Week 12

The week started on a real light foot: a Yom siddurim. As lone soldiers, were entitled to one day a month where we leave base, back to the civilian world, to sort out anything we need to do. This time, it sort of just worked like an extra long weekend. I never know exactly what to do with the time. I want to be productive and use the days as they’re intended, but I don’t have much I need to put in order right now.  I took the time to invest in the morning and order some things on Amazon that I need from America. My Yom Siddurim resolution was to make it as social as I could.

I went in to Tel Aviv to visit Aleph and say hi to everyone. I grabbed lunch with Ron and heard about how his career is progressing. In small part, conversations like that make me realize how my careers been stopped in it’s tracks and I’m not progressing like I otherwise would be. But im still young and I know the army’s the most important thing I could be doing. It doesn’t affect me too much.

I went to the Azrieli mall afterwards, trying to use the army Kochavim (discount and funds for soldiers to buy things for the army) but I didn’t really find anything I need. I find it hard to spend money on things I don’t need.
I traveled back to Jerusalem and met up with Liora for dinner at Crave and then traveled with Ty back to his apartment where I hung out with him and Rivka for a bit.

I then went to the Jerusalem Cinematheque and met JJ for a showing of PTA’s Licorice Pizza.  I ordinarily wouldn’t mix this blog with my movie reviews but the movie experience affected me in a way I’ve written about before on the blog, in the ability of movies to bring me to another place, and why, if even for a few minutes, I’ll try to watch movies during our hour of free time a day. Here’s the review:

Last time I saw this movie, I was with Aden and Sophie in NYC. It was a cold winter night, and I remember the chill stinging our cheeks as we walked past Lincoln Center and to the subway.

But for those two hours in the theater, basking in the warm glow of PTA’s dreamlike 1970s California, we felt warm. We were transported back decades; the production design and costuming playing no small part. We were absorbed in the camera moves, editing, script, acting, and directing of a PTA movie and smiles broke out on our faces as time after time, the movie blessed us with perfect needle drops. I don’t think I fully appreciated the movie then. I didn’t appreciate how much of a vibe it is; how it invites you to lean back and enjoy the craziness of a remembered or reimagined California. But oh is it fun to live in that world for 2 hours.

Now, 4 years later, I got the opportunity to see this movie on the big screen again. I’m across the world. Multiple apartments later. Multiple jobs later. Friends who have come and gone. I’m in completely different life circumstances, and yet, watching this movie, I was transported back to the warm vibes of PTA’s world and, concurrently the person I was when I first saw the movie. I vividly remember walking out of the theater (we thought we were so cool that we were able to catch it in a 70 mm format) and walking down the street, discussing how we felt about the movie.

What I guess I’m trying to say is, movies have this effect, both within the movie itself and from the experience of rewatching a movie, to transport you back to another time. You can revisit places from decades ago, but you can also revisit who you were when you first watched the movie. How you felt and how you feel different now. Who you saw the movie with the first time and the conversations you had about it. Yes, movies are important tools for transporting us to different times and place, to different cultures and religions, to deeper, more hidden crevices of society we otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to. And that is a precious gift.

But it is the experience of watching a movie, especially with other people, that gives us such vibrant memories – providing the platform for an all encompassing, engulfing experience that makes it easy, perhaps easier than any other art form, to remember the first experience upon a revisit.

I know this doesn’t have much to do with the movie, but seeing this movie in theaters again and feeling and remembering my first time as I was watching, compelled me to write all this down somewhere. What better place than here.

I love movies. I love watching movies in a theater. I love going to movies with friends. And I especially love when a movie is so good, so well realized and so vibrant, that when you rewatch it, you visit another world, another time or place, that you travelled to once before.

Movies are important. But maybe just as important, is the experience of a trip to the theater.


I traveled back to base Monday morning (always hard) and at the pluga, was told that, along with the other chayalim bodedim, would be in Hebrew lessons for the whole day. The rest of the pluga had already gone to the shetach that morning, but we would stay behind and learn the material theyd be learning out there, slower, with simpler Hebrew and a mashakit Ivrit, and in a more relaxed environment.  We learned the commands for when a chulia (a group of soldiers) is walking through the shetach and encounters an enemy; what to shout out, where to move, how to advance in an organized fashion. The name of the week is “פרט חוליה” – individual and group. We drill endlessly on all the commands first as an individual, then in a group with the Mefaked chuliah shouting them out. The goal is to become experts in maneuvering in the field.

