An examination of Panim el Panim – Face to Face, with Love
By Toby Klein Greenwald
JERUSALEM – There is an expression in Hebrew used colloquially, “Wars of the Jews,” and it’s not referring to the seven volumes written by the historian Josephus in the first century of the modern era. Rather, it’s about the reality of friction between the many religious, political and ideological factions in the modern state of Israel.
So it is fitting that the man who heads a wide-reaching organization whose goal is to end that friction, is acclaimed IDF Colonel (Reserves), Geva Rapp. He named it “Panim el Panim” – “Face to Face.” Its premise is that knowledge is power and that familiarity breeds bonds of understanding.
In 2005 Rapp recognized a thirst for both knowledge and purpose among soldiers and civilians in this war-torn country, a searching for Jewish identity and meaning. His hope was that Panim el Panim would help to fortify the inner strength of Am Yisrael and the State of Israel.
He looked beyond the Israeli public, and today there are also programs through which visitors from abroad can bring their children for bar or bat mitzva events, or at any age, at which they meet IDF heroes, “train” at an IDF base and learn Torah with them, at a location only an hour from Jerusalem.
Rapp’s idea of communicating “face to face” began with Gush Katif. The goal there was to meet people, one on one, in their homes, with a desire to save Gush Katif, but, he told this writer, “What we discovered was that it was not only political, but there was also a situation of disengagement between the people and from our identity as a people. We discovered that something changed in this generation and that people today are more open to hearing. Some great rabbis have said that it’s the beginning of a new era for Am Yisrael. Today we know it’s a wide-ranging phenomenon – the thirst to meet with others and to hear words of Torah.”
Panim el Panim, via a country-wide network of social and educational activities in the army, in cities, kibbutzim and moshavim, has reached over 100,000 soldiers (including officers and special forces) through 3000 lectures in 100 bases, 600 lectures for women soldiers and 170 Shabbat programs; 4400 lectures have been delivered to 34,000 students in 80 secular high schools (in coordination with the Ministry of Education), and a weekly university program is attended by 100 secular students. A teachers’ program has 180 teachers at seven training and pedagogic resource centers.
Perhaps most extraordinary, Panim el Panim holds Yom Kippur services on 70 kibbutzim and moshavim – at least five of which had never held prayer services, including one kibbutz that was founded in 1943. Rapp says, “We are all one family. In the army, that is our message also – we are one family.”
Their goal in the army, they say, is to strengthen Jewish identity and the fighting spirit throughout all the combat regions and on IDF training bases. According to Panim el Panim, these activities are conducted in full coordination with the Defense Ministry and the IDF Chief Rabbinate, and they have proven their direct positive influence on the fighting spirit of the soldiers. One commander at an intelligence corps base, following a Panim el Panim Shabbat, wrote to them, “What I have received from you is immeasurable and invaluable. The results of giving through sincere dedication sometimes cannot even be fully perceived. The sense of G-d’s presence that we felt is something many of us have not experienced. This Shabbat will be a benchmark for the rest of my life.”
How did it all begin?
Some of Rapp’s story was documented in an in depth TV interview. He told viewers, “We were born at a time close to the era of the pioneers, when there was great energy and the soul and spirit was pushing us forward. As time went on, we reached ‘adolescence’ and began to ask ourselves, ‘Where are we going?’ These are the questions of this generation. Thousands of years have gone by and people are coming from all over the world, Surrounded by [difficult] neighbors, we wonder, ‘What are we doing here?’ We need to answer ourselves before we can answer others.
“I grew up in the Scouts, where I was the head of a ‘battalion‘; in high school I had been the president of the student council for one year. I also did a year of volunteer service in Mitzpeh Rimon. Then I became a soldier, then an officer.
“At the age of 25 I went to Jerusalem, planning on starting university, studying something in the maths or sciences. I had a few months before school began, and I was curious about men I had met in the army who wore kipot, who studied in yeshivot, so I asked around about where I could study for a few months. Yeshivat Mercaz Harav was nearby, and they referred me to [their affiliate] Machon Meir.
“I wanted to know, to understand. During those three months I became so connected to the study, I felt it was a shame for me to leave to go to university, so I tried to split my time between the two, then I decided to stay only in yeshiva, where I learned for a number of years, until I returned to the army.
