A Soldier in Paradise

Ok, we've all heard about the 72 virgins awaiting the Jihadi martyrs in Paradise. Or, as the comedians quip, there's a mis-translation and they'll discover that it is just one eager, 72-year old virgin.

But on a more theological note, it's interesting to contrast what Hizballah clerics and one Jewish rabbi had to say about the combatants killed in last summer's Lebanon war.

For Hizballah, those who died fighting the Israelis were martyrs who sacrificed themselves for the highest possible cause, a holy war, and Allah thereby awarded them with the choicest real estate in Paradise.

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef had a different interpretation of God's will. Described in Israeli papers as the spiritual mentor of the powerful Shas ultra-orthodox party, Yosef delivered a sermon suggesting that 119 Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon were all singled out by the Almighty because they weren't religious enough.

“It is no wonder that irreligious soldiers die in war,” Yosef thundered. “Should it come as a surprise if, God forbid, soldiers are killed in war… when they do not adhere to the laws of Shabbat, they do not keep the Torah, and they do not pray every day…?”

Ok, let's see… With one hand, God lavishes virgins on a Muslim soldier who dies in combat, while with the other, He smites -–good Old Testament word, that—the Jewish soldier down because he let his religious observance slide a tiny bit?

C'mon, is that fair?

Shouldn't the Almighty cut the Jewish soldiers a little slack here?

As you can imagine, the parents of Israeli soldiers killed in Lebanon were livid over the rabbi's sermon. The rabbi's words were especially “inappropriate” to the mother of Maj. Ro'i Klein whom she describes as “quietly and modestly righteous.” Klein was a war hero; he saved the lives of his men when a Hizballah grenade landed next to them and Klein hurled himself on top of the grenade to absorb the blast.

After the uproar, the rabbi backpedaled, claiming that he was referring not to Israel's current force but to the Jewish armies of Biblical times.

One Israeli scholar, Rabbi Moshe Hagar, summed it up best. Quoted in the Jerusalem Post, he said: “No one can know why an individual soldier dies in battle. We do not claim to know the will of God.” Indeed.

--by Tim McGirk/Jerusalem