Phone rings (the iPhone blues-riff, for those curious, ie., dun nah nuh nuh nuhh (bum bum, bum bum).

Unknown number, which usually either means a hate-call (a la last week’s “I hope the Nazis do to you what they did to my family”) or the IDF.

“Moriel Rothman?”

“Yes?”

“Come into the Draft Offices on Thursday, you have a meeting with the [Insert Military Acronym that Young Rothman Could Not Understand*].”

“Uh, OK? Is this like a committee or not like a committee?”

“I don’t know. Sure. I guess you can say it’s like a committee.”

I arrive. Before arriving, I do a lot of meditating and some praying and generally try to get myself in a place in which I am calm and filled with love even for those who don’t love me.

I go upstairs. I am calm. I am called into the room. Across from me sits the Samla”g* (a high-up in the draft office).  The conversation goes something like this:

“Hello.”

“Hello.”

“We see that you were born in Israel, and then lived here when you were seventeen. And that you made ‘Aliyah’ last September. Is that right?”

“Well… immigrated, yeah.” (Probably best not to argue semantics here, I decide. One struggle at a time).

“And why don’t you want to serve in the army?”

“Because I am opposed to violence.”

”So are we. The IDF is not an organization that supports violence. We are defending our country’s borders.”

Breathe, Rothman. Breathe.