According to a survey by Aluma, 90% of religious girls grow religiously “stronger” in the army. Set aside for a moment the debate over whether the survey is biased or not.
I have no doubt that religious girls grow stronger in the army.
As someone who teaches at a mixed pre-military academy (mechina) of religious and secular students, once a week I run into representatives of Religious Zionism who press me with questions about “lechatchila” (the ideal) versus “bedi’avad” (only after the fact), and what the mechina does to the religious students, and whether they stay religious, and more questions of that sort which, frankly, are starting to get tiring.
So here’s the thing — religious students who come to a mixed mechina almost always leave with a more consolidated Jewish identity. I would even dare to say that had they gone to yeshivas, the opposite might have happened. And no, it’s not because at the mechina they encounter “secular” kids devoid of values who care about nothing but parties, and then the religious students realize how secularism is a world of falsehood (as the elders of the religious tribe sometimes try to portray it). Quite the opposite — they meet a secularism that is deeply value-driven and full. They meet a secular wagon loaded with values of love of humanity, love of the people and the Land, helping others, and knowledge as vast as the sea.
So how do they grow stronger? Precisely through the encounter with a world of values far broader than the one they knew. Our generation is searching for a broader Jewishness, a more Israeli one, one that grows upward and outward and in depth. And secularism is part of our Israeli Judaism; it deepens it, it challenges it with hard questions that demand engagement, and it makes Jewish identity blossom rather than fossilize.
And the strengthening of identity doesn’t happen only in mixed mechinot. My son is now in his third year at a secular school. He is the only religious kid in his entire grade. And behold the wonder — so far his Jewish identity has only grown more consolidated and broader.
I, too, when I finished yeshiva high school, while all my friends went off to yeshivas, went to a year of service with both boys and girls. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. During that year of service I discovered God anew (and later my future wife as well). Today I can say that had I gone straight to yeshiva at the end of high school, it would have created a huge backlash in me. It was precisely that dynamic framework — which held not only Torah but also acacia trees, and sea and desert and girls (heaven help us) — precisely that breadth that deepened my identity. Not out of denial and longing, but out of breadth and freedom.
The whole earth is full of His glory. Even in acacia trees, in washing dishes, and in Naomi Shemer songs.
That is why, both on the question of enlisting in the IDF and on the question of a mixed mechina, I don’t engage at all with the question so beloved by the stewards of the religious public: “Nu, so is it lechatchila or bedi’avad?” In my eyes the question is irrelevant.
What made me grow was a mixed year of service, which later also led to studying in yeshiva by choice.
There are those whom a yeshiva will make flourish and those whom it will extinguish. Some are suited to a religious mechina, some to a mixed one, and so on. Exactly like enlisting in the IDF — for some girls the army is the best thing that will ever happen to them, while for others national service fits them perfectly, and vice versa.
Nor do I have any intention of declaring that only IDF service is right for girls. Many roads lead to the destination — both the army and national service.
I don’t sanctify any framework as “the one” that is the best and most suitable. Not my own mechina and not anywhere else. When a student comes to me deliberating where to go, I look them in the eyes, ask what they are looking for, try to understand what suits them, and guide them accordingly. Just don’t sanctify the one-and-only place, and don’t steer everyone down the same path. Many roads lead to the destination!
And in general, parents and educators, it’s worth letting go of some of the tension. When you project pressure — and what will happen if you go here and do this and not that, and so on — it only pushes them away.
And so, even without the survey, I can promise you, dear parents, that your daughter will not be “weakened” in the army. Even if it’s hard, an encounter with the full breadth of life, in the long run — only builds.
