Pesach in Israel is very much like Spring Break back home, even for adults; students aren't in school, people don't go to work, and soldiers get off from the army. While the Pesach break started for many on Friday of last week, I left base on Thursday for Yom Siddurim, a day to get take of personal issues. The army gives kravi (combat) soldiers a voucher to purchase shoes at certain stores, and I was not about to pass up the opportunity to pay only sixty shekels for a 650 shekel pair of shoes! I stopped in Tel Aviv to run some errands and it felt good to be in my Aleph uniform. Every new soldier's uniform is completely bare of any sort of regalia: no pins, no tags, no nothin'. And we all have the same olive-colored green kumta (beret). However, as I talk about in a previous post, Tzanchanim's Aleph uniform is noticeably different than the standard Aleph, which makes us stand out from every other soldier in the entire IDF. I wear the uniform--in public, on the streets of Tel Aviv, on the train to and from base, on the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and back--with a sense of accomplishment already, despite my lack of 'bling.' Getting into Tzanchanim was no easy feat, and besides, wearing a uniform certainly infuses within the wearer a sense of pride and honor in being a part of a unit. I would certainly experience that sensation wearing the standard Aleph, but now I have a certain heightened awareness of it with my Tzanchanim Aleph.
I spent the rest of the weekend at my kibbutz and on Sunday, instead of returning to base near Beersheva, my plugah (battalion) was to report to Givat Hatachmoshet/Ammunition Hill in Jerusalem. Why there? For starters, that is where we will end our masa kumta (beret hike), the final, long, arduous seventy plus kilometer hike at the end of my training to receive the red Tzanchanim beret. But why Ammunition Hill and not some other location in Israel? In 1967, Israel recaptured Jerusalem from Jordanian control in the Six-Day War. Ammunition Hill was the site of a fierce, night battle fought by Tzanchanim against the Jordanian legionnaires. At the end, the Israeli soldiers succeeded in pushing the Jordanians from their entrenched location and solidified control of the land surrounding Jerusalem and the Old City. It is from this location that the Tzanchanim soldiers then made their attack on the Old City and finally took possession of the Western Wall, the first official Jewish presence in nearly 2,000 years. If you want to know more about the battle, do some research. But I want to quickly mention one thing, something that does not seem to ever happen again between Israel and her enemies. On the battle site, Israel erected a monument for the Jordanian defenders to honor their valiant effort in battle. Today, Israel's enemies elect to terrorize with suicide bombers, human shields, and rockets fired from hospitals; not one of them is worthy of such respect and honor.
Another great perk of wearing a uniform in public--the first being I look friggin' awesome--is that public transportation is free. Soldiers can ride on trains and buses at no charge if they are in uniform. Whenever I travel now, I am sure to have my uniform on; why would I want to pay? Simply put, it makes thinking about getting around in this country a lot less stressful; I don't need to factor the cost-benefit of taking a faster route at more cost versus a route that costs less but takes longer. This past week in particular was a great personal experiment in utilizing Israel's public transportation.
Here's how. After we were released from Ammunition Hill early Sunday afternoon, I met up with a friend at a yeshivah around the corner from the battlefield. It was the same yeshivah I was at for a three-week program this past summer and where I was going to spend the first day of Pesach. We had a wonderful schwarma and then a friend from Tel Aviv called me to go out that night. He's in Golani and don't see much of him anymore. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through the hassle of going there and back, but then reminded myself of how I got here: just do it. I took the bus from the yeshivah to Jerusalem's Central Bus Station (no bomb this time) and hopped on the #480 bus to Tel Aviv, which drops off at the bus/train station that I walk to after every weekend to return to the army. Fifty minutes later and I was there and then (lazily) hopped on a bus instead of walking for twenty minutes to David and Amy's apartment. All said, from yeshivah to apartment: about two hours. And I had a great night out with some great friends.
The next morning I got up, took a shower and had a cup of coffee, wished David, Amy and the girls a great time on their trip to Europe, and took the bus to the station, #480 back to Jerusalem, bus to yeshivah and into my friend's apartment. No cost to me. Thank you uniform.
That night was the Pesach sedar and the next day was a lazy day. But that evening (Tuesday), I again took the trip back to David and Amy's. The next day I hopped on the train to go to my kibbutz to pick up a few things. Getting from transportation hubs to the kibbutz and back is difficult. Generally a nice man from the kibbutz picks soldiers up from the train and drops them off, but he was AWOL with his family. Being new to this whole kibbutz thing, I decided against trying my luck and figuring out which buses went were, and elected to save a lot of time and hassle, but not money, and hired a cab. The up thing: I spoke a helluva lot of Hebrew and the entire enterprise took about two hours. The down side: it cost me 120 shekels, but down from 150 because I'm a soldier, and a lone one at that. Then again train to Tel Aviv, bus to apartment, and back in apartment. I probably would have spent close to 100 shekels the whole week if I didn't wear my uniform at all.
