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.