I have mentioned before how one of the most basic values emphasized relentlessly throughout our training course was re’ut: friendship, comradeship, unity. At first, we were told that this stress on re’ut reflected the personal ethos of our company commander. Only later did we realize that this was no local quirk. Re’ut is a foundational army value, common to all units, battalions, and brigades. United we stand; divided we fall.
How could it be that an entire platoon passed by an abandoned canteen without ensuring that it found its way back to the soldier who needed it?
This value was often emphasized in unexpected ways. When the platoon was punished for some infraction, the commanders would sometimes set aside the specific offense and focus instead on re’ut. Leaving behind a water canteen was, of course, a problem — but the deeper question was this: how could it be that an entire platoon passed by an abandoned canteen without ensuring that it found its way back to the soldier who needed it? The failure, they insisted, was not logistical but moral. It was a failure of re’ut.
At one point, I came to experience the meaning of this value quite literally — on my own skin.
The Missing Rifle
The sleeping arrangements during our shavua sada’ut (field week) were, to put it mildly, sub-optimal. Three of us shared a tiny tent, its opening unzipped to allow our legs to protrude awkwardly into the cold night air. Comfort was not part of the plan.
Between surprise nighttime drills and rotating watch duty — patrolling the camp or guarding its perimeter — we were rarely afforded uninterrupted sleep. Every shift required full gear: weapon, vest, helmet, communications device. I have no real sense of how likely hostile infiltration actually was; we were told of nearby Bedouin settlements, and that was enough to ensure we took the task seriously.
When my turn came, I woke dutifully, put on my gear, completed my hour-long patrol, and returned to camp. Before crawling back into the tent, I woke three fellow soldiers I had promised to rouse for their own shifts. Only then did I remove my equipment, slide into the narrow space between my tent-mates, and fall back asleep almost instantly.
At daybreak, I was jolted awake. Instinctively, before reaching for my kippah or my glasses, my hand searched for the rifle I had placed beside me.
I froze. I groped left and right, checked again, and then again. Nothing. Outside the tent, I spotted my vest and helmet neatly folded atop my duffel bag. But the rifle — my rifle — was gone.
It wasn’t there.
I froze. I groped left and right, checked again, and then again. Nothing. Outside the tent, I spotted my vest and helmet neatly folded atop my duffel bag. But the rifle — my rifle — was gone.
My thoughts raced. Had one of the commanders “stolen” it from during a night raid I missed? Had I left it outside the tent, exposed to anyone who might pass by? Of all the equipment one might misplace — canteens, helmets, even the little chamber flag (mek porek) — had I managed to lose the one item you are absolutely never allowed to lose? And what kind of punishment awaited me now?
Swallowing embarrassment and trying to sound calm, I turned to one of my groggy tent-mates. “Did you happen to see a rifle around the tent?”
“Yes,” Shmuel replied casually. “When I stepped out for guard duty, I saw an M16 lying outside. I figured someone had forgotten it, so I kept it with me for safekeeping.”
He reached to the far side of the tent and handed it to me. I checked the serial number. It was mine.
I thanked him, slung the rifle around my neck, and prepared for morning formation with two thoughts in mind. The first, obviously, was my own negligence. The second was erech ha-re’ut — the value of comradeship. Over the course of weeks, it had become so natural, so taken for granted, that I had almost forgotten how much it mattered. And yet, in that moment, it had quite literally saved me.
Between Re’ut and Slavery
Re’ut is not a modern invention. It is, in fact, one of the Torah’s most fundamental ideas — one that captures the deep transformation Judaism seeks to bring into the world.
The Torah presents Egypt, the crucible in which the Jewish people were forged, as a beit avadim, a “house of bondage.” This phrase refers not only to the enslavement of Israel under Pharaoh, but to something more pervasive. Egypt, the imperial superpower of its time, embodied a worldview structured around domination and subjugation. Indeed, under Yosef’s administration, the entire Egyptian population ultimately became enslaved to Pharaoh — an outcome that reveals something essential about the relational logic of that civilization.
In ancient Egypt, slavery and idolatry went hand in hand. Both were expressions of a fundamentally transactional worldview.
The ideal idol is immensely powerful, yet remains dependent: it needs an offering, some local ritual. From this theology flows a social order structured in the same way
Idolatrous theology is transactional at its core. I serve the god; the god serves me in return — granting fertility, wealth, power, protection. The ideal idol is immensely powerful, yet remains dependent: it needs an offering, some local ritual. From this theology flows a social order structured in the same way. Relationships are transactions. There are only three stable possibilities: I enslave you (the best outcome), you enslave me (the worst), or we enslave one another.
Judaism is born out of a radical rejection of this model. To leave Egypt is to leave not only physical slavery, but the very idea that relationships are built on domination or exchange. The God of Israel lacks nothing; His relationship with humanity is therefore not transactional but covenantal, grounded in divine goodness, generosity, and love. Even His demands — fear of God, love of God, obedience to mitzvot — are framed explicitly as “for your good” (Devarim 10:13).
So too with human relationships. The Torah does not imagine society as a web of contracts that bind us, but as a network of covenants that free us. Alongside fraternity, the Torah’s primary relational term is re’a — friend. “Love your re’a as yourself” (Vayikra 19:18) is not sentimental advice; it is a blueprint for a non-slave society. Re’ut is the Torah’s alternative to Egypt.
Re’ut and Army Service
At the heart of re’ut lies one defining quality: trust.
This is the trait that characterizes Yehuda’s friend — re’ehu ha’adulami — in Bereishit 38. It is the expectation that when a person falters, another will step forward; that vulnerability will be met with reliability rather than exploitation.
Transactional relationships, human connections that tend toward slavery, cannot sustain trust. Betrayal is always a built-in option (what modern contracts politely call “efficient breach”). Covenant, by contrast, demands faithfulness. It requires the willingness to place oneself in another’s hands.
There is no environment — truly none — where this trust is cultivated more intensely than in the army. In my case, it was a rifle. For others, it is their very lives. Soldiers entrust themselves to their commanders, and to one another, in situations where failure is not theoretical but fatal.
That is the re’ut of army service. And that is the re’ut that army service creates.
As the IDF ethical code puts it: “Re’ut — The soldier shall act with fraternity and devotion toward fellow service members, and shall always come to their aid when they are in need or dependent upon him, despite any danger or hardship — even at the risk of one’s life.”
This is not merely an operational principle. It is a moral one. And in a deep sense, it is profoundly Jewish.
In the picture: Our three-man tents during field week.
Awesome article! What a great Dvar Torah for a Sheva Brachos !