Skydiving

The door opens, my head is back, feet tucked below the plane, and then off we go. From staring at the planes ceiling I am now looking at a rapidly approaching Israeli beach, and a deep blue Mediterranean sea. As we fall I open my arms and you can feel the air rushing past you, faster and faster. If only you could have seen the smile on my face … there is no feeling in the world quite like free falling 8000 feet. As you are falling you can see the Israeli country side stretching out for miles, and miles, and miles. In the other direction the Mediterranean seems to go on in straight into the sun. As you fall time seems to stretch on into an eternity, and seconds seem to crawl, yet you do not want it to end. But all good things must come to an end, and with out warning out pops the chute, and up we hop. When the chute opens it literally pulls you up a good 100 feet or so into the air. With an open chute our decent is much slower, and we can really see the view now. After about a minute of chute time, the jump counselor hands me the chutes reigns and we begin to circle over the coast taking in the view. As we approach the ground he takes them back my legs come up, and we come for a nice soft bump with dear earth.

I must say I hope I get a chance to do something like this in the army. It is quite an experience.

A crack in the wall

So this past sunday I found my self in Jerusalem, and so of course I went to the Kotel (wailing wall) to daven. There while I was waiting for a minyan to catch up to me I watched as group after group of people came into the plaza and approach the wall. I noticed two habbits with people here. One is in pictures people had this obsession with touching the wall. It almost seemed to me they felt they had to touch it for the whole experience to feel real. Maybe by touching they felt they could come a bit closer to touching god. For what ever their reasons people really seemed to like touching the wall especially in pictures.

The second thing I noticed was notes. People be they Jewish or not love to place notes in the wall. As I thought about this strange habit I came to realize through out all of Jewish history we would pour out our prayers and hopes to god, and at the wall it is no different. In the past we would have times of trouble and persecution, cracks in our history if you will, and into those cracks went all our prayers. When the rest of the world came for us we would always go for god. Today we do not just have a spiritual crack in which to throw our prayers and hopes, today we also have a wall, a wall with a connection to god, which we continue to pour into and fill with our aspirations, hopes and dreams. They say god keeps a cup of tears which is filled every time we cry over the bitterness of our exile and when the cup is filled the redemption will come. I cant say if the story is true, but maybe when we will fill the wall with enough of our prayers, hopes, and aspirations go will send us our redemption as well.

They say history repeats its self, but each repetition can be a bit different. Today we have a crack in the wall, hopefully tomorrow we will have the whole temple too.

Days till the Army: 4

Driving and Diving.

The program has wound down its official schedule leaving us free time, and time to get ready for the army. For me I spent most of this time getting my Israeli drivers licences. Now to do this I had to go through a lot of steps.

1. Several weeks ago I had to go to an optometrist, but not just any optometrist there is only one company which can do it. There you have your photo taken and then you get a green paper, and they also check your eyesight. This costs 50 shekels.

2. You must have a doctor sign off on your form saying you are healthy and fit to drive, this cost me 65 Shekel.

3. Then I had to go to one of two offices in Israel set up to permit you to switch your American licenses over to an Israeli one. They too sign off on your form, and its ... FREE!!

4. Then you need to take two lessons minimum, I took 3 so I would be more than ready for the test, it cost a total of 315 Shekel.

5. Then came the test which is its self 350 Shekel, and then you have to pay to use the driving schools car, which the law obligates you to use, and that was 67 Shekel.

6. Then came the test, which I PASSED!! But I had to wait till 1600 to find out the results since, once some one was failed and decided to beat his tester, so they changed the law and the results are not published till 1600 of the same day. So I got my temporary licences, and to get my permanent licence I need to mail the form in to the Israeli Motor Vehicle People, and pay 197 Shekel.

So all in all getting my licence cost: 1097 shekel, and about 9-10 Hours.

Skydiving cost 1000 shekel and is a lot ore fun, maybe I will do that next week. What can be a better way to end of my short stint of civilian life then jumping out of a perfectly good airplane?

Days till the Army: 8

Tiyul Giyus

This past week our whole Garin went on a tiyul (hike) before we all start to draft to our own palces in the army. We hikes adn toured the whole Golan heights, but that was not the part which struck me. Sure its beautiful, and sure it my old stomping ground, but it was the lst day which really attracted me.

On Thursday we went to Kineret Cemetery. This cemetery served the west bank of the Kinneret in the early 20th century, mostly for those who were the real true pioneers of the Jewish state. Here the history and stories are endless. You can walk from grave to grave and with each one there is a story, and an experience to share. From soldiers who fell in the War for Independence to the founders of the first Kibbutz, the Hashomer, and more. Ben Gurion's right hand man, and teen agers who were sworn off by there parents for moving to then Palestine. I felt this location was appropriate for our group as well, since one could find many similarities. We as a group moved from our homelands to Israel, we came with a strong feeling of Jewish deffence, after all we are all going to the army, and many of us bring valuable skills and degrees to the country as well.

There was one small event there which I found ironic as well. As our tour guide was speaking I picked up one of those propeller like seeds you see around a lot and tried to crack it open, and I tried, and I tried, and I tried some more. It would not open, it would not crack. To me this was a metaphor for the people who had lived there, an were now buried in the cemetery. No matter how hard, or bad things got they drove on and just kept trying. Just as the nut could not be cracked, these people could not be broken.

