From the Wilderness and Lebanon

The phrase brings together two settings: a biblical description of Israel’s promised territory and a modern Israeli soldier’s account of war and recovery.[1][4] At the beginning of Joshua, the geographical description appears as God addresses Joshua and defines territory reaching the Euphrates and the Great Sea.[1] In Deuteronomy, similar language appears in a promise connected to the Israelites’ faithful observance of the commandments.[2]

Lubotzky’s book, titled מן המדבר והלבנון in Hebrew, was his first book and began as a diary during his rehabilitation.[5] Its first two-thirds recount military operations and the dilemmas of command, while the final third concerns his wounds, medical treatment, rehabilitation, and the support of those around him.[4] The title thus serves both as a geographical reference to his military service and as an analogy for the personal transformation described in the memoir.[4]

Joshua 1:3–4 describes territory extending from the wilderness and Lebanon to the Euphrates, encompassing the Hittite country and reaching the Great Sea in the west.[1] The description appears at the beginning of the book, where God addresses Joshua and defines the territory promised to the Israelites.[1]

Deuteronomy 11:24 contains a closely related description, extending from the wilderness and Lebanon to the Euphrates and the western sea.[2] The preceding verses connect the promise of dispossessing the nations with the people’s faithful adherence to the instruction given to them.[2] One English rendering reads: “Every place whereon the sole of your foot shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness, and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the hinder sea shall be your border.”[2] A second translation uses “uttermost sea” in place of “hinder sea.”[6]

The Hebrew term midbar, commonly translated as “wilderness,” can denote uncultivated grazing land occupied by nomads rather than only a barren landscape.[7] It also commonly refers to the wilderness associated with the Exodus wanderings, situated south of Palestine or along the edge of the Negeb and including the wildernesses of Sin, Shur, and Kadesh.[7] Lebanon takes its name from the mountain chain running parallel to the Mediterranean coast north of Israel and generally marks the northern boundary of the Promised Land in the relevant biblical descriptions.[8]

Lubotzky began writing the memoir while recovering in the orthopedic rehabilitation department at Sheba Medical Center, encouraged by a family friend who visited him.[5] Published by Yedioth Ahronoth, the Hebrew book appeared in 2008 and became a bestseller; an English translation followed in 2015.[9][3] The English translation was made by Lubotzky’s grandfather, Murray Roston.[4] A spring 2016 Jewish Review of Books page advertised it as a “New English translation!” with the subtitle “An Israeli Soldier’s Story of War and Recovery.”[10]

Born in 1983, Lubotzky grew up in Efrat, was the eldest of six children and a twin, and attended a hesder yeshiva before becoming an officer in the Golani Brigade.[4] He served in the brigade’s 51st Battalion during the 2006 war.[11] The memoir opens with the June 2006 kidnapping of Gilad Schalit and the dispatch of Lubotzky’s platoon to Gaza to assist a rescue operation.[4] Its narrative then turns to Hezbollah’s attack, the deaths of three soldiers, and the kidnapping of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, events leading to the outbreak of war.[4]

The military narrative addresses not only operations but also the responsibilities of a platoon commander.[4] Among the questions Lubotzky considers is whether a commander should take account of a soldier’s personal and family circumstances, including whether the soldier belongs to an already bereaved family.[4] The title’s movement from wilderness to Lebanon corresponds to his passage from Gaza to the northern battlefield and, by analogy, from physical fitness and command to disability and recovery.[4]

One battlefield episode concerns the removal of Israeli dead and the bodies of Hezbollah terrorists after fighting at Bint Jbeil.[9] Lubotzky’s account describes the recovery of 16 Hezbollah terrorists’ bodies on a Friday, after Israeli dead had been evacuated the previous day.[9] It recounts the distress caused by advanced decomposition, the practical consequences of leaving bodies in the summer heat, and the soldiers’ responsibility to prevent desecration.[9] The account also describes intelligence obtained from a computer and maps found with the bodies.[9]

During the Battle of Bint Jbeil, an antitank missile struck Lubotzky’s vehicle and severely wounded him.[3] In the episode titled “The Hit,” he describes putting his head outside the vehicle contrary to safety standards, with his legs receiving the impact that otherwise would have killed him.[4] His right leg was severed and later reattached; he also suffered burns and shrapnel wounds before undergoing ten orthopedic and plastic surgeries and an extended rehabilitation.[11]

The final portion of the memoir follows the effort to save his leg, his numerous operations, and his gradual recovery of the ability to walk.[4][3] Family, friends, fellow wounded veterans, and strangers all feature in its account of support during rehabilitation.[4] His hospitalization prompted him to study medicine, and he later became a physician at Shaare Zedek while living with a permanent disability requiring crutches.[3]

The memoir gives sustained attention to what follows a soldier’s designation as “seriously wounded,” including the work of doctors, the prolonged process of rehabilitation, and the lives of relatives and friends surrounding the injured soldier.[4] Lubotzky’s account includes his mother’s lasting friendships with other mothers whom she encountered only briefly, an experience he expresses in the line “Some days last forever.”[4]

Lubotzky also presents his service through an explicitly Jewish historical perspective, writing: “We fought in a Jewish army guarding Israel on the principle that ‘Jewish blood can no longer be ignored.’”[4] He connects that statement with the significance he finds in looking back over Jewish history.[4]

A 2016 review praised the detailed treatment of command dilemmas and the account of life after severe injury, while criticizing the amount of military detail for slowing the narrative and judging the prose naïve and heavy with pathos.[4] A separate article described the memoir as a short book.[3] In a 2011 literary commentary, a Ynet writer grouped it with Jonathan Cohen’s Not Reached the Litani as soldiers’ accounts of the Second Lebanon War and argued that these dramatic stories of life and death had received too little attention amid public discussion portraying the war as a failure or unnecessary.[12]

Biblical territorial descriptions do not provide a single uniform set of boundaries: Joshua 1:3–4 reaches the Euphrates, whereas Numbers 34 gives a detailed description in which the Jordan forms part of the eastern boundary.[1] Numbers specifies southern, western, northern, and eastern limits, with the Great Sea to the west and the Jordan extending down to the Dead Sea on the east, describing the territory as Israel’s hereditary portion to be apportioned by lot.[1] Other historical-geographical treatments likewise note variation among biblical descriptions, disagreement over the extent of the promised territory, and the distinction between the full territory described and that occupied by the Israelites.[13] These sources discuss varying scriptural descriptions and do not establish a single uncontested definition of modern political borders.[13]

The memoir also distinguishes soldiers’ interpretations from explicit orders: Lubotzky said that troops believed the bodies of recovered Hezbollah terrorists might serve as bargaining chips, but clarified that nobody had expressly told them this.[9] His statements about the war’s meaning in Jewish history likewise express his own understanding of his service.[4]