5 years ago my family took a beautiful holiday in the Golan. There were no shops in the little village with our 'Tzimmer' (a small guest house) and so I drove down one morning to Kiryat Shemona in order to buy some fruit and cereals for breakfast. On the way, I picked up a soldier who was hitchhiking. Speaking to him in Hebrew, he told me that he was a lone soldier (an IDF soldier who does not have a family home).
So I asked him where his family was from. He told me Israel. I thought that lone soldiers were always Jews who came from other countries, alone, and had no family in Israel, so I asked him "Where's your family?" He answered me that his family is haredi and since he had decided to join the army he was now on his own.
He said to me, "I am not religious". I paused and thought. And then I said to him, "Who's to say that you're not religious? Perhaps defending Israel's security and saving the lives of others whilst putting our own at risk is the greatest mitzvah (positive commandement) that you could ever do? To me you're the most religious person I've met." I saw tears in his eyes as I dropped him off in Kiryat Shemona.
We have many different terms for different Jews: secular, religious zionist, charedi. These are misleading terms that only lead to divisions in the Jewish people.... Read More: Arutz-7