“Ani mavtiach lach, yaldah sheli ketanah…”

As some of you probably know, the title comes from Yehoram Gaon’s haunting Yom Kippur War song, “HaMilchamah HaAchronah.”

(An English translation of the lyrics is available at: "http://www.hebrewsongs.com/song-hamilchamaha". )

This song came to mind this morning.

You see, late last night, yet another family friend was called up. This prompted a whole barrage (bad choice of words, I know) of questions from TSG: Why was he called up? Why now? Why does the army need more soldiers? Aren’t there enough soldiers already? How come some people don’t need to go to miluim? How come in America people don’t go to the army?

I tried to field her questions as best as I could.

But then came the clincher.

“But will [the CTO] need to go to the army?” she inquired.

“Yes,” I replied, without mentioning his tzav rishon.

She thought about this for a minute.

“Right it’s a little bit scary?” she asked, somewhat rhetorically.

I nodded.

“Three Jewish chayalim were in a house, and there were Arabs shooting rockets, and the Jewish chayalim died,” she reported.

“It’s very sad,” I told her.

I wondered how she knew this bit of information.

“[My teacher] tells us stories about the war every morning,” she explained. “Sometimes, we don’t start davening for a while, because she’s so busy telling us stories.”

TSG, may your teacher soon be able to go back to telling you happier stories, and may Hashem protect and watch over all our chayalim and over all of Am Yisrael.

ופרוש עלינו סכת שלומך ותקננו בעצה טובה מלפניך והושיענו למען שמך והגן בעדנו והסר מעלינו אויב דבר וחרב ורעב ויגון והסר שטן מלפנינו ומאחורינו ובצל כנפיך תסתירינו

(From the weekday maariv prayer)