Dear devoted readership,

As always, you must forgive the small vacation I took from blogging. I can assure you all that I did not take a vacation from life in the meanwhile. A variety of different experiences have happened in the past 6 weeks, some of them interesting, some depressing, some frightening, some profoundly philosophical, some purely enjoyable, some life-changing. I don't lead your average monotonous existence of steady work, the bar/club scene, and sampling of "fine" restaurants. In fact, I would consider that lifestyle, if I were to lead it, and everything associated with it, as a grave personal failure. Instead, I serve in the IDF (that's Israel Defense Forces for you space cadets), in a position that requires me to combine focus and total awareness with belief and insanity. I dwell in a modest apartment in a nice Jerusalem neighborhood, and I eat a steady diet of hummus, various salads, bread and chocolate milk. My social life consists of attending communal prayers, Shabbat dinners, Shabbat lunches and Seudat Shlishit (Saturday night meal). But the majority of the time, my social life consists of sleeping in a dirty, nasty bunk bed in sketchy old barracks, wearing the same uniform that I sweated in for several days running, and simply trying to catch up on sleep. If I am lucky, I will be allowed to take my boots off and air out my feet. If I am on the "alert ready team", which I am a lot of the time, then I could keep my boots on for three, four days straight. In the army my body, if sent to sleep, will wake up fully refreshed after just 4 hours. A shower is a preciously rare treat, as are decent bathroom facilities.

After we finished our final bouts of training in late June, my company carried out a 50 kilometer masa (march) on the night of June 27th. It began at 7pm and ended at 7:30 am the following morning - 35 km of walking and 15 km of carrying stretchers. The terrain was Southern Judea, which is dry, rocky and very hilly. I was carrying about 35 lbs worth of personal gear, and, on an on and off basis, an extra backpack with water bottles, whose weight I'd rather forget. The uphill parts were the most difficult fitness-wise, and many people wouldn't have made it up without the help of others. There was a nasty hill somewhere around kilometer 26, where the water-pack was weighing me down and the steepness of the ascent challenged my already destroyed quadriceps and back. I have to thank one particular young man, a chef from North Carolina, who literally dragged me up to the top. I would have surely collapsed otherwise. Towards kilometer 30, a new kind of pain kicked in, one that goes beyond the burn and the constant back pain that we're all pretty much used to. It was the pain in the muscles of the feet, worn down by supporting weight and being slammed against rocks and uneven terrain. The foot pain was universal, no one was immune, and it became the first bane of our existence during the march. The second bane was the now all too familiar stabbing pain felt in the shoulder and upper back while one is uncomfortably positioned under the stretcher. At kilometer 35, after a short break, we hoisted the stretchers onto our already weary bodies. Each stretcher was loaded with 200 kilograms of sandbags. So, in addition to all the downward pressure we felt from our regular loads, we now each had 50 kg nestled between the shoulder and the neck.

The last 15 km could only be described as a never-ending nightmare. The ascents and descents were no easier that in the earlier parts of the masa, and the sun started rising, adding heat to the already absurdly painful equation. We climbed the last several hours worth of hills with our legs and backs in a state of total numbness. The pain, by kilometer 45, had transformed in a general state of deep fatigue. We had all hit the proverbial wall, physically, and were kept going by the prospect of being done. Something quite simple - to be done with training and to move out of the training base and all the negative memories and experiences associated with it. The final climb, which we started around 7am, was up the "snake path" of Masada. This is an ancient fortress near the Dead Sea where Jews made a last stand against the gloried 10th Roman Legion, the last chapter in a rebellion that was to lead to our exile from the Land of Israel in 71 AD. Masada clearly carries a lot of meaning to the Jews and to the Jewish army in particular, and to be able to finish our final march on top of it was an honor indeed.

