The Garin Tzabar Edition

“Guess who's back? Back again?

Shady's back. Tell a friend.”

-Eminem, Without me

It seems to me that every good blog needs its own little quirk. I've decided that mine will be a quote from a song that relates, however vaguely, to the post in which it's quoted in. This post, for example, is all about coming back, returning. All about friends. And I'll even throw in a bit of uncertainty. Unlike Shady, though, we will not be discussing creating monsters, weed mixed with some hard liquor, or not cooperating today. Quite the opposite, in fact. Today we discuss the Tzava (Israeli Army). Because, as many of you might know, today marks a very special occasion. Today, over a hundred of young Jewish men and women return to their ancestral homeland to begin the latest chapter in their lives, and in-so-doing, continue the latest chapter in our national history, as Garin Tzabar '13 kicks off.

Now, let me clear a few things up, although I am somewhat of a layman in this department. Garin Tzabar is a program, for lack of a better word, in which Lone Soldiers live together as a group on kibbutzim, moshavim, or, as it turns out, in Talpiyot (an industrial neighbourhood in Jerusalem). For the few months before they draft, they take part in Ulpan, physical training, and general pre-army preparation, in an environment in which they can bond together while still embracing the individual responsibility which they have taken upon themselves. Sach hakol (all in all), it is an awesome way to do the army, from what I've been told.

I've been in Israel for a while, but unlike the vast majority of my close friends here, I have neither made aliyah, nor served in the army. This has put me in a strange position where I have had countless conversations about both, but can't fully relate to either. That being said, I know enough about it to be truly inspired by the sacrifice that my dear friends are making, and to make sure that they constantly know that I have no bedtime, that my Sundays are fantastic and that I literally only have one green shirt here. But they still get to shoot tanks. And take free buses. And shoot tanks.

Now, there are two reasons I'm writing this post:

1. I have to publicly let Jake and Richard, two of my friends starting Garin Tzabar today, know that I love you guys and I'm really proud of you and if I'm still here when you draft and you don't let me play with your guns there will be hell to pay. That may have been funny, but I'm not joking. At all.

2. A year ago today, some of my closest friends here kind of awkwardly met me for the first time when they themselves began their life as Garinim (lit. Sunflower seeds consumed by the kilogram by crazy Israeli soccer fans), while some of my other closest friends continued to know me, and still continue to know me to this very day!

For serious, you guys have all been a constant source of pride and inspiration for me, and whether it be heavy-duty wine/vodka tasting, musical education, spontaneous (or possibly creepily premeditated) slumber-parties, droog shenanigans, Rav Noam stories, Trance Bar escapades, fantastic blog posts or stories about being in freaking tanks or jumping out of freaking helicopters or shooting freaking grenades or shooting freaking Adderall or shooting freaking movies, it's been amazing knowing you all, both in yeshiva and out of it, and, by the way, I'm pretty sure that was the longest list of inside-jokes ever made. So to Jake and Richard, good luck, I hope you guys have the time of your lives, and well done for getting the hell outta The Dorms before I did. To Aaron, Adir, Batya, Bec, Becca, Ben, Chaim, Elie, Hartley, Hersh, Malkaya, Ofek, Ouriel, Revi, Sagi, Shmuel, Stef, and Zalman: HAPPY GRANNIVERSARY BABY!! (Cos, Garin, and anniversary, granniversary, get it?)

Now, a few days ago Jake and I were talking about Israel, and Israelis, and money, and other things commonly found in the middle east - Shariah-Law, anyone? - and I realise that I never really talk about what I personally love about this crazy, crazy place. It just so happens that I started a blog a few days ago, so I thought, how cool would it be if a Things I love About This Crazy Place section just popped up on my blog? And just then, the weirdest thing happened!

Things I Love About This Crazy Place:

Israelis be cray. It's pretty well known. But in their eccentricity lies something wonderfully endearing. They can be mean as Mark Wahlberg, but it's almost always out of some strange brand of unconditional love. I've seen a Yemenite man we'd never met before absolutely ripping on a friend of mine, in his own peculiar way, and then, in the next sentence offering to drive my friend to the Misrad haPanim (Ministry of the Interior), which was a good two hours away, to sort out an issue my friend was having with regards to military service.

A more recent example of this inexplicably extravagant hospitality occurred just the other day. A friend of mine told me that he helped a family find their way out of the maze that is the Old City of Jerusalem. Afterwards they traded contact information and offered him to come over for shabbat whenever he wants to. As if that wasn't enough of an invitation, later that day they called him and asked if he was indeed coming that shabbat.

These instances of people opening up their hearts and homes to random strangers is something I personally love about Israel, not because of the heart-warmingness of it all, but because to be honest, it makes absolutely no sense, it's absolutely mind-blowing. And you know how I feel about that. Israelis do, indeed, be cray...