IDF Chief of the General Staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi spoke in front of the senior command staff and told them about his father, Shaul, who died three weeks ago.
Kochavi, who is in the middle of the mourning period for his father, told the senior officers: "It is right before Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement), and I'll allow myself to say this in front of this forum and I'm specifically at a point that I naturally think about these things.
He was my father, so it's okay and even right that I share one thing that learned from him with you: My father would always say: 'I'm not a religious man, but I fear G-d', to fear G-d doesn't mean to be afraid of G-d, 'fear of G-d' is a deep concept, to my understanding, a G-d fearing person is someone who is described by morals before anything else.
My father was honest", says Kochavi, "When a contractor worked in my house he finished and asked 'so how are you going to pay, like everyone else or like dad', I answered 'like dad I think'. I'm saying this right before Rosh Hashanah, a good time for our thoughts."
The conference, at which Kochavi spoke, was centered around building an operational force and developing new fighting methods and was attended by 1,500 officers ranking from lieutenant colonel and up
"The IDF is going through changes so it can adjust to the current and future battlefield," Kochavi said at the conference. "The changes are being made based on a stance on which we worked hard to form. These aren't a bunch of small projects, but a general outlook centered around denying our enemies' abilities by strengthening our ability to detect and destroy the enemy, this conference shows our progress in all fields, especially when it comes to multi-branch and multi-dimensional cooperation."
Kochavi shared: "Our important and special abilities in the fields of intelligence, combat, and maneuvers have already been adopted by the IDF units, and the command and staff abilities have been developed and adjusted to each unit on the battalion and brigade level. This outlook and its application express a central principle: the industrialization of exact destruction through the combination of maneuvers and combat, and makes the IDF much better fitted for the battlefield."