Liora’s Wedding/Extended Regilah

Chayalim Bodedim are alloted 8 days per year of their service for parents visits. If your parents are in the country, you can split up the days however you want and, assuming the pluga has enough people without you, they allow you leave to be with your parents. In addition, if a sibling gets married, you get a day vacation.

After only 8 days in Gaza, my mom arrived in Israel for my younger sisters wedding (followed by the rest of my family in the coming days). The gdud also had a 10 day regila scheduled in a few weeks. So, in Israeli fashion and in my best effort to not be a “friar” (Israeli slang for a chump/someone taken advantage of), I combined all the days and created a 19 day vacation for myself. A dream.

This 19 day regila was the first time I had a sense of what it’s like to be a regular, non chayal boded in the army. I got off base, and my mom and sister, who happened to be in Jerusalem running errands, met me at my door as I arrived home. I got to give them both a hug, spoke to them about my last few shmira cycles and felt like I had truly come back home from base. I love the lone soldier house I’m in and the sense of home that it truly does give me, but there’s no replacement for getting off base and seeing your family.

The week leading up to Liora’s wedding was relatively relaxed. I spent most of the time with my family, hanging out by the apartment they had rented, joining the Shabbat Kalla. For a brief three weeks in the middle of my service, it felt like life had returned to normal.

Liora’s wedding was also a stark reminder that life on the outside marches on. Liora met and married her husband while I was in the army. He’s a great guy and a great addition to the family. Perfect for Liora. They honored me with emceeing the wedding and I got emotional a few times, during the bracha for chayalim (recited by one of her husband’s relatives who had lost a brother in combat) and just processing seeing Liora in a wedding dress, all grown up. I’ll share pictures, but nothing can do justice to the warmth and happiness of that night, the excitement and energy of the dancing, and just how surreal it is to see your little sister married.

I still had a few days of the Regila left after the family went back to America. While still in Gaza, I booked a hotel room at a resort near the Kinneret with two of the other chayalim bodedim. We rented a car, spent a day at aqua kef and the kinneret, and relaxed at the hotel.

I realized something while I was on the trip. I remember hearing army stories years ago from friends who had drafted. Stories of their training, their kav, the missions they went on, but also what their life was like during their army service. I heard about the experiences they had on yetziot, their housing while in the army, the trips they took on with their tzevet.

For so long I’ve been viewing my life on the outside and in the army as two separate existences. Two worlds that I didn’t want to collide and had intentionally kept separate as best I could. But, with this regila, and this first real “out of army” experience with army friends, I understood that these are my army stories as well.

When I tell people, years from now, about my army experience, it’s going to include that little Kinneret excursion with my chayal boded friends during this regila. It’s going to include the house that I’m living in, the day trips I take during Yetziot, and all those experiences that I have as well. It isn’t the isolated army experience and only the things we do on base; my “army experience” is the full year and a half I spend in the army. Within “the army” and outside it. It’s impossible to truly separate the two. What I experience during the army influences my life outside, and the relaxation and recuperation that I have on the outside influences what I do when I return. It’s time to view this year and a half as a holistic experience.