The condition of freshly-married 2nd-Lt. Aharon Karov has taken a turn for the better, though he is still listed in serious condition. He is no longer being kept unconscious, and has been detached from the respirator.
Karov is a yeshiva student from Karnei Shomron who was married two days before the ground offensive in Gaza began. On Friday morning, just hours after his wedding, he was called up to the army – for the second time that week - for a briefing. He returned for the festive post-wedding Sheva Brachot Sabbath just 15 minutes before sundown, and was then called up once again on Saturday morning. Less than three days later, he was critically wounded in a booby-trapped house in Gaza, and was flown to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tivkah, where he underwent six operations during the course of 12 hours: on his head, his eyes, ear-nose-throat, mouth and jaw, chest, and an orthopedic operation.
An officer in the Paratroopers Brigade, Aharon – his Hebrew name is Aharon Yehoshua ben Chaya Shoshana - commanded a combat company in northern Gaza until he was hit. Before joining the army, he studied in a yeshiva in Netzarim, one of the Jewish towns destroyed in the Disengagement from Gaza.
Aharon's father, Rabbi Zev Karov, who heads the yeshiva high school in Karnei Shomron, explained in one of the weekly Torah pamphlets distributed in synagogues – before the nearly-fatal blast – why his son went to war almost directly from the wedding canopy:
“I heard many questions and even anger at the fact that a groom would leave his bride. Can’t the army manage without him? Isn’t there a mitzvah [religious precept] for a groom to gladden his wife? But our Sages, teaching us G-d’s Torah, do not have a limited mortal view of the world. The priorities and values of life are not determined by human intellect and passing emotions, but rather by Divine ethics. Our Sages teach this sublime but elementary tenet: One’s personal development, and the building-up of a couple into a family, receive their significance and importance only from their attachment to the public, to the entire community… and from being part of the holiness of the Nation of Israel, and this is why we get married.”
He elaborated on this point under the canopy at the wedding itself: “In the main wedding blessing, we say, ‘G-d sanctifies His nation Israel via the wedding canopy and betrothal.’ Why don’t we say that He sanctifies the bride and groom? We see that the personal building is a part of the national edifice. This is the main point, this is what we are brought up on, and now is the test when we show that it is not just talk, but it is how we really act.”
Aharon’s wife Tziviah is strong as well. “The day after the wedding, Aharon’s commander called. I thought he was calling to wish us Mazal Tov; in my worst dreams I didn’t think that they would call him up the day after our wedding. But I’m trying to be strong. The bottom line is that we are at war, and the Nation of Israel needs us, so we have to give up our private lives now.”
Fighting Families
The Karov family is no stranger to war injuries. Aharon’s sister’s groom arrived at his wedding two years ago, shortly after being seriously wounded during the Second Lebanon War. Aharon also has a first cousin who, as a toddler in Atzmona of Gush Katif, was severely injured by mortar shell fragments. Tzivia, as well, has a brother who was seriously wounded in Lebanon more than a decade ago, though he later returned to the position of regiment commander in the Golani Brigade; he was lightly wounded again in the recent fighting in Gaza.