Thanks for Your Support

This is to the Whitebook family for their donation of water coolers to my army base. As much as it is sunny and hot in Miami, it's nothing compared to Tel Arad, where we have been averaging 113 degrees for the past 3 weeks. I only went through one week of training without the new water coolers, and you cannot imagine the difference.

We wear dark colored long sleeved-shirts and long pants with heavy tactical vests all day during rigorous exercises, lose a lot of water. Therefore we end up drinking about 15 liters of water a day, and it's no fun drinking the hot sediment filled tap water. With the new cooler/filtration system we don't have to. On an  more serious note, the Whitebook family has without a doubt saved a few soldiers trips to the hospital, by preventing dehydration and heat stroke. Your support means the world to us! Keep up the great work!

Mah Tovu Ohalecha Jacob

So yeah, we sleep in tents. And yeah, it's sweltering. And yeah, we don't get enough sleep. No, there isn't anything keeping the bugs out. Electricity? In your dreams (If you drear at all, that's a good sign, it means you're sleeping.) Personal space? Haha, good one!So after three weeks in a tent, getting back home on the weekend is like a dream come true. Those Vietnam-era U.S. army surplus, olive green structures don't provide much protection from anything.
But the great part about it is waking up in a room full of people whom I've never met before, yet they are my greatest friends. To hear 15 guys learning at the end of an 18-hour day during their half-hour of free time. The tins of homemade cookies that get passed around every night from a different guy don't replace the fact that I don't have parents in Israel, bt they help brdige the gap. Knowing that if there's anything I need, 5 other guys who have that item will jump on me to try to give it to me. Life in a tent is great in that aspect. And it's just not the same in the dorms on the weekends, where you have to fend for yourself.
It's only in the Hesder unit where guys fight over who get's to schlep my dirty socks home for the weekend, to give them back to me washed. Hesder is the only place where our commander gives us an official order to say a D'var Torah at every meal. If I need a place for Shabbat, I have 34 standing invitations from the 34 guys in our 3 tents. They aren't tents, they are incubators. We came in from 8 diffenent Yeshivot, from Yerucham to Carmiel, and were turned over three weeks in a family of 35 brothers. Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov!

The REAL Commanders

So another week has flown by and oh so quickly! This week we met our permanent officers. They yelled and screamed at us all week long. We got almost no rest and worked 18-hour days in 110 degree heat. Whatever we did was not good enough to satisfy them. You'd think these people had no souls, until you break them down that is!

Our Class Commander is religious. Other than his first name, we really don't know anything about him, and we won't be finding anything else out about him for the next four months. He made special arrangements that we get out early on Fridays so that we could do our laundry which is hard for lone soldiers. Our division commander is not religious, but none the less as much as he is a disciplinarian by profession, he confessed to me in my interview with him, that as a Chayal Boded, he has great respect for my needs, and I can address him directly without going through the ranks if I have any urgent needs. And our platoon commander is also religious. When I was in his office, instead of a two-minute conversation to make sure I was alright, he made sure that at my apartment (dorm room) I have everything I need, and that I have places to go for Shabbat, and that my paycheck is deposited on time, and that if I have financial issues, the army can give me interest free loans. So you get the feeling that the commanders are there to help you. I bet you it's not that way in the American army.

Right @ Home

So after my first full week in the army there is a lot to say. On Sunday, the Friends of the IDF Panama dedicated the new Shul on our base, along with three new Sifrei Torah. The Rishon L'Tzion Rav Shlomo Amar made it out to our base, and all in all it was a wonderful event. 
We spent a lot of time doing menial tasks to work on discipline and to get accustomed to the army way of life. After 8 days in the army I weigh 7 pounds less that when I came in! So yeah, you get the point. It's about 110 degrees midday where my base is, and there is no shortage of sweat. I am the only guy who puts on sunblock, but I am still turning crisp. Tough? Yeah. Fun? Oh Yeah. And I am in a Hesder unit with some of the greatest guys in the world. I wake up every morning in a room full of people whom I've never met before, yet the are my best friends.

But to more pressing issues: Every night before bedtime, the army gives out a bit of food called the Prisah. This Monday night we got some tuna and bread, but not just any tuna. Kudos to the IDF for making me feel at home!