Juan Moisés De La Serna - The Spy

– I have thought it very carefully, and I have decided it, I would appreciate you giving me your blessing.

–My blessing? Asked my father in surprise. You know that we cannot use weapons except to defend ourselves!

– But the army, isn't it precisely for that?

–But this is not your country, why do you want to do it?

– You have always taught me to do what I thought was most correct and this is what I believe should be done.

My father left that room without saying a word, my mother began to cry inconsolably.

Before that panorama and after waiting a little to see if my father returned, after a moment, I left that house and never returned.

This was undoubtedly one of the most bitter moments of my life, my father who wanted me to be a rabbi, saw that his son was not following the path, and also that I was going to something as inappropriate as the army. My mother, then, was her son, and I was leaving, practically overnight, without warning.

Whenever I have a difficulty in my work, I wonder if I did well or not that bitter day, when I left my house with only the clothes I was wearing . The rest was all easier, so to speak, I showed up at that recruitment office, which I already had located and when I arrived there I had no difficulty, there they told me to wait a few hours to fill the bus that would take me to the nearest military base to conduct my training.

While I waited, I saw families of all kinds, some proud that their children were in the army; other sad and upset by that; there were even those who didn't let go of their son's neck to say goodbye, but almost everyone came with their families, except me.

I never saw my loved ones again, despite being what I loved most in the world. Going to the army was precisely so that they did not lack of anything. In the enrollment registration I had left instructions to send my pay to my parents, something that seemed strange to the recruitment office, and even made me repeat it three times.

Sometimes, despite all the time that has elapsed, when I remember this event in my life, my stomach knots, after all, I'm not sure that was the best choice!

It was certainly a solution, the one that occurred to me at that time, but that caused so much suffering, or at least I think so, because I never got to receive news from my parents, although I wrote them almost weekly while I was in my training.

Then, when they moved us to Arizona, they told us that I couldn't do it, because that was a secret base, and from there I couldn't enter or leave any kind of communication.

What would have been of my life if I had stayed at home? I would probably now be a rabbi, taking care of my small community, complying with the precepts, and making others comply, answering the questions of the most restless and officiating the community ceremonies, a full life dedicated to the Creator.

And now, how much time wasted, trying to prove my worth, to others and to myself?! So much time away from my faith, believing in things as banal as luck. It has been my particular journey through life, wandering from one place to another, aimlessly, turning my back on everything I believed, with no more destiny than to stay alive one more day.

I have made many mistakes in my life, some without realizing it, others for lack of foresight, but the most serious, without a doubt, was going to the army, although strangely, my Creator has not abandoned me at any time and has stayed by my side leading my steps.

Now with time I see it clearly, but I would not have made it that far. No one could imagine what happened, even if someone had been determined to achieve it, that was more than luck, much more than destiny, they were my guided steps.

After a long time in gloom, I managed to recover my faith, and live it every day, that has helped me a lot to cope with any problem or difficulty, perhaps the greatest in my adult life was precisely the loss of my wife, the one who had become my better half, the mother of my children, my partner and friend.

So many years shared, so many experiences together!, and of course, also discussions, almost from day one, and all because of my work.

She did not want to accept what I was doing and for whom I was doing it, but I said it again and again, that that had brought me to Israel, and that I should continue with it, for me it was unthinkable to leave my job, after so much effort and dedication to it.

She did not like all that espionage and taking out the secrets of others, she thought it was a waste of time, because if the keys were changed, what was discovered today would not be useful for tomorrow.

I struggled to separate work from the family things so as not to have discussions, removing this point, the coexistence was very good.

She had opened the doors of her house and her community, one of the most hermetic of those lands, or so it seemed to me.

At first they looked at me suspiciously, but the decision to marry erased any doubt about my intentions, they no longer treated me like a stranger or a foreigner just as they did when I arrived.

They were very happy moments, forming a family in that land that became my home for a long time, until America claimed me back.

As a military man, when I received an order, I had to comply with it, even though it was not to my liking, since otherwise, they could stop me and even set up a war council to process me.

My wife, for no reason wanted to leave that place, her homeland, but I couldn’t refuse, it was they who paid me and for whom I had been working for so long.

A change of government, had led to a turn in politics with respect to our allies, passing Israel from being a country of strategic importance, to lose interest in it "A country in the desert, there so far away from all", as I had heard some superior say.

Perhaps if I had consulted one of those who had spent some time on this earth, we could have given our reasons to remain there, and testify on how that desert had flourished with a modern and advanced nation, which was an example overcoming obstacles.

My mission changed dramatically overnight, now that there were computers, the spying I had been doing for years was no longer necessary.

Mathematicians like me, we were held in the calculation centers, as they were called, now we had to work through and for computers, so that they performed large operations thanks to our developments.

A great advance without a doubt, due to the rapidity of calculation, but that left our work relegated to a mere office work, and from there to home, where I met my wife's long face, angry because she had to live locked up in a military base , where the education that our children deserved couldn’t be provided, according to her.

If only she could have understood my position, I had to be there where they assigned me, and do the work that they required me, that is the life of the military, to obey orders.

Every day we had the same discussion about what those Americans could offer for the development of our children, and we just stopped arguing when one of them returned home from school.

According to her, the educational system was very questionable. To me, it seemed good to our children, since it was the only one I had ever known, although she always complained that it was not good enough.

She would have liked it if they had entered a yeshivá or study center of the Torah and Talmud, to learn from an early age to know the Creator, and His word; but in that place, it was completely impossible, because the only thing there was, was a single school, for all the children of the military who lived in that base.

As usual, our children's friends stopped by after class to go out to play, although she was not happy with all that "wasted time," as she said, because she understood that the playing was a children's thing, and that at that age they must be focusing on their development.