Counterintuitive as it may be, this last ascent was actually not that hard. My legs and feet had been rendered numb for hours, my back was forgetting to send the pain signals to my brain. The final climb was more emotional than anything else. Physically this was impossible, but my entire company, after 12 hours of hard, fast mountain hiking, every foursome carrying its cursed stretcher, literally sprinted up Masada. We passed tourists on the way up. The Israelis were clapping and shouting their support, the Americans were just staring in shock. They didn't expect to have their insular, organized tour to a "site of historical interest" be interrupted by 75 dirty, sweaty young men, wild-eyed, carrying loads of military gear and stretchers, assault rifles hanging off their necks, sprinting with inhuman energy up the mountain. I was so overcome with emotion that I actually, in between panting, managed to let a few lonely tears roll down my cheeks. We are living proof that Masada and other ancient history in Israel is not just for the books and the tourists. Jewish fighters are here today, in the present, and we walk and run over the very land that our ancestors did, fighting for our right to be here. Once we reached the top of Masada, we began singing, dancing and taking pictures. The end of the masa and that hour that we were just soaking it in at the top of Masada, made the 8 months of pain absolutely worth it.

Since the masa, and the beret ceremony that followed, my unit was sent to Hevron for a week, and then to Shchem (that's Nablus for the uninitiated), where we have been ever since. Hevron is an exceptionally important city in Judaism, second in significance to Jerusalem and is located in the dead center of Judea. Our patriarchs, and most of their wives are buried there. There's a town called Kiryat Arba, which has about 9,000 Jews and abuts downtown Hevron. From there it's a 10 minute walk to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and from the Tomb westward you can visit a series of Jewish neighborhoods, that contain about 1,000 Jews in total. This same downtown area is more or less abandoned, with maybe 10 or so Arab families living in buildings here and there. The area is cordoned off by the IDF and the Border Guard from the rest of the Hevron, which is a sprawling, crowded mess filled with about 200,000 Arabs. Serving in Hevron was relatively boring, but it did afford me and the other observant guys in my unit the opportunity to pray at one of our holiest sites.

Next, as I mentioned above, we were deployed to Shchem, located centrally in Samaria and populated by 400,000 Arabs. It is also a holy city for the Jews and contains Joseph's Tomb, among other sites. All around Shchem are Arab villages and Jewish towns, scattered among the various hilltops and valleys. On some of these hills there are tombs of Eliezer and Itamar, the sons of Aaron the original Cohen, amongst others. Mount Girizim, where the Jews build the first makeshift, semi-permanent temple shortly after entering the Land of Israel, is one of the dominant hills. The hills are exceptionally steep, the terrain is very difficult and rocky, and the low areas are surprisingly flat and suited to agriculture and cattle grazing. Shchem itself is kind of like an Arab village grown too big, with little planning for roads, sewers, streetlights, and a total absence of green spaces. Everything is stone structures, piles of trash and terrible city planning. No Israeli can go into Shchem in the middle of the day, as he will most definitely be killed, or, at best, kidnapped and held for ransom. The city is closed and only Arabs with identity cards issued by the PA can go there. The exceptions are international organizations, like CARE, the UN or the EU, and foreign tourists who are not recognizably Jewish, and who come in groups that are in contact and cooperation with Fatah. I despise the various Europeans and Americans who come with these organizations or groups. They have no idea what is going on, they don't understand what the the army is doing there, and they are completely wrapped around the proverbial fingers of their Arab handlers. The Arabs themselves, I don't particularly mind. They are an enemy nation, but the dispute is between our two peoples, and each side can and should make their claims and try to achieve them. It's the interference from the international community that ruins any chances of the nature of the conflict being changed and any finality being reached. I know my readers are itching for the details of what I do in Shchem and how I do it, but it's mostly classified. You'd have to be a close friend of Felix to get that type of information.

