Meeting Mifakedet Mor

December 8, 2009 - 11:44 AM by David

One of Mifakedet Mor's new recruits

It was a feeling I still recall like it was yesterday – being a fresh 30-year-old IDF recruit and trying to remember how to talk to my 18-year-old commander. It was army jargon full of “Hakshev” (attention!), “Mifaked” (Commander!)” usually shouted out with a gusto that would make a Marine blush.

I thought those days were long gone, until I answered my cell phone last night and talked to Mifakedet Mor. Probably 18 herself, Mor is my daughter’s immediate commander during her basic training. One of the requirements that recruits need to fulfill when they get a home leave for Shabbat is to notify their superior when they have safely arrived at home on Friday.

Because her cell phone stopped function on the first day of the her army service (damn pacifist), my daughter used my phone to call Mifakedet Mor when I picked her up from the Central Bust station in Jerusalem, lugging two knapsacks that were bigger than her. I listened with bemusement as she used all the requiste ‘can mifaked’ (Yes sir!) and the conversation ended with Mifakedet Mor wishing her a “Shabbat Shalom.” Ah, only in the Israeli army, right?

So, on Saturday night, I’m off to work and I get a call on my phone. “Shalom, this is Mifakedet Mor, can I talk to Sarit?”

Now, I knew that this was an 18-year-old women, and that she wasn’t my commanding officer. But my throat went dry, and I managed to stammer in response that this was her father’s cell phone and that she should try our home number. I wasn’t sure whether to end the sentence with ‘mifaked!’. But smartly I didn’t.

I did feel like telling her what a great kid Sarit is and that she should take it easy on her. But smartly, I didn’t do that either. Mifakedet Mor thanked me, wished me a Shavua Tov (good week) and continued down her list of calls to make. I breathed a sigh of relief and tried to forget the basic training flashes that had begun zigzagging through my brain. And Sarit was home getting ready to meet up the next day with the one person that will matter to her more than any other over the next four months – an 18-year-old commander named Mor.

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