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The Flag

It happened in 1982, during the Lebanon War. Israeli tanks were chasing away the terrorists who threatened its northern border. A few tanks had gone too far, though, and rode right into an ambush. The tanks were destroyed, but many of their crews managed to escape. They were trapped in Lebanon, behind enemy lines, and all they knew was that their buddies were miles south of them. That night they began their long walk to safety.

They walked all night and hid all day. Although they didn’t know the countryside, they couldn’t stop anyone to ask directions. Instead they just followed their instincts, believing that they would eventually get home.

The journey was difficult: by the third night the men just plodded. Finally, as the sun began to rise, someone noticed an Israeli flag in the distance. “The base!” he shouted, “We made it!”

From far away a guard at the base heard the distant shouting. He quickly radioed his commander with the news. “Terrorists,” he warned, “only a mile north of us.” Within seconds the base was on alert and guns were aimed at the approaching soldiers.

The soldiers stood up and began to run, when suddenly a bullet whizzed over their heads. “Duck!” they called to one another, “they think we’re terrorists.
 The bullets got closer and closer, and shells were exploding just meters away, when one of the soldiers had an idea. We know this is an Israeli base because of the flag, he thought.
Why don’t we just show them our own flag?” He pulled off his knapsack and reached inside. At the bottom was his tallit, with a thick blue stripe on either side. He tied his tallit to the barrel of his rifle, and began waving it like a flag. The wind was blowing and the tallit began to flutter.

Looking at the scene through his binoculars, the commander of the base realized what was happening. “Stop shooting!” he barked into the radio, “Hem mi’shelanu! They’re ours!”

Ever since then, on the anniversary of that day, the crew gets together and celebrates a holiday in honor of the tallit-flag that saved their lives.