There are moments in military service when the body is asked questions the mind has never learned to ask. Not questions of ideology or conviction, but of endurance, presence, and limits: How far can you go? How long can you hold? What happens when what you have is no longer enough?
Our training included what the army calls shda’ut week—a period of field exercises meant to strip life down to its essentials. Open terrain. Minimal gear. Nights under the sky. Guard duty, movement and navigation, camouflage and concealment, basic combat drills, and the quiet intimacy of combat rations. No comforts, few distractions—just bodies, will, and the demand to continue.
Just as our beret march fell short of forty kilometers, so too the sada’ut week was not a full week, and it certainly included a number of accommodations compared to a regular basic training cycle. Still, it pushed us. A few in the platoon were accustomed to camping; for most of us, this was our first experience sleeping outdoors—and at a relatively advanced age.
The small tents were shared by three soldiers. Anyone who changed into pajamas on the first night quickly regretted it: surprise nighttime wake-ups taught us that it was wiser to sleep fully dressed, boots included. Phones, too, were strictly confiscated, and we were separated from them for an unusually long stretch. Remarkably, my community seemed to manage just fine without the rabbi being immediately available. My wife took note.
I will spare the reader the long inventory of stories accumulated during those days. I imagine they were not so different from those of ordinary recruits—just a slightly ‘older’ version. Instead, I want to focus on one element of the experience: acts.
Acts
“Acts” are not punishments; we hadn’t done anything wrong. As far as I could tell, they are exercises meant to push soldiers to their limits, while highlighting different skills: teamwork and cohesion (once again emphasizing re’ut, comradeship), leadership, absolute obedience even under strain or perceived unfairness, and competition—the kind that draws the maximum out of each person.
They certainly stretched us.
The first act was titled “To me!” At the command, we had to crawl dozens of meters through the dirt—the soil of our land, the commanders emphasized—until crossing the commander’s line. Once we had somehow completed it, we were ordered back to the starting point. The same opening speech was delivered again, word for word, followed by the same command: “To me!” And then again.
Only the third time—when we were aching, exhausted, and our throats filled with dust—did we finally listen to the opening words. The speech spoke not only of strength, but of unity: we must crawl with all our strength, but also remain together, keep a single line, and help anyone who struggles. I myself was carrying an injury—an abdominal muscle torn during an earlier exercise—so I was hardly at my best. Still, somehow, I finished the act with everyone else.
As we trembled from exertion, the commander recited the opening lines of the children’s book The Lion Who Loved Strawberries, and we had to guess how many words the story contained
A thin line separates pushing to the limit from outright abuse. During one nighttime alert, we were awakened by commanders shouting, simulating a terrorist attack on the camp, and ordered to relocate the entire camp—tents, weapons, personal gear, everything—immediately. It was chaos. Belongings were lost, tents collapsed, we ran without knowing where we were going, and confusion reigned.
Another night, we went through the infamous “bride-and-groom” drill: holding our long, heavy rifles overhead, linked together into a continuous chain. This time, there was a twist. As we trembled from exertion, the commander recited the opening lines of the children’s book The Lion Who Loved Strawberries, and we had to guess how many words the story contained. Every incorrect guess—and there were many—earned us another round. Maddening.
From that night on, jokes about strawberries (and lions who loved them) became standard platoon fare.
There were other exercises as well, some more operational in nature, others less so. Inevitably, as we carried them out, I found myself wondering: what exactly are we doing here? What is the point?
The Capacity for More
Several answers could work. One is deeper internalization of discipline and obedience. Another is practicing coordination and cooperation. And yes—perhaps above all—group cohesion and the breaking down of individuality. Sleeping next to (the word hardly does it justice) two other soldiers in a tiny tent certainly contributed to that goal.
There was another contribution to these grueling exercises: teaching us that we are capable of more—more than we thought, more than we imagined
But to my mind, there was another contribution to these grueling exercises: teaching us that we are capable of more—more than we thought, more than we imagined.
From our debriefing conversations, I gathered that this was very much the commanders’ intention: to instill a sense of capability, of breaking ceilings and crossing limits. Throughout the training, they shared personal stories of accomplishing missions that had once seemed impossible.
In one conversation with a soldier from a regular battalion in the Search and Rescue Brigade—he was in the middle of a squad commanders’ course—I asked how the women soldiers manage the demanding tasks, and whether the same physical standards are expected of them. He answered that the requirements are identical. In some exercises, such as carrying a stretcher, most of the load falls on the men. But overall—even in the most punishing acts—the women rise to the challenge. “They may burst into tears halfway through the crawl,” he said, “but in the end, they finish.”
That is more or less how I felt. There were things I never imagined I could do—carry out, endure, complete. And yet, apparently, we really are capable of more than we think. It is a vital message for operational readiness. And for life itself.
Human Being—Me’od (Very)
The Sages taught that the letters of adam—the human being—are the same as those of me’od, “very”: “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good—this refers to the human being” (Bereishit Rabba 9:12).
Creation as a whole is called good. The human being alone is called very good. Not because we are finished products, but because we contain excess—reserve strength, latent capacity, a hidden margin beyond what we know of ourselves. The me’od within us is that surplus.
I once heard a mashgiach speak of this truth in spiritual terms. But it is no less real in the physical realm. When the body is pressed, when comfort is removed, when fatigue speaks louder than reason, something else answers. A deeper layer. An inner “more.”
Military service has a way of uncovering it. Of reminding us—sometimes painfully, sometimes quietly—that we are not merely what we see, not merely what we expect. We are adam: beings of me’od. More than we have. More than we think.
In the picture: our shavua sada’ut
Awesome article !
Good gracious Rav Pfeffer – what an ordeal! And well done for surviving it and still managing to draw religious and philosophical meanings from it all.