Today is exactly three weeks from when I draft to Golani baby!! I also have an interview with Intelligence tomorrow. We shall see how that works out.

This is the army Mr. Jones ...

Tuesday morning we all rolled out of bed at 0530. Shower, cloths, and prayers followed. We then ate a hurried breakfast and then sat down to wait for the bus. It was late, quite late, what a welcome to the army. We finally boarded and off to Tiveria (Tiberius) we went. There all of our army files were loaded on to the bus after a long wait. Then back on the bus and off to Tel Aviv, and Tel Hashomer, a large IDF base where all new recruits are inducted.

After a 2 our bus ride we arrive and are off leaded into the responsibility of a Mefakedet (female commander) who puts us in two lines and then we march off to turn in our bags and get a hot lunch. As we went from the bus to lunch I realized some kids are gona have a real hard time in basic, some people just can not shut up. From lunch the real stuff began, we formed two lines again and off to the induction center we went. First is photo's. Some people brought white shirts, and tie's for his I did not. Its not my wedding picture, its my army picture. From there they begin to take all sorts information to identify you.They take photo's of your teeth, they fingerprint you, and palm print you, they x-ray your teeth, take DNA, and then give you a few vaccines. From there we went to puck up our dog tags and brand new army ID's.

From there most people would continue on to get uniforms and gear, but we did not. Since not every one knows the location of where they will draft there is no point in issuing gear you might just have to turn right back in. In the end the whole thing seemed a bit anti climatic to me. After all my induction into the US Army was a wild ride compared to this. But worry not November 22nd I will be in the front leaning rest again, Go Golani, Nov '09 KAVOD!

Simchat Torah and a Jewish Nation

In the states Simchat Torah and Shmeni Atzeret are two seperate and distict days, but here they are one and it is a bit weird. So on the first (and ONLY) night of chag we take out the Torah's and begin to dance all 7 hakafot. It was a really nice experience in the kibbutz, and the younger people especially get real into the dancing and singing. Every time the Gabi tries to get up and start a new Hakafah, the youth would pick up a new song and keep on going, with out fail each time. The night of the dancing did not go on too lang and we eat by a reasonable hour.

The next morning we started services a bit early, and we were done with all the teffilot (prayers) by 1030 Everyone then went back to their houses and had kiddush there. People eat a light brunch as well, and then by 1130 people come back to the shul and the hakofot begin. These hakafor are even more lively than the night before. The Kibbutz puts out a table of "schnapps" and people really get into the dancing. But there was one song i had never heard before which really struck me.

"עם מנצח לא לפחד מי דרך ארוקה"

A victorious nation is not afraid of the long path.

This really struck me because I had never heard this song before, and even more I realized this is a song unique to the Israeli experience. In America Jews have no conception of what it means to be a nation, a Jewish nation. they may know what it means to be a minority group, even a power player in the states decisions, but they have never and never will know what it means to be the nation as a whole, to be not just an actor in the decision, but also the one making decisions.

But even further this song embodies even more of the Israeli spirit which many American Jews lack. Many American Jews enjoy their lives, they might know or say Israel is great and their homeland but it is too much of a bother for them to do the right thing. Its easy to sit in their large house, in a quite suburb, and send a yearly check to the JNF. So they do because they don't want to have to get a smaller house, in a city where every cafe has a security guard, where their children will have to go to the army, and they are part of all the decisions of the nation. But its sad because these people can not see past their own selves, they cannot see the long path. It may be a harder path, a long path but it is also the one which will ensure your grand kids are Jewish; it is the one which ensures the rest of your nation a safe haven for ever. So yes this song is it its entirety Israeli and yes every Jew in America is missing out on it.

Judaism does not believe in taking the easier path in life. Torah is meant to be worked for and is meant to be a lifelong toil, not an easy fruit to be pulled of a tree. It is sad the American Jew has let this idea fade away and be lost. While this may not apply to all Jews it applies to many, and if it does not apply to you maybe it will jar you enough to move someone else to action as well.

Sukkot

Sukkot on the kibbutz is an interesting place. First of all, besides for every one building a succah we also built a communal succah which the garin aided in completing. While we were helping to build the succah one of the kibbutznikim gave us a demonstration of whittling a mezuzah cover.

Within the kibbutz we have some very interesting succot as well. One family builds an interesting succah every year. This year the walls are built from hay bales with wooden farm accessories in the widows and on the walls. The door way is built from a trunk of a date tree cut in half. The scach is from the leaves of the date trees. In fact all the succot is the kibbutz makes use of the branches of the date trees for schach. `

The garin will also be putting on a play and dance to “introduce” ourselves to the kibbutz. This is not my idea at all, but its tradition (this place is starting to sound like West Point a bit) so we have to. While I may not enjoy this stuff I will at least try and pretend I care at all.

But once the painful part ends we have a group hike on Mount Gilboa on Wednesday which should be interesting. The mountain commands an imposing view upon the entire Beit Shean valley and beyond into Jordan. Thursday will be a bike day. My original plan was to go from the kibbutz, around the entire Kinneret and back, but I was asked not to out of safety reasons. So instead me and several other people from the garin will join in a group from the area to bike a 25k loop. Not quite as interesting but still promises to be fun.