“Then Shaul Mofaz, who was the commander of the paratroopers, came to me one day and made two statements. He said that he knew that he doesn’t have to tell me what Zionism is, and then he said that the army needs good people. So I consulted with my rabbis who quoted me the verse that one must not stand idly by when there is danger and it stretched into many years.
“We change in life. We grow, our perspectives change. A person who studied Torah is not the same before he learned as after he learned. In the army we talk about ‘assessing a situation.’ You look forward and see what the situation is from the mountain on which you’re standing. Then you climb a higher mountain and the assessment changes…
“I was a platoon commander at the end of my first tour of duty, then a company commander, then I returned to being a citizen. The meeting with the Torah connected me more deeply to the same ideals I already had but a voice was added to the music, to the sound track.
“I happened to leave the army [during my second tour of duty] during the time period of the uprooting of Gush Katif. The process of Gush Katif is called ‘disengagement’ and I remember once at a meeting with a group of people, someone said, ‘You know that in the times of the evacuation of settlements, people [elsewhere] went shopping, as if everything was regular; they really didn’t understand, didn’t get it.’
“People were disengaged. It was a red light. Like the story of someone who saw a red light flashing in his car and rather than taking care of the problem, he disconnected the flashing red light. This whole generation is disengaged from itself — socially, people live in different neighborhoods, in separate settlements, the education is separate, and on the other hand, when I begin to talk to people I see we have entered a new, open era, in which people want to hear, to speak, to meet.
“This gave me the desire to join Panim el Panim that began with actual meetings between brothers who had not met previously, who had never spoken to each other, to start figuring out, together, our existential questions.
“This is a wonderful people. I don’t like the terms ‘religious, non-religious’ – we are a living nation that has returned. It says in the Talmud that everyone who lives in Israel is a tzadik, including those who are combat soldiers, industrialists, farmers, economists, they are all living our people. ‘Kiruv’ – drawing people close to Judaism — means someone is far away, but that’s not true. Rashi says ‘the far’ is he who is ‘mityashen’ in Torah and mitzvot [he for whom Torah and mitzvot has become ‘old hat’] and ‘karov’ is who is closer to it [more recent]. We are all close, but in our everyday lives we live in a society that lives one way or another…in the army it’s one people. And the soldiers have total mesirut nefesh – dedication. When we heard of someone running into the Carmel forest fire to save someone, did anyone ask if he was wearing a kipa?”
I asked him to share some stories.
“One Yom Kippur we were in Degania Bet. We admire them, they were the ones who created this kibbutz 100 years ago. So there we were, Jerusalemites, and they turned the communal entertainment and meeting hall into a shul for Yom Kippur. They asked me to say a few words. So I said, ‘First of all I’m amazed by the inspiration of the founders. When they called it ‘Dagan-ya’ they were connecting ‘dagan’ – wheat – with the name of G-d. They felt they were doing something holy.’ A very old lady whispered something while I was talking and then she said out loud, ‘You talk very good.’ Later, someone 70 years old, obviously one of the respected elders, got up, and he spoke after me and said, ‘Thank you for coming. Degania Bet is 90 and they wanted to throw off the Galut [exile]. By mistake, they also threw out the connection to our tradition. Thank you for coming to help us regain what they threw away.’
“Later I suggested that the women meet with my wife. About 20 came and my wife just opened Orot Hatehsuva (Lights of Redemption) of Rav Kook, and taught. The first two lines she read were Rav Kook writing that the rebirth of the people in the land is the basis for the teshuva we’ll see in the country and the world. And he said that by them starting the kibbutz they started the beginning of the great teshuva [return, redemption].’ Some women cried as they learned. They had always thought they were on the outside of the world of Torah. Of Judaism. They asked to meet every two weeks.”
What is your method?
“Our five foundation rocks are: unconditional love of Am Yisrael and self-love of ourselves as Jews; faith in our generation and in the belief that Torah can give life; courage, including the courage to bring learned Jews to teach Judaism to the public, and the courage to confront negative elements in western culture; the humility to know that we, Orthodox Jews, are not ‘preferred’ but know that there are secular Jews who are very serious people and all Am Yisrael are holy people; and [confidence] in the truth, the knowing that we have meaningful messages to give about Torah. It is not just about getting together with hugs and kisses.
