I like cashews

This was kind of a random week so, like the good ole days of yore, this will be presented in list form. 

Occurrences of the week that made me smile:

- I was accepted into graduate school!! The college I visited in Tel Aviv called me yesterday to let me know that they would love to have me. I am not yet sure if Im going there, but its nice to know they like me :)

- I got to shoot. We have to go back to the range every six months, (and since I just passed that marker!) I got to hang out on base super late Sunday night and shoot an M-16 in the dark. 

- Boris finally grew a pair and fought back when we ganged up on him and got him soaked while cleaning the office. An amazingly ridiculous water fight ensued.

- I helped build a recyclable bench this week, leaving some stupid boy totally boggled by the sight of a girl using an electric drill. Silly child. 

- There was one day this week where FOUR women were in mincha (afternoon prayer). Mwahaha, we are taking back the women's section!

- On Thursday we had a field trip to Modiin and the graves/memorials of the Maccabees and my team won the treasure hunt. Oh yea!

- I got to talk to my brother.

- I went out for dinner three times. Which, while not fiscally responsible of me, meant I got exclusive time with some really good friends.

- I got to run through sprinklers. 

Occurrences of the week that were incredibly frustrating at the time:

- Boris and Lihi (the english teacher) have been alternating between fighting and not talking ever since Boris told Lihi that he liked her and then Lihi told everyone in the office. This made it really fun to stay late with them on Sunday in order to go to the shooting range. Or to be in the same room with the two of them all week. 

- While I did get to go shooting, I dont know how I did. Because the army apparently doesnt care if you can hit anything, just that you can point your gun in the right direction and shoot it.

- There was a base-wide blood drive this week but they wouldnt let me donate :(

- I realized that in the next two weeks I have to get answers from all the grad schools I applied to and find out which ones the Israeli government will pay for.

- A soldier called me stupid this week which was just mean. He then clarified that he meant I was stupid for joining the army, not for the way I speak or something, but it still wasnt very nice. 

Things that I am looking forward to:

- Bonfires on Saturday night for Lag Ba'Omer.

- My brother is going to be in Israel for SIX WEEKS this summer. 

- Next week I will not be on base because I have some sort of "how to be a person after the army" course. And my friend Elodie is going to be there too :)

- SHABBAT!!!

להיות עם חופשי בארצינו

This week was both Yom HaZikaron (Memorial Day) and Yom Ha'atzmeut (Independence Day), coming one week after Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) and three weeks after Passover. This is my second year here experiencing this transition of holidays as an Israeli, but I think this year was more real for me in many ways.

This Passover involved alot of firsts for me, including being in a completely new environment for Seder. For the first time I was not with my family (or adopted family), and I had never been to such a small Seder before. But it allowed me to share new thoughts, hear new thoughts, and experience Yitziat Mizrayim (the Exodus from Egypt) in a whole new way. The Rabbi on my base also told me something this year that allowed me to look at Passover and Yom Ha'Shoah in a whole new way. We were talking about faith in the truth of the events that are described in the Torah, and he told me the following:

Despite the photographs, the physical evidence, and the recorded testimonies, there are still those that deny that the Holocaust ever happened. There are still survivors of that atrocity alive and yet there are those that say there is no proof that it really happened. What will it be like 50 years from now? 100? Imagine, if each Yom Ha'Shoah, all the Jews in each community gathered in one room, ate some sort of symbolic food like what they had in the camps, and told the story of the Holocaust. They read testimonies from during and after. They told their children the story of the Holocaust and acted out parts of the story using certain foods or symbols to accentuate their points. If we did this every year, the Holocaust would never be forgotten-  but would our children ever reach a point where they thought it was just a weird tradition about a fictional story? When Bnei Yisrael left Egypt there were no photographs, no videos, no paperwork, and the survivors died out long ago. All we have is stories, written testimonies and the tradition to sit and retell our history to our children every year. This is our proof. Believing that Hashem took us out of Egypt does not need to be an act of faith. 

