Israel’s Silent Crisis Part III: From Tactical Missions to Existential Questions

Israel’s Silent Crisis Part III: From Tactical Missions to Existential Questions

From Operational to Existential

In the early months of this war, soldiers asked operational questions.

What is the timeline?
What is the next mission?
What is the intelligence?

But as the months stretched into a year, and then into two, and now already a third of the way into a third year, as we went from the first tour of duty to the second and the third and the fourth and beyond, the questions changed.

In the middle of the night between shifts, or after a long patrol, a soldier would linger. The tone was not rebellious. It was not partisan. It was thoughtful.

The questions shifted from tactical to structural.

The Questions

Why does the political system feel so distant from what we are sacrificing?

Who actually decides when this ends?

How is this supposed to end?

Are there political motivations behind the war decisions?

Why does it feel like the people carrying the load are not the ones shaping the conversation?

These were not political speeches. They were core pain points emerging from prolonged service.

They were attempts to make sense of duty inside a system that feels increasingly strained.

And that is where a quiet leadership gap reveals itself.

The Middle Leadership Bridge

My mandatory service was during the Second Intifada. I have served in the reserves since the Second Lebanon War. This war is different. It is not Protective Edge. As we move deeper into its third year, and for me after close to 500 days of service during that time, it feels less like reserve duty and more like a second mandatory service.

I am not in my 20s anymore. I am in my 40s.

I am more mature now. My role as a commander has evolved. Perhaps more because of the times than because of my age.

In moments like this, middle leadership becomes the bridge.

The captain, the reserve officer standing between the state and the individual soldier becomes the Stabilizer.

He turns national objectives into clear daily missions.
He turns public uncertainty into calm for the people under his command.
He absorbs political noise and protects the sense that the system still works.

This stabilizing function is what prevents institutional stress from turning into institutional fracture.

But that role has limits.

In uniform, you cannot and should not campaign or voice partisan views.
You cannot delegitimize institutions or elected officials.
You cannot allow frustration to turn into despair.

And yet you cannot ignore serious civic questions either. Beyond answering them, it is on you to maintain morale and ensure soldiers continue reporting for duty, despite the costs they are paying at home, in their careers, in their families, the very costs that you yourself are paying as well.

Leadership in this moment requires moral clarity without partisanship and steadiness without theatrics.

Ritual as Cohesion

On Friday evenings and Jewish holidays, when operational tempo allowed, we made Kiddush together.

Religious and secular.
Right-leaning and left-leaning.
Some who pray daily, others who have not opened a siddur in years.

Instead of being with my family for Shabbat, I was with a second family.

It was an honor to be the one who recited the Kiddush for everyone. There were evenings when multiple tables were full, and yet when the words began, you could not hear a pin drop. The respect everyone shared for the occasion itself was unmistakable.

For those minutes, the arguments of the public square softened. We were not defined by which party we voted for or what television channel we watched. We were soldiers marking time as Jews.

The cohesion inside that room often felt stronger than the cohesion outside of it.

Not because we agreed on everything.

But because we were bound by shared responsibility, the same responsibility that sent us back out together afterward.

Shared Language Beyond Politics

As weekdays and weekends blended into one long stretch of service, my Friday divrei Torah and daily briefings shifted over time.

Less abstract theology.
More responsibility.

The recurring tension between authority and accountability.
The obligation of leaders to answer for consequences.
The weight carried by those who step forward.

Torah became civic language. It is our shared history and culture, even for those who do not see themselves as believers. It offered a vocabulary of duty, restraint, and shared weight that the political arena often lacks.

In a unit drawn from across Israel’s ideological spectrum, that language held.

Not because everyone agreed.

But because it anchored something deeper than agreement.

Fighting Despair

Briefings are meant to set operational tone.

Increasingly, they did something more. I told them that our job was not only to complete missions, but to protect each other from cynicism and from the slow erosion of trust.

We will show up.
We will not dissolve into cynicism.
We will not mock those not here.
We will not let fatigue turn into bitterness.

The main thing I fought against was despair.

Because the danger in prolonged mobilization is not only physical exhaustion.

It is civic erosion.

When trust thins at the top, the middle absorbs the pressure.

The Structural Connection

In Part I, I wrote about structural strain.
In Part II, about the architecture of trust and responsibility.

The questions emerging now are the human consequence of those structural imbalances.

The realignment discussed in Part II is not abstract reform. It is the necessary correction if we want to resolve the pressures described in Part I and prevent the fractures hinted at in Part III.

Israel’s silent crisis is not only about manpower or compensation.

It is about trust architecture.

Prolonged service changes expectations.
Repeated mobilization sharpens scrutiny.
Shared sacrifice demands coherence.

For now, middle leadership is stabilizing the system.

But cohesion built on personal trust cannot indefinitely substitute for structural trust.

The questions my soldiers asked were simple and direct.

They wanted to understand how the state they defend functions.
They wanted alignment between weight and responsibility.
They wanted seriousness from those entrusted with authority.

That is not a political demand.

It is a national one.

If the system does not address that gap, the Stabilizers in the middle will not be enough.

And when the people who keep showing up begin questioning the system itself, the moment is no longer political.

It is structural.