We slept in the pluga while everyone else was in the shetach and had a Hebrew lesson the next day. We ended up just watching IDF videos in Hebrew about the parachute course, tzanchanim training, and whatever random videos the mashakit wanted to show.

We left to the shetach around 2 PM and started practicing the drills we had done with Morah Nina. It became apparnwt pretty immediately that preparing and learning in a classroom is drastically different than actually doing it in the field. We forgot most of the commands and even the ones we did remember, we weren’t 100% on. After only a round or two with a mefaked there, I was sent to the Mefaked Machlaka to do a dry run and then a set with bullets. As soon as I got to the drill with the Mefaked Machlaka, I forgot everything – I wasn’t fully confident to begin with. Throughout the drill, I looked up to him for help with what to do next. Afterwards, he told me I wasn’t ready and needed to drill more. I went back to the dry run area and practiced it a dozen more times with different commanders and guys in the tzevet and came back for a night drill where I finally did it without error. All it took was an understanding of what we were doing and why, rather than just memorizing the words. If I’m behind cover, and I know I need to continue advancing on the target, I can think about whats the logical next step and say that in Hebrew as opposed to just remembering the exact words of the steps we learned.

At night, we played an army game “מלך המעצורים” – it’s king of the hill but for different errors that can occur while shooting. We all stand in a line, and the Mefaked shouts out different gun errors. We then have to address the error and whoever is last, is kicked out of the line. This continues until there’s a winner. It’s a fun way of teaching something really important.

We woke up on Wednesday to shouts of reprimand from mefakdim for some people sleeping in their army uniform rather than sports clothes. Everyone had 3 minutes to strip to boxers and then change back  into uniform. Not an easy thing to do out in the shetach.

Since we all completed the פרט (individual) portion of the week the day before, today we moved on to doing the same drills but as a squad with the squad commander (מפקד חוליה) shouting out commands.
We did dry runs throughout the day, and two actual runs with bullets, and at night did two runs with bullets as well. Before the night runs, as the sunlight faded, we packed up the entire camp.

Everyone finished the night runs at about 9 and we then waited around in the now empty camp with a Mefaked. The army hates giving free time or time to just rest, so he went over different squad functions (pakalim) with us, asking different people to present theirs. It was already dark outside, so there was some cover of night to drowse off, but anyone he saw sleeping, he would wake up and make them stand.

Finally, at about 10 PM, we were told to put on full gear and line up in lines heading out from the campsite. We’d heard rumors that there would be a לילה לבן (an all nighter) on the last night in the shetach so we weren’t surprised.

We headed out on this mini masa and stopped at a few stations, meant to test us on what we’d learned that week and things we had learned in the past.

The first stop was at the לש”ב – לחימה שטח בנוי – an area with several structures the army has outside of the bass meant to mimic a portion of a city. We were given 20 minutes in our chuliot to build a stakeout within a room and do all the other preparations such as identifying nearby structures for navigation purpose and creating a shared language – שפה משותפת – about everything in the surrounding area. Hebrew was paramount here and I wasn’t much help. I feel bad standing alongside while others are planning and organizing but it’s still hard for me to join in.

The second stop was the same חוליה shooting exercise we had practiced all week. This time, there was a “terrorist” at the top of the hill who shot blanks at us to make it all feel more real.

We continued along, in full gear to the third stop: a hilltop overlooking the base. There, the Mefakdei chuliot were given a point on the base and had to explain the location to us in simple terms. It was a navigation exercise. We then had to explain to the Mefaked who was with us where the location was by using land markers on the base.

The fourth and final location was a first aid stop. We had to run out to a person who was 50 meters away and feigning a battle wound. We had to rapidly treat him and then evacuate him back to the starting point. I still haven’t had any first aid lessons (which is starting to annoy me) so I wasn’t able to help. I’ve been speaking with different mefakdim and mefaked Machlaka and hopefully the first aid lessons will happen soon. 

