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At the same time, the teachers derived their own inspiration from former students who were now soldiers fighting at their sides.

When Rabbi Shaul Kal-Chaim, a ninth-grade teacher at the Neveh Shmuel High School for Boys, received his erev-Shabbat phone call to report for immediate duty, the soldier on the other end of the line was an apologetic Neveh Shmuel graduate. In the month of active service that ensued, Kal-Chaim experienced several other gratifying encounters with his former students.

Arriving at a base near Ramallah with his unit, Kal-Chaim met one soldier who was returning from a difficult battle, exhausted but grateful for the opportunity to speak with his former teacher. Later, in a tank in Ramallah, Kal-Chaim came across another past student. "In addition to his gun and all his military equipment, he had brought a gemara with him," the rabbi reports with pride. "Although he was allowed to leave the tank only at night, we were able to spend some time learning together. It was a deeply rewarding experience."

With hundreds of Neveh Shmuel alumni serving in elite units, Kal-Chaim was not surprised to run into yet another student emerging from an armored personnel carrier several days later. With heavy fighting all around them, the rabbi recalls, "we spoke about many things but did our best to keep the conversations as normal as possible. We tried not to give each other formal farewells."

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