Journeys of the Soul

If there was a contest for a new Jewish Super Hero, Rabbi Lazer Brody would win hands down. Fondly known as Reb Lazer, he’s a decorated veteran of an IDF special forces unit, a Ba’al Teshuva, a Breslever Chassid and a yeshiva mashgiach.

Larry Brody was born in 1949 and grew up in a non-observant home in Silver Spring, Maryland. He made aliyah in 1970 and joined the IDF, where he was placed into an elite Special Forces unit. He participated in many daring missions during and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War. When the First Lebanon War broke out in 1982, the IDF called him up to complete a delicate assignment.

The Soviet Union supported the Arab world in their wars against Israel and the 1982 war was no exception. Placed in the corners of the courtyard of the Soviet Embassy in Beirut were Katyusha rocket batteries which could fire 38 missiles a minute. They had caused significant casualties in the first days of the war. However Prime Minister Menachem Begin ruled out an air or artillery strike out of fear of hitting the embassy. The Israeli military was at a loss of what to do.

The Chief of Staff of the IDF, General Rafael Eitan, decided to send in a Special Forces unit to neutralize the missile batteries. It was a suicidal mission, sending soldiers into a den of terrorists deep in the heart of west Beirut.

Brody was chosen as the second-in-command of the mission. So on the first Saturday afternoon of the war, Brody and eleven other soldiers infiltrated into west Beirut. As soon as they entered the streets they were spotted by snipers. Bullets rained down on them, followed by artillery fire and rockets. Pieces of concrete and shards of glass filled the air. The squad commander was cut in half by a rocket, and then just feet away from Brody, a piece of shrapnel sliced through the thigh of the unit’s radio man named Raffi.

Rabbi Brody hoisted Raffi onto his shoulder and dragged him behind a car where he applied a tourniquet. Sniper fire raked through the car and a piece of a glass cut across Rabbi Brody’s left eye. His eye filled with blood which coagulated very quickly. Brody could not see through his eye and assumed he had lost it forever.

Debris and black smoke filled the air, stinging the soldiers’ eyes and clogging their lungs. Another soldier was killed. Brody, with Raffi on his shoulders, began darting from doorway to doorway to avoid the shooting.

“I can’t believe that any purgatory is worse than that day in Beirut,” Brody said. “I looked at my watch and I anticipated an expected life span of an additional 60 seconds.”

Brody felt helpless, with no ability to get himself out of the situation. He suddenly did something he had never done before – he cried out to Hashem to save him.

“I looked up. All of a sudden it came out of my mouth – ‘Hashem! G-d, get me out of here! Is this want you want from me? Is this it?”

Suddenly he heard a voice call out to him. “Eliezer Rafael,” it called, using Rabbi Brody’s Hebrew name. He had not heard his Hebrew name since his Bar Mitzvah. He realized that his prayers to Hashem were being answered.

“Don’t worry my son. I’m going to take you out of there,” the voice continued. “You need to change your life and I’m going to take you out of here. But you’re going to change your life because this isn’t your war.”

Suddenly 200 feet overhead, screaming out of the sky, came two jet fighter jets with Stars of David on their wings. The ground shook and the planes sprayed the snipers with bullets. Then everything suddenly quieted down.

Rabbi Brody looked up with tears streaming from his good right eye. The tears melted the coagulated blood in this left eye and he began to see through it again.

Just then an IDF halftrack vehicle appeared on the street and four medics jumped out. They took charge of Raffi and the other casualties. The medics told Brody that they had been in east Beirut, which was controlled by Israel’s Christian allies, and had made a wrong turn. As they were trying to make their way back, somehow they had ended up on that street.

The medic vehicle departed and the soldiers regrouped under Rabbi Brody’s command. They continued the rest of the way to the embassy and destroyed the missile launchers, clearing the way for a full-scale IDF invasion of west Beirut.

After the war questions filled Brody’s head. Why did he live through the battle? And what life changes was Hashem asking for?

Brody found his way to yeshiva, first to a Karliner yeshiva and later to Aish Hatorah. There he joined Uri Zohar and other Israelis who were beginning to find their way back to Judaism. Rabbi Brody spent eight years at Aish Hatorah and eventually became a Breslever Chassid. He’s now the Mashgiach of the Chut Shel Chessed Yeshiva and the author of the Lazer Beams website (http://lazerbrody.typepad.com). He has also written or translated ten books.

“My life isn’t my own. It belongs to the Jewish people and the Ribbono Shel Olam. I don’t deserve a moment to live. That’s why I dedicate myself to Him.”

As an IDF soldier, Brody’s goals were clear: obey your commanding officer’s orders and fulfill your mission perfectly. He has the same goals now, but his officer and mission are of a much higher source.

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Michael Gros writes from Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. The Teshuva Journey column chronicles uplifting teshuva journeys and inspiring kiruv tales. Send comments to michaelgros@gmail.com

Published in The Jewish Press in April 2011