As I stood in silence with the rest of Israel as the sirens went off around the country and we remembered all those who have fallen in the fight for a Jewish homeland, I knew we would never forget what it cost us to be here. And as I wandered the streets of Jerusalem that night, surrounded by Israelis from age 4 to 90, all out celebrating the creation of a Jewish state, I knew that we would never stop appreciating what Hashem has given us. Last month we relived the exodus from Egypt, we remembered what it was to become a free people. Our journey to become a nation was not a simple one. Over a hundred years of slavery followed by a hurried chase to the Red Sea and a spiritually and physically challenging trek to Har Sinai where we recieved the Torah and officially became the Jewish people. But even than, our journey was not over and we had to wander through the desert for 40 more years before we were prepared to start fighting for our country. The Torah describes the generations of trials and difficulties we went through to become a nation. It tells us of the spiritual cleansing we had to go through to earn the Torah, and the battles we had to fight, amongst ourselves as well as with our enemies, before we earned the Land of Israel. It took hundreds of years to become a nation of Israel with the Torah of Israel, in the Land of Israel.

And then our kingdom faltered, our country was conquered, our Temple destroyed, and our nation dispersed. For two thousand years we fought to hold on to our Torah, we fought to hold on to our nation. We survived the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and even the Holocaust. We have lost parts of our nation, and parts of our Torah, but we had lost all of our land. We fought to maintain a presence there, in Jerusalem, and Tzfat, and Hevron. Herzl and the Zionist Congress fought to keep the idea of Jewish homeland alive. And then, 62 years ago, the Jewish people once again had a country. 

I cannot imagine how it felt to celebrate our first Yom Ha'Atzmeut, to commemorate our first Yom Ha'Zikaron. But I do know what it feels like, as a Jew, as an Israeli, and as a soldier in Tzahal, to celebrate our 62nd. And being a part of this nation, being a part of this country, we are never going to forget how we got here and what it means to be a free nation in our land– להיות עם חופשי בארצינו

The future is in my hands

This week I have two stories for your reading enjoyment.

The first, is of the army. I would like to prelude this story by saying that as I was recapping the series of events to my commander he was shocked that getting this simple thing done had become so complicated and convoluted. He told me that the army was not normally like this. I laughed.

About a month ago, I asked my commander if I could switch my uniform and get a skirt. The army does offer religious girls the option of a uniform-skirt, but very few people wear them. I had originally gone with pants because I thought skirts attracted more attention, and I dont think there is a religious issue with women wearing loose pants (and since I am the only girl in the army that didnt take my pants to a seamstress and get them fitted skin-tight, mine are unattractively baggy). This decision was also part of my "I can be religious and still wear pants, you stupid Israelis!" statement. 

I have, however, decided to make a different statement. While it still sort of frustrates me, I realized that wearing a skirt in the army is not just an issue of modesty, but rather a statement of religiosity. While a Jewish man can wear a kippah or tzitzit to show that he is religious, Jewish women dont have those options. Those of who are married can cover their hair, but us single ladies have more limited options. So once it started to get warmer and I didnt have to worry about the practical/warmth side of my decision to wear pants, I decided to ask for a skirt. 

Now, in order to switch to a skirt, you have to get a permission from the Rabbi of the base. This was not a problem for me, as he sees me at Mincha (afternoon prayer) every day. I then took my permission slip to the Afsanoot (store room in charge of distributing uniforms) and handed it to the girl (we will name her Olga) there. She had me try on the two skirts that they had there, and when I told her they were too small (flashback to my first day!) she told me they would have to order it from the Bakoom (the main outfitting-base). She took down my name and number and skirt size and told me I could go. The rabbi had told me it is only supposed to take two weeks, but as Pesach was in the middle, I gave them three before going back to inquire what was going on with my skirt. Olga was there, from what I understood, she told me "Im waiting for the guy to take it to the thing. I did my job, you're just going to have to wait."

