So here we have the slowly desertifying GI.JJ, skin deeply tanned from the mid -biceps down and a funny triangle on the upper chest, better know as a chayal's (soldier's) tan. I really miss my now-faded sandal tan lines, but my feet are hidden below my red boots, and though calluses have developed on irrational places on my feet, others have formed on strange parts of my fingers. I have a shaved head, funny swagger (not my fault, it?s just that I've gotten so used to carrying my gun that without it I have a strut), wear a lot of military issued olive green and a big knit kippa that covers whatever visible stubble I have left. My gun strap states two passukim (verses) that I've picked up and live by. The first is the Jewish litany against fear, "Gom ki alech b'gay tzel mavet lo irah rah ki ateh imady,"-As I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death I will not fear (evil) because You are with me, and "V?asitah hayasher v'hatov,"-do the straight and the good.
I?ve gotten used to the sand; to watching the s'nadoes (sand tornadoes) and dust blows; appreciate the necessity and value of water and hydration; haven't seen any sandworms but a whole lot of other desert denizens like lizards and fox-like creatures; been keeping away from the spice (hmmm melange, also explains the lack of sandworms), but oddly, my time sense has been altered. When everything is timed, 30 seconds for this, a minute for that, 7 minutes to change clothing, you develop an appreciation for every second and try to make it count. What can you do with 40 seconds? Hmmmm. In the opposite direction, I can stand guard over a pile of heavy weaponry for two hours and fend off the ever- sweeping tides of boredom so that it appears that I'm being trained to stretch and truncate time.
When I'm free (off base) I'm constantly running around, too busy to rest (though I have just gotten up during Shabbat dinners and passed out on a few couches) doing minor errands, and visiting friends. I decided that too little time is a far better situation than too much, for boredom is more dangerous than exhaustion. Anyhow, enough of my random allusions to Dune, and pondering on the psychological relativity of time. Now we go to Yom Kippur.
I spent the Day of Judgment on base doing guard duty in the heat of the day, fasting and praying heavily. There is something about being in the military, learning about what bio/chemical warfare will do to a human, while reading Unitanah Tokef.(Yom Kippur/Rosh Hashanah prayer). My dad has repeated over and over again that after 9/11 everyone understood the lines ?who will die and who will live, who by fire and who by sword?; when one sits in a shul on a small army base surrounded by heavily armed people who have dedicated the next few years of their lives to putting their lives in danger to protect the Jewish people, those lines strike deep. Anyhow I'm gonna be spending my Succot in camouflaged shelters in the midbar (desert), eating mannak (not even close to manna , it?s manot krav, combat rations, which include the Israeli version of spam called luf, not too tasty), so I seem to be constantly finding myself in interesting and symbolically fitting situations for the holidays.
Chag Sameach
---------------------------------
Jonathan Lewis is a new Immigrant.
This was written on a base somewhere in Israel.
I?ve gotten used to the sand; to watching the s'nadoes (sand tornadoes) and dust blows; appreciate the necessity and value of water and hydration; haven't seen any sandworms but a whole lot of other desert denizens like lizards and fox-like creatures; been keeping away from the spice (hmmm melange, also explains the lack of sandworms), but oddly, my time sense has been altered. When everything is timed, 30 seconds for this, a minute for that, 7 minutes to change clothing, you develop an appreciation for every second and try to make it count. What can you do with 40 seconds? Hmmmm. In the opposite direction, I can stand guard over a pile of heavy weaponry for two hours and fend off the ever- sweeping tides of boredom so that it appears that I'm being trained to stretch and truncate time.
When I'm free (off base) I'm constantly running around, too busy to rest (though I have just gotten up during Shabbat dinners and passed out on a few couches) doing minor errands, and visiting friends. I decided that too little time is a far better situation than too much, for boredom is more dangerous than exhaustion. Anyhow, enough of my random allusions to Dune, and pondering on the psychological relativity of time. Now we go to Yom Kippur.
I spent the Day of Judgment on base doing guard duty in the heat of the day, fasting and praying heavily. There is something about being in the military, learning about what bio/chemical warfare will do to a human, while reading Unitanah Tokef.(Yom Kippur/Rosh Hashanah prayer). My dad has repeated over and over again that after 9/11 everyone understood the lines ?who will die and who will live, who by fire and who by sword?; when one sits in a shul on a small army base surrounded by heavily armed people who have dedicated the next few years of their lives to putting their lives in danger to protect the Jewish people, those lines strike deep. Anyhow I'm gonna be spending my Succot in camouflaged shelters in the midbar (desert), eating mannak (not even close to manna , it?s manot krav, combat rations, which include the Israeli version of spam called luf, not too tasty), so I seem to be constantly finding myself in interesting and symbolically fitting situations for the holidays.
Chag Sameach
---------------------------------
Jonathan Lewis is a new Immigrant.
This was written on a base somewhere in Israel.
