This week I finally felt a bit like a soldier. Let's start with that.
Over the past four days, I have been living on an educational army base in Sde Boker, essentially being a fake soldier. This program, called Gadna, is an opportunity for those not in the army to get a glimpse into what the army is like.
We do this by learning about discipline, saying ״כן המפקדת״ a million times, filling up our water bottle to the tippy top, standing in a ח and then standing in two lines, and then standing in a ח again and then standing in two lines once more. We do this by sleeping inches from our friends next to us while our מפקדות hover over us making sure we don't talk, eating tuna out of a can for at least half the meals, and getting one hour a day to take a shower, brush our teeth, use our phones, and relax. We do this by learning what the words ״שכיבות שמיכה״ means because we know we'll have to do many of them in the army. In all, while we were essentially "fake soldiers" for a few days, this experience was both fun and gave me a little foreshadow into my life for the next few years. A life that isn't glamorous, or one that will even be fun after an hour of "real army," but one that I am excited for because of so many other reasons.
This week, the Gadna army base essentially transformed into Garin Tzabar central. Every Garin in Israel came to experience this fake army for a week, and we all lived together inches apart.
My group is the students Garin of North America, which includes 20-24 year-old post graduates from the United States and Canada. Our age and home country grouped us together into our Garin which consists of 17 fun and crazy individuals all living on Kibbutz Erez, ready to join the army in just a few short months.
Upon arrival at the Gadna base, my Garin was split in half by gender, and the boys in my Garin became צוות 11. We, as a Tzevet, would do everything together. Every activity, meal, discussion, line or ח would be done as a Tzevet, However, when we slept, we shared a tent with צוות 10, or otherwise known as the boys of the Latin American Garin, spanning different countries between Central and South America. Occasionally, we had activities with our platoon, or מחלקה שתיים, consisting of Tzevet 10-19. Within our platoon we had Garinim from Europe, Russia, South Africa, The United States, Canada, those who have lived in Israel recently, religious groups, and the Latin Americans who we shared a tent with. Twice throughout the week, during our opening and closing ceremonies, the two platoons gathered as a base, or in other words, everyone from Garin Tzabar Summer 2021 gathered together. At these times, as we were standing back straight, feet together, hands behind our back and water bottle touching our left foot; all around us we could see hundreds of lone soldiers from all around the world coming together to do the same thing, and pursue the same dream.
What I found so cool about this experience wasn't necessarily what I learned about being in the army, but rather the people who were there, people from all over the world.
We are living in a time where it's safe and comfortable to be Jewish, and there is one main reason why. We Jews now have a home. After two thousand years of wandering, dispersing, and winding up in the literal four corners of the earth, we now have the opportunity to come back to the center of the earth, the center of the world, or as we Jews like to call it, home.
As all of Garin Tzabar was standing in one big ח, future soldiers from all around the world, the one commonality between all of us was that we were now Israeli, in whatever way that may mean. We all took our languages, cultures, traditions and livelihoods, and brought them to a place where Jews were meant to be, and a place where we can make out of these old customs a new lively one in the State of Israel.
With all of these future soldiers from all around the world, the connection and communication is due to the credit of one man, Eliezer Ben Yehudah. Ben Yehudah, over 100 years ago, took an essentially dead and strictly religiously used language and breathed some air into it. The Hebrew language was no longer only found in scriptures such as the Tanach and Talmud, but it was now a living breathing language that can be used in everyday life, even to buy a train ticket! So, when lone soldiers from all around the world gather together, it is Hebrew that brings us together.
Whether we came in knowing English, Spanish, Russian, or anything else; these languages can be put aside. The Hebrew language, as was so important in the cultural zionist movement, was a way to centralize the Jewish people world wide. Modern Hebrew is a way to resurrect the Jewish soul, bringing it back from the dead and allowing it to live completely Jewish.
In a place where lone soldiers gather from all over the world to serve in a Jewish army protecting the one Jewish State, it is Hebrew and Hebrew alone that allowed us to communicate with each other, and it is the one and only language we will need to know.
With that it's time to hit the books. I got some Hebrew studying to do.
מצוין