To go back to something I mentioned in my last post, the ultimate arbiter of what is morally right and what is morally wrong is the word of G-d, as expressed in the Torah and as interpreted by the thousands of years worth of texts and scholarship since the giving of the Torah in about 1300 B.C. This is a basic, fundamental concept in Judaism. Anyone who wants to be a real Jew and wants to lead a real, Jewish way of life has to accept this reality. Once you accept it, the intellectual depth and breadth of Jewish learning will open up to you full understanding of both Jewishness and the world as a whole. If you do not accept it, you will be drifting along, and eventually away, from the true core of the Jewish people. Reform, Conservative, Reconstructionist, Progressive and whatever other streams of Judaism have been created, they are watered down, weak and have no ability to transfer true Jewish identity and real Jewish knowledge down the generations and for eternity. These streams are incomplete, they are compromised and they are causing the assimilation of millions. The goal of any nation, I believe, is not to assimilate into American/global/consumerist mass culture, but to maintain its own unique identity, develop scientifically and economically, and enhance the power of its own identity (linguistically, historically, culturally, religiously) using the advances that humanity is making. It's not as easy as just accepting Holywood's and MTV's version of life. But depth of identity gives strength, happiness and empowerment beyond anything that the latest consumerist and hedonistic trends can offer.

Sincerely,
Felix

Yet another installment, this one about the final weeks of training and on morality.

As my 8 months of physical and mental anguish were coming to an end, the army decided to give us all a reminder that, yes, it can get harder. Prior to last week, we had two weeks of suffering on a level hitherto deemed impossible. We had a week of urban warfare training, which, despite the interesting aspects of sneaking around and knowing which angles to cover and where to shoot, also involved an unreal amount of running and crawling in full gear. Not just the regular amount of full gear, but also a ceramic bulletproof vest. The training was carried out literally in the middle of nowhere. The IDF built a mock Arab town in the middle of the Negev, complete with mosques, homes with various layouts, couryards, streets, alleys, sewage pipes, multi-apartment complexes. We lived in the desert near the "village", with no sleeping bags and no tents, and we trained all day and all night in the "village" itself. We ate like pigs (yay!), but we had approximately 2 to 3 hours of sleep per night, interrupted by guard duty. Considering that we were in heavy gear for 20 hours per day, most of it in the sweltering heat, it was a new level of pain for us. If one could block out the constant sweating and the unending back and leg pain, one could have noticed that we all became quite good at coming around corners in as unnoticable a manner as possible, and that in an urban combat situation luck is still the most important factor.

The following week was "war week", which was spent out in the Judean Hills close to our training base. This week was meant to simulate a full week in an actual war. We slept 2 hours per night, again interrupted by guard duty. We ate one meal per day, and walked all day and all night, each carrying between 80 and 100 lbs of gear. Due to my G-d given skills, I am in the forward scout team for the battalion, meaning that my team of four people has to navigate the movement of larger forces, lead them to their respective locations, and reconnoiter new ground. The conditions were tough - viciously hot during the day, dry and cold and night. The ground was hilly, rocky, and exceptionally thorny. Aside from walking for about 10 hours per day, we also stopped periodically to attack random hilltops. This meant that the slow pain of walking with heavy weight was transformed into explosive effort of sprinting and crawling up hills, shooting at various targets along the way. We were also engaged from time to time by enemy forces, and had to chase them for a good half hour at a painful jogging pace. When you're dead tired, running after someone with all your gear, only to then find the energy for an all out burst of speed as you "kill" them, it takes a physical and mental toll that requires sleep. And sleep, of course, was something you're not allowed to get during "war week." Of course, at the end of every engagement, a few people would be "injured" and that can only mean one thing - carrying them on stretchers for long periods of time, until your shoulders want to fall off.

Despite the pain and exhaustion, there were many interesting points. We were flown in a helicopter a few times and we did a joint exercise with tanks and heavy mortars. Watching heavy weapons churn up a hillside while helicopters circle overhead dropping smoke grenades and firing heavy machine guns, it was kind of like being in a movie. Of course, no matter how good the bombardment is, at the end of the day, it's the foot soldiers that still had to find the stamina to go forth and take hills, taking out the remaining targets and laying final claim to captured ground. To add to the overall crappiness of the week, we also had to put on our gas masks at various junctures. A gas mask is a hot, sweaty situation with a serious lack of oxygen. Wearing one while climbing hills in the heat of the day for hours on end is utter hell. At the end of the week, we peformed a "withdrawal" back to base, different from other hikes in that we were low on water and half a dozen people passed out. Of course, we had several people pass out during the week from exhaustion, but 7 guys losing consciousness in a four hour hike - you can tell it wasn't a walk in the park. Add to that the injuries and the people who simply gave up, and only about 70% finished the week. Pretty good, all in all.