So I waited another week and went back. This time the girl was not there, but her commander, Michal, was. So I asked Michal what was going on with the skirt I ordered and she looked at me and said "I have no idea what you are talking about." I told her all that I had done and she told me to come back the next day when Olga would be back. So, I went back the next day, when both Michal and Olga were there. Michal asked me for my permission form from the Rabbi and I told her I had given it to Olga already. Olga then turned to me and said "I have no idea what you are talking about." I attempted to remind her about our previous conversations, but she continued to look at me like I was crazy and insist that we had never spoken. Michal eventually jumped in and told me to just go get another form from the Rabbi, as well as some other form from a different office. 

I got the latter form, but when I went to the Rabbi's office he was not there, and the phone number on the door turned out to be the old rabbi's, who had left more than 6 months ago. So after having a nice awkward conversation with him, I waited an hour for the rabbi to come back. He was pretty pissed that I still hadnt gotten my skirt, so he gave me another form as well as emailing it to the Afsanoot with an angry note that he forwarded to my commander.

I went back to the Afsanoot and they were closed. Figures. So I waited another 20 min, and eventually Olga came back. I went in and she looked at me like she had never seen me before and said "Yea?". So I explained that I had gotten the forms for my skirt and wanted to give them to her. She said I had to give them to Michal, who wasnt going to come back today and whose office was on some other part of the base that I didnt know. Great.

So I went back to my office pissed off and cursing in English. They seemed to pick up that I was upset, so they had me recap my story and then spent the rest of the afternoon cheering me up. Come the next morning, the story has gotten back to my commander who is seriously ticked off on my behalf. So he sent one of the officers to the Afsanoot with me. Olga is there but Michal is not. But voila, Olga suddenly knows how to do her job. She took my forms, filled out a bunch of new ones (that she hadnt had last time) and within five minutes had put in my order and once again told me I just had to wait for the guy to bring it to the thing. Right. 

Anyway, story two is shorter. I went to visit graduate programs in art therapy yesterday in Tel Aviv as I am trying to organize my life a little. The first school I went to was awesome and I have an entrance interview scheduled for next week. I then headed over to this other school that I had found on the internet and had invited me to entrance exams today. It quickly came to my attention upon arrival that this was not an art therapy school, but rather a holistic therapy school. Unfortunately they were waiting for me, knew my name and were just way to friendly and attentive for me to just walk back out the door. They sat me down at a computer and had me answer a list of questions on a scale of 1-4 to see how much I agreed with each statement. Some were all right, like "I believe that people are innately good" or "I believe the things I do can make a difference in this world". But then there were ones like "I would describe myself as tasty" and "I dont like wearing clothes". Again, there was no way out, so I worked my way through the questions, skipping those I did not understand (whether because of the hebrew or because I dont know what it means to think of yourself as tasty). Once I had finished, the director of the program (and founder of the school) invited me into his office for my interview. His office has a massage table, a kabbalah chart on the wall, and pillows all over the floor. There were also two chairs, where we sat and he looked over my test results muttering to himself. He asked me a few questions, but apparently my answers were not quite satisfactory, because he asked me for my hands. Not really knowing what was going on, I put out my hands and he then proceeded to read my palms. 

He was flipping my hands over, looking at the lines and the nailbeds and taking notes. After a few minutes of this, he sat back and began to tell me what he could see, based on my palms and test results. Ill be honest, I was intrigued and there were some things that he got spot on. Plus he said I clearly had an artists hands and that just made me all happy inside. He talked all about my personality and the things I will need to work on in my first year in the program and then he told me he was very excited to have me come to his school and sent me back to the main office to sign papers.

While this had been a fascinating experience, and I am sure there is some truth to the therapy he practices, there is no freaking way I was going to spend four years in this program and pretend its graduate school. Also, no way I will ever be crunchy enough to pull off what this man does. Thankfully, his secretary is the fluffy-type so I said something about having to confirm something something and Ill call them before high-tailing it back to the elevators.

Was an interesting experience either way. Hope yall had a good week, feel free to share your own funny stories with me :)

A Tangential Rant for your Reading Pleasure

I know, Im super late this week. I did it on purpose! Thought I'd spice things up a bit. Keep yall on your toes. Mmhm. Thats what it was.

