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"Why did you take the guys out all night in the pouring rain?" I asked Avi Sampson, an elite-unit soldier who serves as a counselor and educator at Bet El's Israel Defense Forces Preparatory Academy.
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| Anything for the IDF! |
"What do you mean? We had been waiting for a night of torrential rains to get them working together in tough conditions," he replied not understanding my question.
So be it. I present below a short video of this insane, all-night exercise, in which the students hauled stretchers weighted down with sandbags through the Jerusalem hills ending at the Binyanei HaUmah convention center in the pouring rain. They crawl in rivers of rainwater and can't let down the stretchers, even during Avi's closing speech.
Count me out of this one. Enjoy:
The students, mostly from Sephardic and Ethiopian homes, come with little motivation to serve in the IDF or do anything but party for that matter. In the course of their 15 months in Bet El, they tap into their own potential, begin to invest in achieving, and come out having broadened their knowledge of Judaism, Zionism, and themselves.
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I think it's fantastic! These boys need to learn how to be tough as nails, it's character building, and makes them grateful for the better times in their lives, not to mention makes them better prepared if facing that scenario in the future. Our God did say "be prepared". The only way to know true compassion, and have a heart for justice, is if you know what it is to be beaten down, and rung through the mud. Just as long as the lesson being taught to them isn't just about keeping the stretchers up, but having compassion for those suffering in the stretchers. You cant comfort those who are hurting, if you've never been hurt yourself.
ReplyDeleteTo the young men of the prep academy:
ReplyDeleteLive and be well, ad 120. And THANK YOU!
From Am Yisroel