This past week we have been cleaning up the dorms, handing over equipment that belongs to the base, and those with not-so-perfect Hebrew like myself have been taking classes to improve reading and writing skills. Of course, after all that we have gone through, what really matters in these Hebrew classes is that we spend the entire day in a nice air-conditioned room. What the little 19-year old "Hebrew teacher" is trying to say is of secondary importance. Aside from some morning runs with full gear, we've been spared any real pain. This "hapshanut" or slacking, went on all last week and will go on for another week. Two weeks of sleeping well, eating very well, and no sign of being out in the field. Heaven. We have one big massive march to do at the end of next week, but since it's the last thing in training, no one is particularly worried about it.

With regard to morality - why does the human being need any set of moral standards whatsoever? Because devoid of any sense of morals, the human is basically an animal with a more evolved brain. Morally correct behaviour is what allows societies to exist, as members of those societies interact with one another in ways that allow for expression beyond food, sleep and sex. Of course, the real question is - What are these morals? Who determines them? Are they black and white or open to interpretation? Can they be changed? How do we decide when, if or how to alter our moral standards? All good questions that I can easily answer with the greatest document ever to see the light of day. I am sure my regular readers know what I am getting at. I will discuss further in my next post.

On a side note of great importance, my life here in Israel will, in one week's time, be made fuller and richer by the arrival of one of my closest friends. He will join me in this endeavor we call Zionism and together we will build a better Jewish homeland and a more elevated Jewish existence. Why not aspire for the best? Israel isn't just about mouth-watering shwarma, smooth hummus, white beaches and clear torquois water. Although, living here is such an investment of one's energies and time, that enjoying the perks is definitely part of the package deal. Shabbat Shalom to my readers, and to those of you who know what I am talking about - get on Facebook. You can't fight the digital future.

Shavuot, celebrated a week and a half ago, commemorates a key moment in Jewish history when G-d gives the Torah, both the written and the oral, to the Jewish people at Mt. Sinai. Pesach and Shavuot are therefore representative of the two key characteristics of the Jewish people. Pesach, celebrating our liberation from slavery, is a holiday that cements our national identity. Meaning, we the Jews are a single, ethno-national group, with a language, a history and a significant degree of genetic continuity. Shavuot represents the next stage in Jewish development - the connection to G-d through the study and performance of the lifestyle and life philosophy of the Torah. Every nation has its own national character, but we are unique in that our nationality is integrated with our religious beliefs. Judaism as a religious philosphy and a religious lifestyle is the principle aspect of Jewish national life.

Sadly, between about 1860 and 1960, massive waves of secularization in all parts of the Jewish world have sucked away Judaism from the Jews, and today, in 2007, the majority of Jews are connected rather weakly to their Jewish essence. The spiritual impoverishment of the Jews began with the secularization of European Jews trying to assimilate into German, French and English societies in the period of 1860-1900. The trend quickly spread to American Jews and to Eastern European Jews in the early 1900's. The former quickly entering into the economic opportunities of the American system, the latter involving themselves in the Socialist philosophy and its associated revolutions and state-building processes. Ironically, it was the Jewish socialists who build the foundations of modern Israel from the early 1900's up until the formal creation of the state in 1948. Finally, the secularization trend reached the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa in the 1950's, after they came to Israel. Against their will or not, they were integrated into the Western-minded Ashkenazi-dominated Israeli society, and many of them accepted the Socialist secular philosophy of Eastern Eurpean Jewry.

