One question returns again and again when people ask about my army experience — a question that concerns the IDF’s rigid hierarchy. “How did it feel,” they ask, “to take orders from twenty-year-olds? Didn’t it feel uncomfortable?” Reasonable questions, to which this chapter is dedicated.
Orders from Twenty-Year-Olds
First, the simple reality. Our squad commanders were, indeed, “kids of twenty.” They were trained fighters from Home Front Command battalions who had already completed the sergeants’ course, all of them mere months away from discharge. I will confess that it moved me to watch them demonstrate the various firing positions, clearing weapon jams, and basic battle drills. They could perform each maneuver with effortless mastery — like virtuosos.
Like the senior officers, they were not Liron and Yonatan. Even at their age, they were Commander Liron and Commander Yonatan
But in addition to the example they set, they were our commanders. Like the senior officers, they were not Liron and Yonatan. Even at their age, they were Commander Liron and Commander Yonatan.
My own squad commander, A., was a young, kippah-wearing soldier — pleasant, serious, and above all, a consummate professional. He decided that although this was a Stage-B training program for older recruits, our squad would learn what it truly means to be soldiers in the IDF, until we became a model for the entire platoon. He decided — and delivered. (He later received the program’s “Outstanding Commander” award.)
One evening, early in training, we spent an hour and a half practicing the chet-formation — a precise Hebrew-letter formation consisting of one long line and two short equal lines. Not only the general formation needed to be perfect; our individual stance had to be flawless: taut, unmoving, no shifting or whispering, back straight, chin up, hands clasped behind the back in a diamond shape, complete silence.
Even our canteens — at first personal items, later standardized IDF issue — had rules: pressed flush against the tongue of the left boot. No gap. No movement.
It took us countless attempts to achieve the required standard, and each failure came with a price: taking out our watches, setting a time, and running around the building (or touching some far-off object) before reassembling. Again and again and again. Sometimes the penalty was dropping into “Position Two” — the starting position of push-ups — depending on the offense. Before each attempt, we had to “receive the commander”: counting down from ten to one and snapping to attention.
Until, finally, it clicked.
I smile now at the satisfaction we felt when the commander looked at us with quiet pride, remarked that “now you look like soldiers,” and ordered us to change into dress uniforms and return to the chet-formation within eight minutes.
The IDF’s Bittul Doctrine
Over time, I believe we did become the best squad — my biased opinion, of course. We took the whole enterprise seriously, no small feat for a group of men in their thirties and forties. It would have been easy to treat basic training as a brief game of soldiering, an exercise we would soon be done with. But that was not our way. Time was time; a task was a task; “yes, commander” meant “yes, commander!!”
In other words, we became soldiers. And what is a soldier? A soldier is one who follows orders, executes missions, and keeps to the clock — regardless of whether his commander is fifty, thirty, or eighteen. If he is the commander, then the soldier obeys. Without hesitation, without complaint, without second-guessing. Even our free time was given by command. Even davening Mincha.
Until enlistment, you may be a person of importance — a father, a teacher, a rabbi, a CEO. After enlistment, you enter a parallel universe in which there is only one thing that matters: becoming part of a greater whole and adhering to its rules and regulations
I am no expert in the Hasidic literature of bittul — the self-nullification of the individual before something greater — though it is practiced in varying forms across communities. But the army certainly taught me something of this experience: the dissolution of the private self into a larger collective.
Until enlistment, you may be a person of importance — a father, a teacher, a rabbi, a CEO. After enlistment, you enter a parallel universe in which there is only one thing that matters: becoming part of a greater whole and adhering to its rules and regulations.
You can find similar experiences in other armies across the world, and echoes of it exist in other frameworks too — youth movements, a Hasidic tisch, a political activists’ convention. But the essence is not the institution but the inner posture, not the conformism per se but its mental framing.
In joining the army, I relinquished my selfhood to the army of the Jewish people, to a force whose purpose is defending Am Yisrael and fighting those who seek our harm. I nullified myself into a renewed embodiment of that ancient collective counted in the wilderness — “kol yotzei tzava be-Yisrael” — every member of Israel’s fighting host.
For a typical Haredi individual, submitting to external authority is not simple. Even the authority of a Rosh Yeshiva is frequently questioned and seldom expressed through rigid command; the yeshiva culture does not cultivate obedience. This is all the truer when the authority is non-religious and non-Haredi.
But I suspect the reason I did not experience difficulty submitting to my youthful commanders is that I enlisted for that very purpose: to be a soldier, to join the great national enterprise, to experience the bittul idea in the context of the IDF. Unlike so many eighteen-year-olds, I made the conscious choice to join the army. A second reason — if I am honest — is that I knew from the outset that the whole ordeal would only last one month.
On one hand, the army-ordained bittul is deeply humbling: I am merely a part, a cog in the machine, ready for whatever mission comes. On the other, it yields pride: I am part of something immense, part of Hashem army — a status that elevates and ennobles me. I am far more than I was before.
The Privilege of Serving in the IDF
One evening, sitting on the grass with the platoon, our lieutenant asked each of us: “Why did you come to the army?” There were several answers, but one surprised me in its repetition: “I wanted to feel part of Am Yisrael.” Must one wear army uniform to feel that?
I did not seek clarification, but over time I think I understood. The intent was the same bittul I have been describing. Of course, we are part of Am Yisrael outside the army. But nowhere else does one experience so completely the erasure of the individual before the collective — the total devotion of one’s being to the continued existence of the Jewish people and the fulfillment of Israel’s ancient hope.
Of course, we are part of Am Yisrael outside the army. But nowhere else does one experience so completely the erasure of the individual before the collective
I once saw a memorial sticker for Sgan (Lieutenant) Pedayah Menachem Mark, Hy”d — a Givati commando who fell on 16 Cheshvan 5784 (31.10.2023) when an anti-tank missile struck his APC in northern Gaza. The sticker quoted a line from his notebook: “Master of the Universe: Thank You for the privilege of serving in the IDF — a privilege for which generations longed, and which we have merited.”
Yes — receiving orders from twenty-year-olds is, admittedly, a strange experience. At the end of our training course, they even “apologized” to us, acknowledging it had not been simple for them either. But for me, it was a core part of becoming a soldier.
I remember running around some building with my platoon, rushing back to form up for the flag drill (which we had probably failed to complete on time), and thinking to myself words not unlike Pedayah’s: “Generations longed for the privilege of serving in the IDF — and here we are, meriting it.”
Awesome ! think about Bitulin Avos means nullifying ones own will to do Ratzon HaBoreh and the many sugyos using the sevarah of Bitul to nullify a minority whereby that which is Mvutal ceases to have AC n independent existence .