Life speeds up; Life slows down

I've taken the train from Tel Aviv, on the coast in the center of the country, north to Acko a dozen times over the past month. I travel from the middle to the northern part of the country in less than an hour and a half. I've always noticed the remarkable smallness of Israel, but for whatever reason, it became more than apparent this weekend. In the same time it takes to cover half the length of the country (and virtually the entire length of habitable Israel, considering half of the country's land is uninhabitable desert), I could hop on a train from my home in suburban Chicago to the center of the city; barely any measurable distance when compared to the entirety of the length of the United States. From the relative plains of warm, coastal Tel Aviv, to the cooler temperatures of the elevated Galilee valleys in the foothills of the Golan, Israel has perhaps the most diverse topography of any country in world, especially given its size.

Every Friday morning, I wake up at 3:30 am to come home and every Sunday morning I return to my base in the north. I join the throngs of Israelis traveling to work. I join the hundreds of soldiers who pack the trains to continue their military service. Nothing unusual about seeing soldiers milling about the cities. Any other place in the world, and you would think the country is at war. But not in Israel. Everyone is, was, or will be a soldier.

This week was the first full week of "course Ivrit," aka ulpan. We are now completely into learning Hebrew mode and out of basic training. So what does that mean for us on a daily and weekly basis? Well, we no longer run everywhere, we are "supposed" to get longer hours to sleep, and there's certainly an overall sense of ease and comfort; dare I even say "relaxation"? In addition, on Sunday evening, our machlekah gathered in a classroom, as we often do, and our sammelot told us about some policy changes that are now in effect: improved privileges and harsher sanctions. One on the one hand we are allowed to visit the "shekem" on certain breaks, a store where guys buy mainly cigarettes, but also candy, drinks, etc.; we can run around the base at night for exercise, and most recently, we no longer have to clean our rooms in the morning in four, five or six minute sets. However, on the other hand, if we are late to reporting to base on Sunday, we stay two hours on Friday plus the time you were late; if you're late to chet for more than 30 seconds throughout the week, you stay extra on Friday; ultimately, getting a "shabbat" has now become easier. I honestly never thought the word "shabbat" would ever fill me with such dread and unease. But the army can chalk that one up as a success.

This was a fun week, although it began with a feeling of trepidation. To begin with, it rained all Sunday afternoon and evening. What a way to begin the week. Then I started to get into it with some of the Russians. I don't want to get into scuffles with these guys, but we clearly don't like each other. It's no big deal, sometime just some pushing, a couple stare downs, but then life goes on. It's not worth getting into a fight with them: a) this is Mikveh Alon, hardly the real army; and b) I'm here to learn Hebrew, not focus on petty, immature bullshit, especially in a language I can't understand, and especially especially after being recognized by the Mem Mem as the leading soldier of the unit. Bottom line, it's clear that our tzevet is divided by the Iron Curtain.

But then an amazingly odd and wonderful thing began to take shape. Come Friday morning, the English speakers and Russian speakers in our machlekah began gelling as never before. Things aren't great, but it's certainly a turn-around from where I thought we were heading just a few days before. How'd this miracle happen? From perhaps the stupidest game every invented, one that I had played when I was in elementary school. You make a circle with your finger and thumb and try to get someone to look at it. If they do, you get to punch them in the arm. This silly, immature game has helped the soldiers begin to actualize Reagan's plea: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" We'll see how this next week begins.

The tension within my tsevet made certain periods of the day seem to drag on. But overall, the day moves pretty quickly. We get up, clean our rooms for over an hour, eat breakfast, have Hebrew class, sometimes other activities for the entire machlekah, lunch, more Hebrew, Tzironut (learning about Zionism), dinner, time to work on "homework", free time, bed. Sun comes up (after already being up for over an hour) and the sun goes down (then we go to sleep three to four hours later). Somehow, the day begins and is over before I realize it.

Also each day we have, what the commanders call, "sport." Basically, it's exercise. One day, it's a 2 km run at five in the morning followed by pushups and situps; another day, it's three or four stations involving lunges, various pushups, wall sits, etc.; and one evening we learned Krav Maga. Hell yes! What is krav maga? It's the IDF's martial art; it literally means "fight" and "touch," sort of like hand-to-hand combat. No joke, the hour krav maga session we had was the hardest workout I've had in the army yet, but that's honestly not saying much. A madrich (leader) from the Golani base where we had our shetach was our instructor. To begin with, he spoke (in Hebrew) about the basics and the purpose behind krav maga. From the little I learned the other night (and I will learn a lot more once I join a unit in March), this fighting technique is intended solely to disarm and end your opponent, eliminate him as a threat, not merely to end the fight and leave, as is the focus of some martial arts techniques.

We all sat in a semi-circle around him and he pointed at me to stand up beside him and be his victim as he demonstrated the basics. Let me tell you, this fighting style works. The first thing he mentioned was why our hair is kept short: so you're enemy can't grab your hair and control your head and hence your body. The next critical spot on the head is the eyes: poke them, pry at them, anything. Then your nose. While a blow to the nose won't cripple your enemy, it will certainly disorient them. In addition, he placed his index finger on my upper lip and told me to walk forward. I tried, as hard as I could, but couldn't budge. Pretty effective. Then he focused on my throat. Knock it, punch it, grab it, rip it out; any of those are effective. Next was the back of my head, just above my brain stem. If you knock someone back there, it's surprisingly effective at making them disoriented. Finally, you can always go for the family jewels.