ANYWAY (I think this is the most frequently appearing word in these emails), last week I learned how much it sucks when vacation ends. I had a really good Pesach and got to do so many of those things that I love doing (excluding eating leaven of course) and then I had to go back to base. I wasnt sure if everyone hates returning to their regular life so much or whether it was just me, but it got me thinking about things I have been avoiding thinking about.

I know I have been avoiding talking about the army. In fact, I have even adopted a new policy and whenever anyone asks me what I do in the army I just say "I dont like to talk about it." Occasionally alternating that with an "I cant talk about it", but Im not a very good liar so I cant keep that up for very long. (Last week someone believed I was a pilot for a whole 2 minutes!). The truth is that nothing has changed, and I just dont know what to do about it. I say that I have called and harassed and begged everyone I could, and I really do feel like I have. Maybe there is more that I could have done, more that I could be doing, but it is really hard for me to be happy when I am spending all my time fighting and pushing and getting nowhere. I went into the army without a plan- or rather with a very Kfi "lets see where this goes" plan. And it did make sense to me, because I have seen so many people plan and plan and go in and end up somewhere they hated. I have friends who delayed going in for months in order to insure that they got into the unit they wanted. And then I have friends who knew what they wanted and cried and kicked and screamed until they got it. And I have friends who cried and kicked and screamed and still got screwed over. 

I know that I have truly lucked out when it comes to the people I work with. I have heard horror stories from other soldiers in addition to the guys in my office repeatedly showing me what amazing people they are. They really watch out for me and help me with every hardship I face. They have even learned to interpret my quiet disappearances and force me to tell them what is wrong so that they can help fix it. Plus they can be alot of fun to work with.

Im nearing my six month mark in the army and dont really think I am any closer to getting a job. There has been alot of talk about making some sort of teaching position for me, but nothing really seems to be happening with it. I still meet people who check with their commanders to see if they can get me a job, but its always the same answer "You arent serving enough time." My commander is still trying to help me out, but I find it hard to stay motivated and ambitious. I worry that I am wasting time and wonder how I can make the best of a bad situation, what I am gaining from this, and how it is helping me.

My days are kept busy for the most part, whether it with field trips or assemblies or random tasks, but none of those things really create a feeling of accomplishment, and I dread ending my service without having actually done anything.

I dont really know why I am telling you all this, but I feel some need to be honest with the 40-odd friends and family who care so much about me that they read these weekly updates. I have been recieving plenty of advice on these issues as I spend way too much time with other lone-soldiers (many of whom are the yelling-fighting type I mentioned before) and I think that that is one of the reasons I stopped talking about it. Frequently the advice is "Yell more, fight harder" and that really just makes me feel like a failure, makes me feel like my yelling and fighting just isnt good enough to change my situation. When I think the truth is, that the army makes no sense. And some people have managed to work through the mess of a system and finagle their way into a job. And some havent. Maybe its a personality thing, maybe its just the luck of the draw, maybe I need to put my ambitious yelling self in charge even if it does make me sort of miserable. I dont really know. I know there needs to be a balance between "seeing how things work themselves out" and "taking charge of my life", but it can be a really fine line to walk sometimes.

So Im trying, so you know. And I do appreciate the support. 

And there was a camel.

So, Ill be honest, usually Pesach (Passover) is not my favorite holiday. For one, theres no bread. And I really like bread. And there is no pasta, or cookies, or cake, or pretzels, or pizza. All things that I really like. Pesach also means that you have to clean your house and make sure there is no leaven. And since I am my mother's daughter, to me that means an all out spring cleaning. It doesnt matter that I never ate in my closet or on top of the fridge, or in the laundry room. They gotta be cleaned. Thoroughly. (Though I am not as bad as my cousin Rachel, who once spent 2 hours cleaning the guest bathroom[she dismantled the toilet seat in order to "properly" clean it]).