Then I returned to base on Thursday morning. I arrived around 11:30 and left the next morning at 7:30. Why did I have to return for less than twenty-four hours? In part, because that's the army and I was supposed to be back anyway. In larger part, because we learned how to throw grenades. Well, let me clarify: everyone threw grenades except those who came back, we missed the boat. But on Thursday I had a test on everything we had learned so far in tironut (basic training). Literally, it was a multiple-choice test on the computer. Kind of an odd thing, if you think about it: gauging how much soldiers know about the weapons, instruments, rules and ethics of war in the same manner as a school. But I passed my test, and by that I really mean my Mefaked and Sammal passed me. The Hebrew was way above and beyond my capabilities. So I passed purely because of my commanders. I also found it a funny thing to be tested on things that you really learn purely by muscle memory and repetition. The exact order to load your gun and get into a firing position; how to check the radio for power; the spirit of the IDF; etc. But it's all a part of the training.
Earlier that day, my machlekah (company) went through the obstacle course. It's five levels of things to jump, climb and crawl over, through and under. And it was fun. We had full combat gear on: vests, helmets, guns. In total, probably about an extra twenty-five pounds of weight on our bodies. A soldier needs to be able to fun 600 meters, do the course, then another 500 meters in less than ten minutes. I did just the course in three and a half minutes, right on the suggested pace. This was one of those things you see in any movie that features a military segment. Soldiers always have some sort of physical obstacles to navigate as a part of training. This made my often mundane daily life schedule somewhat more exciting and real. Then that evening, around 11:00 pm, after everyone had wanted to go to bed for hours, we went on a 3k jog. Fun week in the army.
But this was a great week. Perhaps the hardest part was doing my first orthodox sedar. We started at after evening prayer, around 9:30pm. We started eating around 11:30 and finished at 2:00am. It was a marathon, and made even worse by my constant back and forth that cut into the sleep I desperately needed to catch up on from the previous marathon week in the army. In addition, most religious Jews don't shave from Pesach to Lag B'Omer, thirty-days later. Because I wear a kippah and pray three times a day on base, they consider me dati (religious). This is great because I was able to score an extra day off last week and am returning to base a day later this week (in the Diaspora, Jews maintain a two-day holiday observance at the beginning and end of Pesach week). Also, although I do shave every morning in the army, because of this temporary restriction on cutting hair, I am allowed to forego shaving.
And this reminds me how crazy of a military the IDF is. It is truly beholden to religion. For better or worse, the IDF bends and breaks rules to accommodate observance. Sounds tolerant enough, right? But I wonder if I were in the American military (as I originally intended) and wanted to observe Shabbat or wear a kippah how they would react. The IDF operates around Judaism. If a soldier missed or didn't have enough free time for any of his three prayer per day, he is given the necessary time to make it up. As I spoke briefly about in my last post, there are plenty of commanders who wear kippahs. But this doesn't mean that they are sympathetic to or take it easy on religious soldiers. In fact, when I see or experience commanders yelling at us unnecessarily or about something insignificant, I often find myself wondering with alarm how Jews could act so rude to each other. That is the military.
I have an easy time this week; I don't return to base until Wednesday. But we close another Shabbat next weekend and then spend the next five or six days in the shetach (field), living and training completely outside. Until then....tell Obama to wizen up to Assad in Syria, who is now killing people at funerals!
Another great perk of wearing a uniform in public--the first being I look friggin' awesome--is that public transportation is free. Soldiers can ride on trains and buses at no charge if they are in uniform. Whenever I travel now, I am sure to have my uniform on; why would I want to pay? Simply put, it makes thinking about getting around in this country a lot less stressful; I don't need to factor the cost-benefit of taking a faster route at more cost versus a route that costs less but takes longer. This past week in particular was a great personal experiment in utilizing Israel's public transportation.
Here's how. After we were released from Ammunition Hill early Sunday afternoon, I met up with a friend at a yeshivah around the corner from the battlefield. It was the same yeshivah I was at for a three-week program this past summer and where I was going to spend the first day of Pesach. We had a wonderful schwarma and then a friend from Tel Aviv called me to go out that night. He's in Golani and don't see much of him anymore. I wasn't sure if I wanted to go through the hassle of going there and back, but then reminded myself of how I got here: just do it. I took the bus from the yeshivah to Jerusalem's Central Bus Station (no bomb this time) and hopped on the #480 bus to Tel Aviv, which drops off at the bus/train station that I walk to after every weekend to return to the army. Fifty minutes later and I was there and then (lazily) hopped on a bus instead of walking for twenty minutes to David and Amy's apartment. All said, from yeshivah to apartment: about two hours. And I had a great night out with some great friends.
