It is early in the morning, and the two other girls are asleep. Seven girls in the same room…. I cannot turn on the light, so I put on my uniform and read the words of the siddur very slowly and quietly. When I finish, I leave the room and go to my office.
I am in army intelligence, so I cannot tell you what I really do… (then I’d have to kill you…) But I can tell you this—I attended a three-year program at Midreshet Lindenbaum in Jerusalem— one year in the beit midrash, and two years in IDF Intelligence.
This program is called Hadas (in English, “myrtle”). We were eight girls altogether in this program, and we called ourselves “garin Hadas,” (the word “garin” in Hebrew means both “group” and “seed,” a reference to the camaraderie and the growth that we experienced through the program). Together we learned Torah, Gemara and Judaism in the midrasha. Together we did our army training, together we served on the same base and together we obtained our discharge from the army.
It is a weird position to be in: a modern Orthodox woman in the I.D.F. The fact is that most religious girls in Israel do not go to army service. Most of my unit was not religious. Most of the religious people in the army are not female.
When we reached our army base for the first time, all the girls of the garin went to the synagogue. In the army synagogue, there were three seats in the ezrat nashim (ladies section). Three. But we, the garin, were eight girls. How were we supposed to pray there?
I asked my captain what to do. She told me to talk to the army rabbi. And so we did. We asked him to make the section larger. And so he did…after six months!
But not all was dark. Most of the time, the combination of serving in the army and being religious was an interesting one. My secular friends were interested in my way of life, my opinions and so on. With one very close friend of mine, an officer, I had a havruta (regular learning session), and during my army service we learned Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) together. For him, it was the first (but I hope not the last) encounter with traditional learning of the Tanakh. For me, it was a different point of view.
In general, when I look back at those three years, I feel very proud. The midrasha gave me a chance to get to know the world of the Torah better, and to strengthen the side of me that loves Judaism. And the army gave me a chance to learn more about the outside world, as well as a new side of myself. Those two qualities-Torah and Avodah (work) are what I believe are the stepping-stones to a tolerant and accessible Judaism. The courage to be exposed to new opinions, to know people with different lifestyles, to open myself up, and to bring to life the phrase from the book of Proverbs–“עץ חים היא”–“[The Torah] is a living tree…”