NCSY Alumni
Hi! I’m “Rabbi Dave” Felsenthal
Welcome to the NCSY Alumni website.
Since NCSY started 53 years ago, we figure over 300,000 people have gone to NCSY Shabbatons, Israel trips, after school programs or just hung out at an NCSY event.
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Rabbi Dave Felsenthal
Director NCSY Alumni
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Finding G-D in Gaza
FINDING GOD IN GAZA
By Rabbi Avi Berman
We arrived at 1400 hours. The military sentries, professional and courteous, checked our IDs and examined our jeep and its contents. We were cleared for entry, and given a military escort to the synagogue that stood in the center of the base. Our host, the military commander of the base, arrived at the synagogue about the same time we did. We shook hands and he greeted us warmly. We davened Mincha in the Golani infantry unit synagogue, and then we headed out to distribute almost two hundred pairs of tefillin.
Within a few moments, the word had gotten out (perhaps from the sentries who searched our car): there are pairs of tefillin on base, and the rabbis are helping wrap and recite berachot. It wasn’t long before a large crowd gathered, and for the next two hours we were surrounded by a stream of soldiers patiently waiting to receive their pair of tefillin.
As we stood there, passing out pairs of tefillin and giving the weary soldiers encouragement, one soldier took particular notice of the OU logo affixed to the tefillin’s packaging. He was wearing the typical “tzahal green” army fatigues, but he spoke with a distinctly American accent. I greeted him excitedly, and explained to him that I was there as a representative of the OU's “Spiritual Ammunition” campaign. He told me that his name was Yair Ben Yishai, that he hailed from Memphis, Tennessee and that he was an alumnus of NCSY. As a former NCSY Regional Director, I knew I was about to hear a good story. I could feel it.
Yair related that NCSY was seminal in helping him develop a deep love for Judaism, GOD, the Jewish people, and the State of Israel. He understood Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people both physically and spiritually, and decided that he could not sit back and let his brothers and sisters sacrifice themselves to defend his land. So he set out to Israel as soon as he could, made aliyah, and joined the army. His parents followed soon after.
As Yair and I discussed the indelible impact that NCSY had on his life, and specifically his decision to move to Israel, it was obvious that he continued to hold a special place for NCSY in his heart. I then asked him every Regional Director’s “million-dollar question”, “As an NCSY alumnus, a recent oleh (one who makes aliyah to Israel), and perhaps most relevantly, a soldier in the Israeli army fighting in Gaza, if there was one thing you could stress to the NCSYers today, what would it be? If you could pass along one message to the youth of America, what would be the most important thing you could tell them?”
Yair thought for a moment, and responded stoically, “What we can learn from war.”
I was blown away. I thought to myself: “That? Of all the things NCSY has taught you, of all the life experiences and situations that brought you to this point today, the most important message you could possibly pass onto the next generation of teens is “what we can learn from war?” I was dumbfounded. Seeing the obvious confusion on my face, Yair proceeded to explain.
“As powerful as an NCSY Shabbaton can be, it cannot compare with what happened in there.” In there, of course, referred to Gaza, which was only a few yards away. I could see that he was accessing an emotional place in his mind, and I stood anxious and excited to soak up his important message to relay it to the teens of NCSY.
He told me a story about one time when his unit captured a house in Gaza. As they had practiced hundreds of times, whenever his battalion approached a house, each person is assigned a different location in order to most efficiently protect everyone involved. It was a well calculated maneuver, and if just one person was out of place, all of their lives would be in danger. In this particular instance, one soldier, a friend, was instructed to sandbag a window. This standard procedure was an integral piece of the mission because it blocked the entire window except for a small portion through which one can look. The consequence of this sandbagging was to protect everyone inside the house from gunfire and debris, while enabling the soldiers inside to monitor what was going on outside. This soldier was to stand guard at the window and was instructed – just as every other soldier was – to stay put.
“But what does an Israeli soldier in Gaza do while standing next to a sandbagged window for hours at a time?” asked Yair rhetorically. “He prays” was his matter-of-fact response. “He says some Tehillim (Psalms) and prays for the welfare of all the soldiers of Israel.”
After this particular soldier was done reciting his prayers, he wanted to place his Tehillim (Psalms) back in the box so that others would have the chance to use it as well. The problem was, however, that he was positioned by the window, and the box was several feet away. He struggled internally for a few minutes debating whether to abandon his post, and he eventually reasoned with himself that since it was only a few feet away, he would barely be away from his post; what could happen in those three seconds?
At the exact moment that Yair's fellow soldier was placing the Tehillim back in the box, a mere three feet from his assigned post, an RPG (anti-tank) missile, exploded in the very place where he had been standing only seconds earlier. “It exploded right before our very eyes!” recalled Yair, in a passionate voice. “Do you know what an experience like that does to a person?!” “Do you know what it's like to witness the Hand of God with your very own eyes?” Yair pleaded in an intense and pure voice. “That is why there is no message that is more important for those kids than to realize what we can learn from war. It changes your life in a way that nothing else in this world can.”
And that was why the OU was at this army base. Not just Yair's base specifically, but every army base we could get to. Stories like this happen every single day on every base across Israel. We were there to pass out pairs of tefillin to soldiers who were accustomed to going without. We were there visiting soldiers who were inspired by what they had seen, but had no way to connect to God because they simply didn’t know how. We passed out tefillin, tzitzit and kipot because, as Yair knew all too well, “God opens a relationship with these soldiers on the battlefield and the OU had an opportunity to cement the relationship through Torah and mitzvot. “You can simply feel His Presence with us all the time. In the army, you see people who never believed before, and now they're coming to shul. People in my unit who never thought anything about emunah (belief in God) are suddenly wearing tzitzit.” Yair said proudly, “I used to wonder how many soldiers would lose that relationship with God once the war was over. Through your tefillin, tzizit, kippot, siddurim, and the like, you and the OU are giving them a way to hold on to it."
Indeed we were. We passed out 177 pairs of tefillin that day that were purchased for $53,000 with funds raised by Beth Jacob Congregation in Beverly Hills. For many soldiers, this war has intensified their search for a spiritual connection. Looking for an outlet to express this yearning, they want to put on tefillin, don tzitzit, say a chapter of tehillim, or open a siddur. And the OU has been there helping the IDF provide moral support and spiritual guidance to the soldiers.
"The IDF arms the soldiers with their military weaponry; the OU's mission is to arm them with spiritual ammunition as they put their lives at risk," said OU Executive Vice President Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb.
Yair, the Memphis NCSYer, concluded, “Every unit in Israel experiences the hand of
God. This, is what we can learn from war. NCSY made GOD an integral part of my life, but three weeks in Gaza have reinforced my relationship with Him like nothing else ever could."
Rabbi Avi Berman is Director- General of OU Israel with headquarters in Jerusalem.