The next morning I got up, took a shower and had a cup of coffee, wished David, Amy and the girls a great time on their trip to Europe, and took the bus to the station, #480 back to Jerusalem, bus to yeshivah and into my friend's apartment. No cost to me. Thank you uniform.
That night was the Pesach sedar and the next day was a lazy day. But that evening (Tuesday), I again took the trip back to David and Amy's. The next day I hopped on the train to go to my kibbutz to pick up a few things. Getting from transportation hubs to the kibbutz and back is difficult. Generally a nice man from the kibbutz picks soldiers up from the train and drops them off, but he was AWOL with his family. Being new to this whole kibbutz thing, I decided against trying my luck and figuring out which buses went were, and elected to save a lot of time and hassle, but not money, and hired a cab. The up thing: I spoke a helluva lot of Hebrew and the entire enterprise took about two hours. The down side: it cost me 120 shekels, but down from 150 because I'm a soldier, and a lone one at that. Then again train to Tel Aviv, bus to apartment, and back in apartment. I probably would have spent close to 100 shekels the whole week if I didn't wear my uniform at all.
Then I returned to base on Thursday morning. I arrived around 11:30 and left the next morning at 7:30. Why did I have to return for less than twenty-four hours? In part, because that's the army and I was supposed to be back anyway. In larger part, because we learned how to throw grenades. Well, let me clarify: everyone threw grenades except those who came back, we missed the boat. But on Thursday I had a test on everything we had learned so far in tironut (basic training). Literally, it was a multiple-choice test on the computer. Kind of an odd thing, if you think about it: gauging how much soldiers know about the weapons, instruments, rules and ethics of war in the same manner as a school. But I passed my test, and by that I really mean my Mefaked and Sammal passed me. The Hebrew was way above and beyond my capabilities. So I passed purely because of my commanders. I also found it a funny thing to be tested on things that you really learn purely by muscle memory and repetition. The exact order to load your gun and get into a firing position; how to check the radio for power; the spirit of the IDF; etc. But it's all a part of the training.
Earlier that day, my machlekah (company) went through the obstacle course. It's five levels of things to jump, climb and crawl over, through and under. And it was fun. We had full combat gear on: vests, helmets, guns. In total, probably about an extra twenty-five pounds of weight on our bodies. A soldier needs to be able to fun 600 meters, do the course, then another 500 meters in less than ten minutes. I did just the course in three and a half minutes, right on the suggested pace. This was one of those things you see in any movie that features a military segment. Soldiers always have some sort of physical obstacles to navigate as a part of training. This made my often mundane daily life schedule somewhat more exciting and real. Then that evening, around 11:00 pm, after everyone had wanted to go to bed for hours, we went on a 3k jog. Fun week in the army.
But this was a great week. Perhaps the hardest part was doing my first orthodox sedar. We started at after evening prayer, around 9:30pm. We started eating around 11:30 and finished at 2:00am. It was a marathon, and made even worse by my constant back and forth that cut into the sleep I desperately needed to catch up on from the previous marathon week in the army. In addition, most religious Jews don't shave from Pesach to Lag B'Omer, thirty-days later. Because I wear a kippah and pray three times a day on base, they consider me dati (religious). This is great because I was able to score an extra day off last week and am returning to base a day later this week (in the Diaspora, Jews maintain a two-day holiday observance at the beginning and end of Pesach week). Also, although I do shave every morning in the army, because of this temporary restriction on cutting hair, I am allowed to forego shaving.
And this reminds me how crazy of a military the IDF is. It is truly beholden to religion. For better or worse, the IDF bends and breaks rules to accommodate observance. Sounds tolerant enough, right? But I wonder if I were in the American military (as I originally intended) and wanted to observe Shabbat or wear a kippah how they would react. The IDF operates around Judaism. If a soldier missed or didn't have enough free time for any of his three prayer per day, he is given the necessary time to make it up. As I spoke briefly about in my last post, there are plenty of commanders who wear kippahs. But this doesn't mean that they are sympathetic to or take it easy on religious soldiers. In fact, when I see or experience commanders yelling at us unnecessarily or about something insignificant, I often find myself wondering with alarm how Jews could act so rude to each other. That is the military.
I have an easy time this week; I don't return to base until Wednesday. But we close another Shabbat next weekend and then spend the next five or six days in the shetach (field), living and training completely outside. Until then....tell Obama to wizen up to Assad in Syria, who is now killing people at funerals!
very nice:)
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