July 1 Dovev

I’m very excited to volunteer again today with Chayal’s Angels, offering massage to IDF soldiers.

I’ll take the train from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv, transfer toward Nahariya, get off at Binyamina, and be picked up by Tasha Cohen outside the station.

We’ll then drive for about an hour, gather more volunteers near Tzfat, and continue together for another 45 minutes to an IDF site in Dovev, a moshav (cooperative agricultural community) in the Upper Galilee near Israel’s border with Lebanon. Since October 7, Dovev has been one of the northern communities deeply affected by Hezbollah fire, evacuation, and the heavy IDF presence along the border.

In the afternoon, our volunteers will offer as many 20-minute sessions as possible—energy healing, acupuncture, massage, and cupping—to approximately 60 soldiers over a four-hour period.

I feel the urgency and privilege of this work, and am so eager to serve.

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I set out for the train at 8:30 a.m. and didn’t get back to Jerusalem until 10 p.m.

My heart pounded when I saw Tasha’s car across the street from the Binyamina station. It was towing the Chayal’s Angels trailer, packed with about a dozen massage tables and a wide array of bodywork supplies.

Tasha brought Luna, her dog, as did Moshe, a massage therapist from Zikhron Ya’akov. Moshe also brought Zev, an acupuncturist; Hadas, an energy healer; and Pnina, a massage therapist.

At Delek Meron, Tasha and I picked up Chaya, an acupuncturist, and Belle, a massage therapist celebrating her 78th birthday. Before leaving her home near Caesarea that morning, Tasha had stopped at a bakery to get babkas for the occasion.

As we neared the entrance to the base, we saw a long row of concrete bunkers marking the Lebanon border. We waited about ten minutes at the gate for permission to enter. Huge rolls of netting were stacked nearby, one of the most practical and immediate protections against Hezbollah’s FPV and fiber-optic drones.

Tasha parked near a small concrete building designated for our treatments. Two soldiers rapidly helped unload our trailer.

The sky was blue, and the air was cool and clean. It was quiet. I was glad to be out of the noise and bustle of Jerusalem.

While a senior officer led us down the path to the restrooms, I asked how long he had been at Dovev. He told us he had spent three months in Lebanon and had returned to Dovev about a week earlier.

The door he indicated as the women’s bathroom opened into a tiny room with a couple of mattresses and a jumble of belongings on the floor. A female soldier was sitting inside, reading. She looked up and pointed us toward another door to our left, where we found a dusty set of stalls and sinks.

I felt bad for disturbing her privacy, and for the conditions in which she was living. I kept imagining how hard it would be never to feel really clean, or to have any private, orderly place for my things.

Eight of us worked on 57 people. We had only a few inches between our tables, but it all worked out.

Only three of the soldiers were women, each with beautiful long hair and gel manicures. I marveled at this and wondered when they had arrived, and how often they were able to get to a salon.

Everyone left their boots on. The men removed their shirts. None wore tzitzit or kippot. Most looked very young. They stored their vests, guns, radios, phones, and sunglasses under our tables.

Looking back on the richly layered day, I’m left with images of body after body on my table, so many that they eventually seemed to merge into a single human being. Tightness along the spine; taut necks; tense lower backs; smooth, hairy, dark, or freckled skin; fleshy, fit, asleep, awake—all so responsive to my touch as I surrendered more and more to the dance, the flow, the deep joy of encountering each person’s physical structure, and responding with love to what it revealed about their ways of coping with life.

Several men said it was amazing, and that they never wanted me to stop. Others asked for more, or were in altered states and had few words. I felt deep joy in giving them these moments of respite and peace, and in joining the larger purpose of supporting Israel.

I felt so much emotion come and go throughout the day. Mostly, I wanted to cry. I felt very maternal toward these guys, and wished they did not have to live in such primitive conditions, wear all this heavy gear, or eat the boxed meals stacked in cartons in the corner when they went out on missions—much less do all the things necessary to protect the people of Israel from those who dedicate their lives to destroying it.

Still, I saw humor, generosity, care, and courage in how they related to their situation, to one another, and to us as volunteers. I sensed the tremendous value, maturation, and bonding that come through military service in Israel.

The soldiers joked with us, eagerly brought us coffee and tea, served us sliced cantaloupe, salad, and sandwiches at a wooden picnic table under the netted trees, praised us to the skies, sang “Happy Birthday” to Belle, and insisted we come outside for photos at the end of the day. They looked and felt so different all geared up after seeing them so naked and tender.

Afterward, they took off in their vehicles. I don’t know what happened next.