{"id":56017,"date":"2017-03-06T15:03:33","date_gmt":"2017-03-06T20:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=56017"},"modified":"2017-03-19T05:14:27","modified_gmt":"2017-03-19T10:14:27","slug":"my-national-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/my-national-service\/","title":{"rendered":"My National Service"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three o\u2019clock on a winter Friday afternoon, with a four-month-old baby in my left hand, I am tacking olive-green fatigues onto a laundry line with my right. My husband needs these uniforms dry in time to pack Saturday night because he\u2019ll be davening at neitz<\/i> on Sunday before leaving at seven AM for another long week on the base. The double-batch of chocolate cookies I baked Thursday night is already divided between the two-liter container going to the army with my husband, a plateful for Shabbos dessert, and the end of the raw dough, wrapped in a plastic bag, hidden in the freezer door for me to nibble those nights when by eleven o\u2019clock, after finally getting the baby to sleep and not getting through to my husband on the phone, I realize that I didn\u2019t have a single adult conversation all day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many religious girls in Israel opt to spend the year after high school doing sherut leumi,<\/i> national service, volunteering in a school, hospital, or non-profit organization before starting college. This is their way of doing something for the country even though they don\u2019t want to serve in the army for religious reasons. They can be identified on public buses carrying oversized backpacks, filled on Sunday mornings with home-cooked leftovers and Thursday afternoons with a week\u2019s worth of dirty laundry. I also received an exemption from the army when I made Aliyah by myself at the age of nineteen. However, since I was already in the middle of college, I didn\u2019t take a year off to do volunteer work. At the end of my last year of studying, I got engaged to a young man who was studying in yeshiva and planning to do six months of army service at some point in the future. \u201cNot in the first year we\u2019re married,\u201d he assured me. \u201cShana<\/i> rishona<\/i>, I\u2019ll be home.\u201d True to his word, he enlisted in an artillery unit one week after our first anniversary, the same week I was supposed to go back to teaching after maternity leave for our firstborn. Overwhelmed by so many changes at once, I took the rest of the year off to be with the baby. This was my \u201cNational Service.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Spending six months as a single mom for the sake of the nation, you might argue, doesn\u2019t add up to a full year of National Service. Of course not. That\u2019s why there is miluim.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

The frequency and duration of my husband\u2019s stints of reserve duty have varied over the past seven years, but they average about twice a year, for about a week at a time. Thankfully, he has never been called up to serve in a battle. During the last \u201cmilitary operation\u201d (which we laymen call a war), in the summer of 2014, I was bouncing on a giant, rubber, exercise ball in a waiting room in Shaarei Tzedek Hospital, timing the duration of contractions, when my husband quipped, \u201cWhat if I got a tzav shmoneh <\/i>(call-up) now?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNot funny,\u201d I hissed.<\/span><\/p>\n

In truth, what our nation probably needs the most is good, strong, Jewish mothers. Throughout history, Jewish women have come through in difficult times. In the merit of righteous women, Bnei Yisrael were redeemed from Egypt. A week home alone with one, or three, or five kids forces me to push myself to my personal limits and be the best mother I can be. When I can\u2019t rely on my husband\u2019s help, I know who I really am as a mother, for better or for worse. <\/span><\/p>\n

My worst mothering moment ever occurred when my husband was in miluim<\/i>. My oldest, at age three, convinced me to give him hot chocolate in a real mug because after spending three nights with both of us hardly sleeping because his cold kept waking him, I didn\u2019t have the energy to argue anymore that kids drink from plastic cups. When the hot mug smashed onto the floor, brown puddle mixed with broken ceramic spreading under the table and towards the high chair where my one-year-old was kvetching, I completely lost it. I was screaming as I reached for a squeegee to clean up, and tear were streaming down everyone\u2019s faces.<\/span><\/p>\n

I must have learned something since then because last Chanukah, I took five kids, ranging in age from three months to eight years, by bus and train, to the Jerusalem zoo.\u00a0 <\/span>When my two-year-old threw up on the bus, I simply wiped her up as well as I could and bought her a new outfit near the Central Bus Station in Jerusalem. We had a great day!<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the past eight years, we\u2019ve done close to forty weeks of army duty. By the time my husband is exempt from the reserves, I\u2019ll have done my year of National Service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Three o\u2019clock on a winter Friday afternoon, with a four-month-old baby in my left hand, I am tacking olive-green fatigues onto a laundry line with my right. 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