Today, every Jewish community is majority secular and lives, thinks and acts more like Western progressive individuals and less like Jews. Israel, for fairly obvious reasons, has a relatively high percentage of fully Torah-observant Jews, about 33% of the population (and growing fast!). In the US it's about 12% and in Europe about 20% that live the Torah lifestyle. Compare that with the year 1850 when there was no widespread concept of a secular Jew, and you can see the difference. Not since Roman times, when large segments of the Jews left the Orthodox core and assimilated into a progressive and accepting Roman citizenry, has the Jewish world had such a massive percentage of Jews throw Torah aside.

On the other hand, we do have the State of Israel, which gives us the hope that we can find a solution that blends the national and the religious, allowing for both physical expressions of our identity such as land and language, and for spiritual expressions such as belief, religious holidays, kashrut and Shabbat observance. The spiritual aspects of Jewish identity are still strong if they stand by themselves, but then they lack a national logic and hence aren't particularly compelling. On the other side of the coin, the physical reality of the Jewish state with the original Jewish language doesn't mean much if it lacks the spiritual substance that gives meaning to its very existance and gives drive and purpose to its future.

The reason why I launched into the discussion above is because the national direction of Israel is the single most important underlying issue today. Economic decisions, political manuevering, the security situation - all these aspects of national life are not trite, but they are to a large extent effects, not causes. They are the outer, surface issues, and not the inner core of the nation of Israel. The cause, the inner core, the very life force of Israel is its Jewish identity. To whatever exent we can create a strong Jewish identity, both as national-political entity and a spiritual entity, we can move forward and keep developing Israel into the future. To whatever exent we fail to be Jewish enough and we let ourselves be sucked into the lifestyles and values of New Yorkers and Western Europeans, we will watch Israel slide downward.

Hence, my current training in the IDF, my future performance of my military specialty, and that of every single serviceman and servicewoman in the army - these are all things that are driven, one way or the other, by how Jewish we truly are and how connected we are to Torah and Hashem. If we're not strong enough in our spiritual identity, my accurate shooting isn't worth much. As proud as I am of my strong core muscles, and their ability to carry weight for long periods of time, it's a pretty meaningless little fact if the majority of Israel's youth is obsessed with trying to pretend like they are living in Los Angeles.

Did I ever mention in this blog that Los Angeles, especially Holywood and San Fernando Valley, is the source of the worst values and ideas that modern Western culture has created? That place is incredible morally corrupt and large groups of people the world over, especially residents of urban areas, are absorbing the rottenness of the culture emanating from Los Angeles. Tel-Aviv being a prime receiver of said immorality. Physical comfort, trendy lifestyle, easy money, nice cars, lots of sex. If it looks so good on TV, why wouldn't people want it? Luckily for Israel, the counter-trend of religious belief and strong values is working at a solid pace and regaining lost spiritual ground. Soon, with G-d's help, Torah values will be much more strongly incorporated into the State of Israel's government, political policies and educational system. We have a long, long way to go though.

As far as my training, we have been covering very long distances with weight and with loaded stretchers, and we're been improving our various tactical skills. Nothing you wouldn't have already seen on some TV special. And we're better than the US Army, even though we don't have as much muscle mass, and our equipment is second rate. It's all about motivation.

It's been two weeks since my last confession. And it will have to wait two more if you're reading for detail. For now, I have limited time so I'll quickly expound on the topics of Jerusalem Day, which happened this past week, and the goings on in Sderot. Jerusalem Day celebrates the reunification of the city in 1967, and it used to be a national holiday. Today, it is primarily the holiday of the national-religious sector. Now, I know that it seems like this blog is out to prove that the knitted kippas are the only Zionists left in Israel. And while that does happen to be partially true, the reality is that, just like last year, Jerusalem was packed with national religious youth from yeshiva high schools, pre-military yeshivas and higher yeshivot. They came on organized group trips from all over Israel to attend the festivities. There were also massive showings of families. Total numbers are estimated at several hundred thousand. Said festivities were described in detail in a Jerusalem Day post of last year. There was marches, music, and the most numerically large group prayer/music session the Kotel Plaza sees all year. I can assure you that there was no secular representation at Jerusalem Day and, in fact, the left-wing media derided the event and tried to do its best to keep the spotlight off it, despite the sheer magnitude of the crowds and the meaning the holiday holds for the still Zionist populations in Israel's society.