Torah and charisma
“What is special about our methods is that our teachers are people who are learned, ‘filled with Torah,’ and who have the personal charisma and love to communicate with the hearts of others. We derive much of our strength and message from Rav Kook, who believed that after 2000 years in exile, during which we focused on the more private challenges in performing the laws, we are now in Eretz Yisrael where it is a true Torah of the nation, of our collective soul, and that is the Torah that we want to bring to the people.
“We believe that what is taking place in our generation – the development in Israel of kibbutzim, industry, higher education, discoveries and inventions – all this is ‘ma’aseh Hashem ‘ – the work of G-d.
“Am Yisrael was born anew in our lifetime [with the return to Zion and establishment of the state] and, like a child who acts from his soul and has not yet full cognitive achievements, we began as children, achieved a new height in the Six-Day-War, then started the adolescent period, when we started asking questions, ‘What do I want? Where am I going?’ From the time period of the uprooting of Gush Katif and the second Lebanon war, people don’t want to be just negative and anti-something; they are looking for answers.
“I fought on the front lines of Lebanon and Gaza and Egypt but what we are facing now is the most important battle for today– the front lines of culture and awareness. It is important that we inculcate the spirit of everything that is part of our country – of agriculture and military prowess and knowledge in many areas – not just the scientific elements.
“One day I went to a spring near Jerusalem, and there I met a couple sitting on a blanket in the forest smoking a nargila. My knee-jerk reaction was negative, but then I thought, ‘This is what Panim el Panim is all about,’ so I asked the guy, ‘What’s with the nargila?’ He said, ‘It’s the yetzer hara, the evil desire.’ He was a soldier, she was about to begin her army service, and they had been living together as a couple. I asked if they’re getting married. She looked hesitant and he said, ‘Yes!’ and gave a distant date, because they were young, needed their families’ agreement… I asked if they want to learn in preparation for the wedding. They both said yes, so he began to attend classes at Machon Meir and she went to Machon Ora. They became observant Jews, moved up the wedding date — something she said she had wanted all along — invited me to the engagement party, and told people, that it was all due to our encounter in the forest and what ensued from that.
“Another story: Someone met a female soldier from a very anti-religious home in Holon and invited her to a class with Michal, one of our teachers. The soldier, who was stationed at a look-out point near Gaza, said, ‘Why would I go to a class given by a rebbetzin?’ but she went, she said later, just to ask annoying questions. But Michal replied with a smile and love, and the girl slowly drew closer, and then told Michal that her mother didn’t want her to come home for Shabbat because she was keeping Shabbat more and more, so she’d spend Shabbatot with Michal. She recently sent us a photograph from the Cotel, where her boyfriend, a religious officer in the IDF is proposing marriage to her.
“There is a high school in Tel Aviv that was number one in draft-dodging. 20% didn’t go into the army and another 20% found some excuse to be excused after three months. The principal asked a general from the Air Force to come and speak and students demonstrated with chains at the gate so he couldn’t enter. The principal, shocked by this, decided to teach more Judaism in the school but none of the teachers knew what to teach so we started teaching there and in another six high schools. Eventually a student wrote a letter to the principal, ‘You’re destroying the education of the youth – look what’s happened! 94% now are going into the army!’ He wrote it as a complaint; it was a compliment to us.”
I also asked Rabbi Ilan Elfonta, who lectures in the Panim el Panim the army program, what drew him to Panim el Panim.
“I was a paratrooper in the War for the Galil [the first Lebanon War], then I was in Intelligence in the northern sector and stayed on reserve duty until we had our sixth child and the army wanted to release me. But I didn’t want to stop,so a friend connected me with Geva Rapp and Doki Ben Artzi, who was the head of the Jewish Identity unit in the IDF Rabbinate. He asked me to come once to lecture and the rest is history. That was 15 years ago. I’ve been lecturing to soldiers every Monday, all day, and spend 17 Shabbatot in the course of the year on an army base, with my family.
