September 30, 2023:

A young woman with long, chestnut-brown hair and gleaming hazel eyes sits with her father on their porch. Shabbat morning is their favorite time together. He sips his black coffee, and she tells him all about the last two weeks since she’s been home. She tells him how hot it was in the field, why she suspects her commander is starting to like her more, and how the girl who sleeps in the bunk above her put her favorite chocolate bar from the canteen on her pillow one night just to make her smile. Her father has heard about his daughter’s new friend before. He remembers his daughter telling him how the girl cried for the first two weeks of basic training, and he is proud, he realizes, of a young soldier he has never met, for how far she’s come.

The father splits sunflower seeds between his front teeth, and the two of them make fun of the amount of oil the army uses in its “food.” She giggles when he tells her that he still has an oily film on the top of his mouth from 1993, and he relishes the sound of her laughter and the warm sun on his face.

“Abba,” she starts, and something in her tone makes him sit up and look into her eyes, which have grown serious. “Something is happening on the border,” she says. He pushes her for information and asks whether she’s reported what she’s seeing to the right channels. She tells him everything, even things she’s not sure she should, and she tells him about how her fellow tatzpitaniot (spotters, observers) share her fears. “We’ve been reporting things for months. But they’re not listening,” she says, “not in the way they need to be.” And he hears her deep frustration with her superiors, whom she has been trained to revere.

Early Sunday morning he drops her and the duffel she’s carrying, which weighs as much as she does, at the bus stop. He can’t stop thinking about their conversation. He talked her through all the things she needs to do to make sure those who need to listen to her do. She had had leave for the first day of Sukkot, so she will be on base for Simchat Torah. “You make sure they listen to you,” he says as he kisses the top of her forehead. “I will,” she promises, giving him one more quick hug before rushing off to catch a window seat.

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August 20, 2025:........

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