After this exciting demonstration (maybe not necessarily so for me), we were instructed to run in a ten meter by ten meter square. Upon his command, we would either jump to the ground and do a pushup or a situp or jump in the air. It gets tiring pretty quickly. Then we did שש ושש six and six: sprint to a line and back three times. Then again, and again. Then we did pushups, but ones where he would count "one" and we would lower ourselves as close to the ground as possible, and hold it until he said "two," then raise back up. Pain and exhaustion, he told us, is all mental. Finally, we hit something. Ok, it was a sleeping bag, not too exhilarating, but still something. He showed us how to punch, kick, and smash your enemy's head on your knee. Not bad for a short krav maga introduction!

One day, during one of our "sport" workouts, we saw (and heard) a pair of jet fighters practicing air sorties and dog fights in the area. Now I don't mean off in the distance, over unpopulated open areas. Not a chance. Instead, these guys flew low and they flew fast, darting between hillsides and villages, soaring straight up into the sky, twisting and turning, inverting their planes in large majestic loops, inspiring awe in each of us, and making us completely ignorant of our commanders' orders to continue our workouts. Right then and there I was ready to say goodbye to Mikveh Alon and sign up for the Israeli Air Force!

It might seem that the days are exactly the same. While this is true compared to tironut, where we never really knew what we were doing at any moment on any given day, each day has not been the same. One day I was pulled from my tsevet in the morning and handed over to a commander in charge of cleaning the base. Glorious work. For the next nine hours, four of us picked up trash, swept leaves and replaced garbage bags. The work frustrated me. Most of the time we had breaks. In total, I worked less than two hours, but it took me the entire day and into the evening. During tironut I would have been thrilled to do this work; but during Hebrew learning, I would much rather be in the classroom. I wish I could have been told at the beginning all of the work I would have to do for the day, complete it, then return to class. But no such luck; unfortunately, the army isn't always interested in efficiency and how to put its soldiers to the best use.

Thursday was the Jewish holiday of Tu Bishvat. It's a lesser known but very important day in the Jewish calendar. In short, it's a festival for the trees and to begin the planting season. It's a day when Israelis go out of their homes and into nature, to help plant trees and preserve the environment. Especially in light of the Carmel fire just a few months ago, this holiday was very important for rebuilding the forests, towns, and lives destroyed by the flames. (Quick and fun Jewish fact: in Jewish law, it is forbidden to unnecessarily destroy trees during war.) That morning, the entire base gathered in the center of the complex in observation of the holiday and to hear a few words from the base's commander. After an hour of not understanding what was said, we went back to our classrooms to learn Hebrew.

But I am learning Hebrew. My comprehension of orders and conversation I overhear is noticeable better than even a few weeks ago. While I am not always able to speak fluidly and maintain a conversation, I can understand the gist of what is said. The Hebrew course will certainly not make me fluent in about five weeks. I have no doubt that I will be able to understand orders and commands. What I still am not sure of is my ability to have a meaningful conversation with my fellow Israeli soldiers. However, I just recently found out that it is common for non-Hebrew speakers to continue learning well into their tironut. That's certainly promising for my language skills.

Finally, one last, and BIG, bit of information: I am strongly considering trying out for צנחנים "Tzanchanim," or Paratroopers. Yes, paratroopers. Where did this come from?! Well, in short, it's something that I've known is an option for Mahal soldiers. To begin with, I've known that Mahal can go into Nahal (which most often the case), Golani, Givati and Tzanchanim, although to do the paratroopers requires a commitment of two years. On Monday, my mefakedet asked our tsevet who was interested in gibbush (tryout) for Tzanchanim. They are not going to be held for a couple months, but I raised my hand and have thought about it for the past week. I found out that I may be able to serve only the eighteen months even in Tzanchanim. It's also an all-volunteer, more elite unit. Do they jump out of planes? Well, yes and no. "Yes" because they wouldn't be called paratroopers if they didn't paratroop. And "No" because from all I hear, the only jumping they do is a few ceremonial ones during training; parachuting isn't necessarily needed or used in the Israeli military arsenal. I've read online from other guys' blogs who have done the gibbush what it is like. It seems real intense, though not impossible. There are a handful of us who are interested in Tzanchanim. Together, we've started to train to get back into shape. Yes, get "back" into shape. But it's the army! Shouldn't they be sculpting my body? Yes, but not now. I was working out consistently before December 15th, and now especially that tironut is over, we're not running as much or being punished with pushups as often. We do more "sports", and the krav maga was intense, but with all the food we can eat at meals and the lack of constant physical exercise, my strength has definitely diminished from what it was just over a month ago. I need to again bust my ass to get prepared and ready for an extended, intense tironut. And this would be even longer and more challenging and demanding if I did Tzanchanim. One of the things I need to consider over the next month is if I am ready and willing to do a service that is more intense than the norm.

So life on a daily basis has slowed down. Routine has set in. The pace is steady and the day plods along. But it goes relatively smoothly and the days, at least this past week, advanced steadily and in quick secession. We'll see about this week.

I think there was something else I wanted to discuss in this post, but can't recall right now. I'm tired, and it's only 9:30 on Saturday night. I need to catch an early train back north to go back to base. Let Operation Look Forward to the Weekend begin!

Oh, and the picture: it's me burning my beret. All new recruits take their berets, burn off the fuzz, shave the excess, tri-fold it and place it in water over night, then unfold it and keep it under a heavy object for a day to give it the proper look and shape.