JERUSALEM (VINnews) — One of the more colorful figures driving around the Gaza strip transporting soldiers is Rabbi Nir Yaakov Mas, the Rosh Yeshiva of the Lev Tel Aviv-Shir Leneriya Yeshiva. The white-bearded Rabbi Mas is currently serving as a Humvee driver deep in the Gaza Strip.
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“I continued until the age of 45 as a regular soldier, but they discharged me at 45, and now, when the war began, I wrote to them asking if they could rescind my exemption and send me into combat,” Rabbi Mas said in a conversation with Arutz Sheva.
Rabbi Mas, a disciple of Rabbi Yehoshua Weitzmann the rosh yeshiva of Maalot, is a father of nine and has already passed the age of 50. “It turns out that one of the skills that I learned in the army is to be an operational driver in the dark, which is a rare commodity, drivers who know how to lead a convoy in the dark. Therefore they rescinded my exemption, and I find myself every day driving convoys into Khan Yunis.”
Rabbi Mas is not the only soldier to volunteer and fight in Gaza even after being discharged from reserve duty. Avishai Shoshani, a hi-tech entrepeneur from Hoshaya in the Galilee who will soon turn 50, holds the unsavory distinction of being the oldest soldier injured in the fighting. At one point Avishai was fighting together with one of his 21-year-old twin sons before taking two bullets in his legs in the fighting in Beit Hanun. Despite currently not being able to step on his legs, Avishai has no regrets and even hopes to recover and go back to combat duty.
Another soldier, a Sofer Stam, found time and peace of mind during the lulls from fighting to write Tefillin parshiyot.