But as so many things are, Pesach is more fun in Israel. For one, it means vacation. And yes, even though I go to camp (aka army), I still have to get up at 6 every morning, so I too enjoy vacation. And for two, in Israel there is only one day of chag (holiday where we cant drive/use electricity etc) at the beginning and one day at the end, as opposed to America, where you get two days on both ends. And the best part about Pesach in Israel is no matter how religious or non-religious you are- everyone does Pesach. Everyone cleans their house out, everyone has a seder, and almost everyone stops eating bread. Even the arabs know whats going on! They wander around the week before generously offering to take all your leaven and/or electronics off of your hands.

So aside from missing Temp-Tee cream cheese, Manischiwitz Passover Coffee Cake (which I got! Thanks to Mama Skversk), Mrs. Freundel's chicken soup, and my family, I do not understand why anyone would go back to America for the holiday (cough, Dov Lerner, cough).

As may be evident, I have had a wonderful Pesach so far. Even last Sunday, which was spent (almost entirely) cleaning with Mia, was fun. Well maybe fun is the wrong word, but at 1 am, when we finally finished I was allowed to collapse dog tired in my sparkling clean apartment with a belly full of last-taste-of-chametz pizza. Monday I got to join the droves of Yerushalmis burning bread in the streets (we even had government issued chametz-burning bins!), and took the rest of the day easy before hiking down to Talpiot (a neighborhood of Jlem) for Seder. I had Seder with Aron and Tamara (and Mama) Skversky, who become my family more and more each day. It was probably the smallest Seder I have ever been to (only 6 of us), and for the first time in as long as I can remember, I was the youngest person at Seder and got to sing Ma Nishtanah. There was lots of Torah and lots of talking, and I got to pull out my 6th grade Hagadah from Mrs. Greenspon's class and give out divrei Torah that no one had heard before! Who says you need a new Hagadah? You just need a new audience! We sang "Who Knows One?" with the appropriate gusto (though that part always makes me miss my fam), and ended the Seder at around 2am. I crashed on the couch and joined them again for lunch and lots of hanging out before eventually making my way back to my own apartment. 

Chol Hamoed (the days in the middle of Pesach where you get to do all the electrocuting/driving type activities), was equally fun. Wednesday I went hiking in Wadi Kelt with my friends Shira and Baruch (plus his two friends- Abe and Daniel). We had a nice silent hour of hiking before we intersected the more commonly hiked area and the 800+ Israelis that were also enjoying their vacation time. We waded through them until we got to a less-populated section of the trail and stopped for lunch and swimming. You could tell which of us had a mother and a kosher-for pesach kitchen. Shira and I pulled out some cashews and cucumbers. Baruch pulled out an entire chicken and potato kugel. We shared. 

Thursday, well there were lots of things I was going to do on Thursday so that I could feel productive and accomplished and all that. But then I decided to hang out with my friend Kiefer instead. She broke her foot a few weeks ago, so she isn't really up to doing much but sit. So I packed up a blanket and some snacks (thanks Ima for all the pesach goodies!) and we spent the entire afternoon sitting in a park. It was wonderful. My friends Elodie and Daniel joined us and we all just lounged in the shade for hours, playing cards, and complaining about the army and marveling at the young arab entrepreneurs who showed up in the park with their livestock (first a donkey, then a camel, then a horse) and made money off of all the Israeli children who wanted rides around the park. We then went back to my apartment for dinner and a movie. The dinner part proved more difficult than planned, as all the restaurants that delivered had kitniyot (DAMN KITNIYOT!!!) and the ones that didn't (have kitniyot) were like 60 shekel for a personal pesach pizza, so we ended up making matza pizza (with ketchup, as all the tomato sauce had kitniyot. Damnation.) which was actually, delicious.

Anyway, now it is 1pm on Friday. I am still in my pj's and need to shower/clean/pack/finish this email so that I can head to Efrat for Shabbat. I caused quite a ruckus when I did not go there for Seder, so I will be spending the rest of Pesach at their house, which will not only be fun, but will mean I get to eat something other than coffee cake and chocolate milk :)

I hope you are all having a wonderful chag/life.