was held in memory of Elharar at his family’s home in Moshav Bnei Ram. During the memorial service, Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu said that the late Itamar asked him various halakhic questions during the last months of his life. Rabbi Eliyahu chose to tell a special story about the soldier who happened on one of the occasions he asked him a halakhic question about Shabbat.
“I am a lieutenant colonel in the Golan Heights, and recently because of the demonstrations that take place on Fridays in the Gaza Strip near the fence, I was forced to return to the post once every two weeks on my way out of the house on Friday morning. Am I allowed to drive back home on Friday night? Or I have to stay until Saturday night. “
A lieutenant colonel is a deputy commander of a company whose job is to be in charge with the lieutenant colonel of a complete company consisting of several battalions. Hundreds of soldiers who are at the front on the border line in front of the rioters who are trying to burn our fields, fire missiles at Sderot and Tel Aviv. On Tel Aviv and on Jerusalem and the airport in Lod, to kill us and our children and disrupt the routine of our lives.
These soldiers are on an impossible front, on the one hand there are those who bind their hands. Yet they are fighting with dedication because they know that without them the terrorist organizations from Gaza would be as cruel to the citizens of Israel as they are to their brothers and more.
When I was asked this question I was shocked. I remembered my father, Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu Zatzokal, that when he received such questions he was all upset and turned to Gd in the defense and said: Look at your people. Look at these soldiers. They are endangering their lives, and want to keep your commandments neatly. More such soldiers in the world?
Anyone who has ever heard the late Rabbi Eliyahu recount these conversations can never forget them. These were his most moving moments. Something that can arouse pity for Israel like this incense.
As you may recall, about two weeks ago, a fatal training accident occurred at the Nabi Musa training base in the Jordan Valley when officers from a special unit in the commando brigade completed training and went on patrol around the camp. The two officers identified a suspicious figure and opened fire on her in a suspicious arrest procedure, and even fired into the air. But the identification turned out to be a mistake, and a soldier opened fire on them after he thought they were terrorists. One of the officers is the late Major Itamar Elharar