“I’m Not the Rabbi of the Religious Soldiers. I’m the Rabbi of the Brigade.”
Serving alongside Israeli soldiers through repeated rounds of war taught Rabbi Avichai Epstein that the deepest role of a military rabbi is not simply to provide religious services. It is to be present when people begin asking questions they never expected to ask.
The Rabbi’s First Task Is to Listen
Military service repeatedly tears reservists away from homes, families, businesses and ordinary life. Over time, the burden is not only physical danger. It is exhaustion, uncertainty and the accumulating weight of everything soldiers have seen and carried.
That changed the way Rabbi Avichai Epstein understood his own role.
A military rabbi can organize prayer, answer halachic questions and prepare Shabbat. But often the most important encounter begins much earlier: sitting beside a soldier and asking, simply, “How are you?”
The goal is not to identify who is observant and who is not. It is to become someone every soldier knows he can approach — whether he comes with faith, anger, confusion, grief or no religious vocabulary at all.
Creating a Piece of Home in the Middle of War
Shabbat became one of the clearest examples of what soldiers were searching for.
During the week, military activity fills the hours. On Shabbat, the absence of home becomes harder to ignore. That is why creating a real Shabbat atmosphere in the brigade became so important.
A musical Kabbalat Shabbat. A field synagogue. Grape juice and small Shabbat packages delivered to soldiers in their positions. Meals, singing, prayer and conversation.
Religious and secular soldiers joined together. Commanders noticed when the atmosphere was missing. Shabbat offered something the battlefield could not: familiarity, belonging, continuity and a reminder of the ordinary Jewish life everyone hoped to return to.
Sometimes a Hug. Sometimes a Mezuzah.
Before hundreds of soldiers entered Gaza, Rabbi Avichai initially thought about what words he should give them. Then he understood that words were not necessarily what they needed.
Every soldier passed through one narrow point before boarding the buses to the border. Over two days, nearly eight hundred soldiers were embraced, encouraged and blessed there.
A few days later, brigade commander Colonel Ivri Elbaz asked for a Tanach and a mezuzah. The mezuzah was never placed on a permanent doorway. Instead, he carried it with him through operations.
In both moments, faith became tangible: a hug before battle, a mezuzah in a commander’s pocket, a reminder that the soldier was part of a story larger than himself.
Beneath the War, Deeper Questions Were Opening
The war did not simply produce fear, courage and solidarity. It exposed questions that had often remained beneath the surface of Israeli life.
What connects me to this people?
Why do I suddenly want to pray?
What does being Jewish actually mean to me?
These were not only questions asked by traditionally religious soldiers. They appeared across Israeli society.
Prayer, Shabbat, Jewish memory, Torah and a sense of belonging began to provide language for experiences that ordinary life had never forced people to confront.
Not everyone asking these questions wanted to “become religious.” That was not the point.
The important fact was that a question had opened.
The Questions Followed the Soldiers Home
The questions opened during the war did not disappear when soldiers returned to civilian life.
Young Israelis continued searching for language around identity, belonging, faith and responsibility — often without feeling ready to enter a conventional religious framework.
Mevakshei Panecha was created in response to that reality.
It is a Beit Midrash and community in Ma’alot where young Israelis can encounter serious Torah, personal mentorship, Shabbat and genuine Jewish community without being required to pretend they are somewhere they are not.
The method is remarkably similar to what the war taught in the brigade: begin with the person in front of you, listen seriously, create trust, and give the questions somewhere to grow.
Originally published by Srugim
This English feature draws on a Hebrew interview with Rabbi Avichai Epstein about his experiences serving as an IDF reserve brigade rabbi during the war.
Read the Original Hebrew Interview →