By Chaim Braun
R’ Moshe Simon was born in Petach Tikva. He went to the vocational school in Kfar Chabad. He married in 5746 and moved to Nachalat Har Chabad in Kiryat Malachi where he works as a teacher.
In his free time he goes on mivtzaim, mainly in the south of the country. He loves going out to carry out the outreach activities that have become an inseparable part of his life. “To me, it’s like air for breathing,” he says.
R’ Moshe is a refined person, always smiling, and someone who helps others. His charisma makes him very successful on mivtzaim and in activities geared to spreading Judaism to those distant from religion and tradition. For over twenty years he has been going out to put t’fillin on with people, as well as the campaigns related to the Jewish holidays. His favorite demographic is the Israeli soldier. His first story is about soldiers serving on their base.
R’ Moshe loves to go on mivtza Chanuka to distant places. “I enjoy those places,” he says. “We see divine providence at work wherever we go. At the end, we always see the reason for having landed there.
“One of the moving things about mivtza Chanuka,” he says, “is when we reach those desolate desert spots and a soldier lights a menorah on a rock. You look at the light illuminating the surroundings and hear the soldiers singing ‘HaNeiros Halalu’ and it fills you with joy. It’s a very special atmosphere, especially when you know that nobody else will go to those soldiers, that you are the only one.”
Going on mivtza Chanuka one year, R’ Moshe left his house prepared with boxes of doughnuts, menorahs, and holiday brochures. He went to the command center of the “red brigade” of the IDF on the Israeli-Egyptian border.
“There was a lot of work to do on the base,” he says. “I stayed overnight and got up early in the morning and continued the outreach work with the soldiers.”
When it was time to head for home, he remembered that he still hadn’t visited the field hospital, which is used during war but is sometimes active other times too. He asked the soldiers where the field hospital is and was answered with a shrug. “There’s nobody there; don’t waste your time going there,” they said.
“But something told me to go. I made efforts to find the place and went. When I walked in, I asked the nurse on duty whether anyone was there, and she repeated what I had heard from the soldiers, ‘Nobody’s here.’ Then she paused and said, ‘Actually, I think there is one soldier.’ I decided to walk through the rooms.”
R’ Simon walked down the empty corridor and stuck his head into the rooms to find “his” soldier. Then he heard a shout.
“Simon, what are you doing here!?”
“I didn’t know where the voice was coming from, and who had identified me in this place? I went over to the bed and saw a childhood friend. We had learned together in the vocational school in Kfar Chabad. I asked how he was and then lit the menorah with him. I offered him a doughnut and sang Chanuka songs with him. We were very moved by the encounter.”
The soldier said to R’ Moshe, “You made my holiday!”
“To me, that’s everything. I felt it was worth traveling from Nachala and staying the night just for him!”
As a postscript, also a story from mivtza Chanuka on an army base:
One year, R’ Simon went to an army unit that fought bands of Arabs that tried crossing the border with Egypt. One of the soldiers came over to him and said, “Simon, how are you?”
“I tried to remember who this was but before I did he said, ‘I was your student, remember?’”