In the IDF, we had a rabbi, who served in my unit in his youth, come and give a speech about the meaningfulness of having Jerusalem as our capital, the uniqueness of Israel and its centrality in world events, and the importance of military service as a means to ensure our survival. It was an inspiring speech, filled with quotes from the Torah and from Israel's leaders. Not the current trash that stinks up the Knesset, but the purer, ideological leaders of a generation ago. There was also a moment when the rabbi mentioned that there were a lot of crazy Americans in the unit who left their privileged existance and came to serve the Jewish people. The audience erupted in a good five minutes of applause and I have to say that it felt damn good to be given such a massive public display of appreciation. I generally have to deal with the pessimistic attitude of my fellow soldiers, so seeing that when their emotions are revealed, they really are impressed with the Americans who are such quality additions to their units, it uplifts the heart.

I think there are a lot of poorly written sentences in this post, but I am tired from drinking beer and eating freshly grilled burgers, so you must forgive me. I am turning in, and I will be back in two weeks with another update. By that point, I may have some detail for you on next weekend, which will be spent in the city of Hebron. I will try not to start a newsworthy incident, but I am somewhat of a firebrand, so you never know. Wearing the ceramic vest is going to be beyond uncomfortable, but I will get to pray in the Cave of the Patriarchs, so it'll be worthwhile.

Since I last posted, my army experience has gotten significantlay more serious. Basic training was easy and fun relative to the intensity of advanced training. The physical and psychological pressure is mounting. Everyone in my unit is counting down the days until training is over and we can get a week's vacation before our first assignment. Sadly, I cannot write on this blog about the details of my training, as it is now in the classified stage. Were I in a different unit, I would be able to discuss my training more freely, but I am not, so I will have to describe advanced training in vague generalities and devote more time in my blog to broader topics. The focus will still be on Israel, of course.

The first broad topic will be illustrated by a narrow example. My platoon started basic training with 42 fresh-faced recruits, all of whom had to pass rigorous tests in order to be admitted into the unit. Now, with 6 months of training behind us and 2 more months to go, we have 32 soldiers left, with 10 of them on the injured list. Of those injured, about 5 are actually in the process of being transferred out. So, in effect, my platoon is 27 strong. We've lost 36% of our platoon to a combination of actual injuries, imagined injuries, but more commonly - the inability of people to find the inner motivation to handle the mental aspects of training. We are 64% of our original strength, and the figure is more or less similar in the two other platoons of my training company. It must be noted that none of the religious guys, kibbutznikim or Americans have left the unit. And that doesn't mean that those three groups are great physical specimens. It means that they are the only ones with the motivation to ignore the stresses of training and keep pushing themselves.

Since I am in that mood, let me also rail against my least favorite group in Israeli society - the secular, middle to upper-middle class Tel-Aviv area materialist hedonists. We started out with 9 such guys in my platoon, we now have 3 left. One of the three who are left is most likely leaving soon, so make that two. Proportionate to their percentage of the draftable population, we should have 13 of these guys left in the platoon. But, as those who have left us have made it clear, it is almost impossible to continue training when all of their friends are partying it up every single night because they chose to serve in the slacker part of the army. The part where "soldiers" have every other week off. Yes, you read the last sentence correctly. The Tel-Avivis and their kindred spirits in places like Ramat Gan, Herziliyah, Petakh Tikva and so on, find positions in the army where they "serve" for five days, while going home every night, and then have 9 full days at home before they have to report back to the army. That's known as "hamesh-tesha" the "five-nine" service framework. I was also shocked by how bootleg and wasteful that is. They are practically spending 3 years living at home, doing nothing, maybe working part-time, and partying it up. Every other week that have to show up and drink coffee from 8am to 4pm, but that's about all the army requires of them. Ridiculous.