Soldiers on the cusp of battle
“I wasn’t called up to serve in the second Lebanon war, in 2006, but I couldn’t just sit at home so I went up north and met soldiers and talked to them. We were in Kfar Vradim near Ma’alot and I saw many soldiers with brown shoes; I knew they were paratroopers but I needed official permission to talk to them so I went to the officers. Their commander knew me from one of the talks I had given and he said, ‘You were sent from heaven. I want you to speak to the entire battalion because tonight they go into Lebanon,’ so I spoke to more than 200 soldiers about what it means to overcome fear. He told me later that not one solder tried to get out of the mission, but everyone went forward with great determination.
“During Operation Pillar of Defense, in 2012, I went to Gaza and to a location where the army had gathered its Nahal forces, near Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. At first they thought I was coming to bring them food and goodies, like the whole country was doing, and they said, ‘We could open a shopping center from everything people are sending us,’ and I said, ‘No, I came to talk.’ So I spoke with several groups and then two trucks arrived from Shlomi, in the upper Galil, with more gifts for soldiers, but their commander said, ‘We have everything here we need and more,’ and the driver said, ‘I’m not driving back to the Galil with all this.’ So the (secular) commander said, ‘Do me a favor. Go to the yeshiva in Azata and say it’s a contribution from the kibbutzim of the Nahal. Some time ago their rosh yeshiva told me, ‘My students don’t do army service but I said, whoever wants to stay in the yeshiva and learn instead of taking your three weeks of summer vacation, stay to learn for the safety of our soldiers.’
“They all stayed and learned,” said Elfonta, “and the commander called the rosh yeshiva to say thank you.
“Soldiers sometimes tell personal stories. Sometimes a soldier who is having a difficult time of it and wants to leave but doesn’t tell anyone. In a case like that, I’ll talk to his commanding officer and they help him work things out.
“I also meet with couples who have one spouse as a career officer in the army, so s/he is away from home a lot, and we speak about how exhausting it is for the home spouse, and how they sometimes feel disconnected from each other. I give them marital tips and they call me later and say it’s as if I ‘read the map’ of their relationship and that my talks helped them.”
Barak Karniel, who works with soldiers, relates, “There was a soldier who went to one of our speakers and asked, ‘Do you remember me? I was your driver a year and a half ago when you came to the Egyptian border, and while I was waiting, I came into the talks you gave. After that, I asked to be moved to combat duty.’
“Since the Six-Day-War I think that people realize that we cannot win with only tanks and airplanes, and that was hit home to us even more during the Yom Kippur War. Since then the significance of what we are fighting for is in the way we think.”
Yair Ganz has been working with university students and the kibbutzim for four years. He says it’s a two-way street. “The connection with the students is not just one-directional; it gives me a lot, personally. Once a student came to me on the same day that he knew his wife was pregnant. He said, ‘You’re the first one I’m telling because I know that you’ll really be happy for me.’
“We studied about the Pesach seder, and one student sent me a photograph of their seder night, together with the source pages that we had studied from, and she wrote, ‘My father said he’s responsible for the food and I’m responsible for the study.”
“After a Shabbat together with some of the students, a recently married woman came to me and said they decided to keep taharat hamishpacha [family purity laws] after they met my family. A year later they had a daughter, their first child.” One student wrote, after a year in the program, “They taught me that my life has a purpose.”
“We have Yom Kippur prayers on 70 kibbutzim and moshavim and there were five kibbutzim to whom we brought Yom Kippur prayers for the first time. Every year the kibbutzniks wait for the experience and some attend follow up classes in the course of the year. For example, every year a busload of people from Neve Tzuf, a religious community go to kibbutz Kfar Aza to pray on Yom Kippur.” They have reached more than 3500 kibbutzniks.
Rapp says, “Today we have donors from Canada, the U.S., Brazil and elsewhere. But we are not seeking help only from big foundations and funders; we want all of Am Yisrael to have a portion in this venture.”
Like many, they are seeking to widen their reach. But their first step is always speaking face to face.
IDF Reserves Colonel Geva Rapp will be in Toronto on Sept. 18 and in New York on Sept. 21. He can be reached at 914-841-7994, 347-205-5389 or 647-624-9227.
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The author is the award-winning artistic director of Raise Your Spirits Theatre, which includes actors from diverse backgrounds, and is the editor of WholeFamily.com.