After that, we hiked back to base. We arrived around 2:30 and I showered and went to sleep.

But the night wasnt over.

At 3:30 AM, the Mefakdei Machlaka woke up the entire pluga to shouts and brought us all downstairs. They made up some fake story about people losing their dog tags during the hike and then screamed ארבע קרב מגע!!  We rushed to our rooms, changed  and sprinted to the gym for Krav Maga, which, of course, was just pure punishment the entire time and no lesson.
We finally went to sleep after a week in the shetach and a Layla Lavan at 5 AM. Drained.

Thursday we woke up at 12 and went right to the shooting range. As if the week wasn’t long and tiring enough, in the evening, after going to sleep, we were woken up an hour later to shouts of שבע מלחמה! –
7 minutes to get ready in full gear.

We scrambled and after getting ready, with shouts and punishments along the way, left from the pluga. We hiked 1 KM outside the base and up a steep hill and then returned back to base. After a speech about comraderie and the need to work harder and for everyone to pull their own weight, we turned around and did the same hike – this time with stretchers and our squad mates on them. It was tough, physically and mentally, but all just to build character. As long as you remember that, all the shouting and physical acts are digestable.

We went to sleep at 5 and woke up Friday again at noon. We did all the things we normally do at the end of the week: gun cleaning, cleaning the whole pluga (bathrooms, rooms). Even though we do those everyday, this is a bigger, more intense clean.

We closed this Shabbat as the first shabbat kd fsk in a row (we’re closing 21). Otherwise I would have left at 4:30 AM right after the masa and would have been able to have a restful shabbat after the grueling week.

This shabbat in particular, our base was on כוננות, meaning that if anything happened throughout Israel, we would be called as support. I didn’t think much of it. No one did.

After the Friday night meal, I came back to the pluga to read (I got the next Kingsbridge Ken Follet book) and fell asleep at 11:30. At 12:30, we were all woken up with shouts of שבע מלחמה!! Because of our experience the past week, we all thought it was another punishment or exercise. I was confused, because we שבת is a free day on base.

Shouts of confirmation came from the pluga: this was a real הקפצה. Two terrorists entered Israel near Modiin and were veing engaged by the army. We were called for support. Everyone scrambled to get all their personal and military gear ready. Hearts racing, blood pumping, we grabbed what we knew we needed and what we thought we needed for who knows how long from our lockers. We stood at the ready, waiting to get on the buses to depart… and then never left. Turns out, the terrorists were dealt with hours before. We were on standby, and were called as normal part of the procedure in case more terrorists were en route but once confirmed they weren’t, our support was called off.

Even though we didn’t leave, the whole buildup was the first time I’d felt like I was doing something real. Because I was about to. We were going to go out in Israel and fight. Thoughts raced through my head: did I speak to my family long enough before shabbat, did I properly wish my mother Happy Birthday (happened to be that day), and even the more serious questions – had I done enough with my life until this point? It sounds funny because it was just a small call of support and not actual war, but in the mind of a new recruit this was real war and I was putting my life at risk. It puts everything into perspective.

Overall, even though it wasn’t the most physically challenging week, I struggled mentally. I really felt like a lone soldier. We were in the shetach, without phones or a connection to the outside world and Asher still hasn’t returned – meaning my whole day is only Hebrew. I still haven’t fully connected with the guys in my Machlaka – either because of age, Hebrew or both – and the social isolation really got to me. Plus, the thought of closing 2 21 day stints in a rows with a short shabbat leave in the middle, depressed me. It was a challenging week.

Other points of interest:
I bought a Tanach set to have oN the base to read during Shabbat. I’ve started feeling the Biblical connection to what we’re doing here, maybe because of the Mefaked plugas inspirational speeches before Masaot about our AVot walking here, and I wanted to feel more connected. I also don’t think I’ve ever properly read through Neviim and I want to read the stories of Am Yisrael in the land itself.

Also, I brought contraband on base. My version of contraband: an MP3 player with songs I preloaded. I’ve started a ritual: during morning davening, I first go to the bathroom before putting fonntefillin and listen to music. It helps me start the day and puts a tune in my head. It’s the little things that help you get through the day to day here.