Well, the important thing is that there are enough motivated guys to keep this IDF thing going, but our numbers are lacking. Anyone out there who is motivated - get your butt to Israel and pick up a gun. The situation isn't critical yet, but unless there's a Zionist renewal, it will get critical sooner than we think. And the Arabs are sensing our weakness. They saw that we weren't quite as strong in Southern Lebanon as we could have been. Our society is getting Americanized. Fatter, lazier, more materalistic. The enemy, on the other hand, is getting leaner, meaner and more fanatical. The Nation of Israel had better wake up. There's a dearth of Zionist motivation, and it's been hurting the IDF for the past 15-20 years. Luckily, the birthrate in the national-religious sector has propped up the army with an ever-growing batch of motivated recruits coming out of national-religious education system. And we still have the kibbutznikim/moshavnikim and the new immigrants to rely on. But the majority of Israeli society doesn't fit into these categories and it is that majority that has lost the will to fight.

Will the religious birthrate make up for the recruitment problem in the secular sector before the Arabs force us to jump ship? I don't know, but it doesn't look good. We need more Zionists here. Simple as that.

PESACH

First off all, there's precious little my blog can add to the wealth of Jewish knowledge that is available today on the web. Pesach is the holiday of our initial independence, which led to the formation of the Jews as a Jewish nation with the Torah and with Jewish law. This happened only after our Exodus from Egypt, when, as newly free people, we received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Prior to the events celebrated on Pesach (and later Shavuot), we were a Hebrew-speaking monotheistic ethnic group. Hence, the act of fleeing our slavery and gaining freedom was the key step before accepting the Torah and with it - the Jewish way of thinking and living. Pesach is the original Independence Day for the Jews.

Sadly, I am spending my Pesach seder tonight in the cold, rainy outdoors, gripping a cold gun and dreaming of the light and warmth of home. An IDF rabbi will come by our post and do a quick 30 minute seder, with all the essentials in a special weather-proof box. At any part of it, 2 soldiers participate, and 2 will cover the approaches to the border, on a rotating basis. As one country singer put it "Freedom ain't free."

The whole point of Pesach is freedom from the slavery of galut (the Diaspora). For 2,000 years Jews the world over said "Ha'Shana Ha'Ba b'Yerushalaim!" (next year in Jerusalem) at the end of the Pesach seder. They still say it. But now that we have Israel, and it's a free plane ride away, most comfortable Jews aren't keen on coming. So I recommend, if you don't plan on aliyah, don't say you'll be in Jerusalem next year at the end of your Pesach meal. It's plain hypocritical. But if you do want to come, then declare it with all your heart, and I'll see you at next year's seder, right here in Jerusalem.

Hag Sameach to all my readers!

Infantry Matters and Northwards

In response to Johnny Kosher's comment - of course planes and missiles are crucial. But they respond to strategic threats, which are totally separate from the type of warfare the IDF is fighting now and will be fighting for the forseeable future. Infantry performance on the ground determines the victor, not a successful bombing campaign. This is the lesson of the conflicts of the 21st century. Urban and guerilla warfare skills are everything. This is the case in Afghanistan and Iraq and it was the case with Hizbollah in the summer of 2006. And Kosher, if you want to go to a sayeret, you'll realize very quickly that carrying weight is the bane of your existance. You should prepare by cancelling your gym membership and jogging with a pack.

My company got sent to the North this week. It's Pesach, which means the army is at its busiest. The enemy likes to strike on holidays, as it is a huge public relations victory for them. Hence, all border areas are being reinforced, even by trainees. Israelis love to picnic and camp all over the national parks, and many of them are next to the Lebanese border. Personally, I am looking forward to digging myself into a hole and covering myself up with some brush. When off-duty, we'll be barbecuing. We brought what must be a hundred kilograms of meat with us. I am gonna have to teach the Israelis what a bleeding red, rare steak is all about.