Guess who's back stateside? That's right. As a "lonely soldier," serving without any family in the country, I'm entitled to a month vacation out of Israel to visit my family and friends. So here I am. The real question is: Where are you? If you're around this summer and are in the Boston (or maybe the NYC) area give me a call -at home 781-828-0531. We'll hang out. Or I'll ditch you for other cooler friends. Either way.
I'm like 99% sure that Max C. Freedman and Jimmy de Knight originally intended to name their song "Participate in Jewish Learning Around the Clock" in honor of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot (where one is supposed to stay up all night learning). For some reason, "Participate in Jewish Learning" got dropped in favor of "Rock." I think the syllables fit better or something. I bring up this story because one of my most powerful religious experiences took place on Shavuot. I remember vividly being overwhelmed, as a 13 year old boy, trying to stay up all night learning with my father in Jerusalem. At sunrise we joined the masses of people walking down to the Western Wall for the morning prayers. This past week I returned to Jerusalem to celebrate Shavuot with Michelle. We attended a number of different lectures throughout the night - including an interesting presentation about Judaism's take on genetic engineering - and walked down to the Western Wall at sunrise. It was again a moving experience and an expanded plaza allowed much greater mobility than my earlier experience. Also different was the relatively new egalitarian prayer service, which Michelle and I participated in, that was held towards the southern end of the Wall. To sum things up: I studied. I walked. I prayed. I then walked back and slept for a long time. I'm not as young as I used to be.
After almost a half a year of waiting I finally took my Israeli driving test last week. At one point in time new immigrants could merely present their foreign licenses and receive an Israeli license automatically, but in recent years waves of poorly driving immigrants (mostly from countries not named America) caused a change in policy so that new immigrants now must be tested. My exam went pretty smoothly. I provided witty and insightful conversation (in Hebrew) and among other things related the story behind Murphy's law. I also didn't hit any pedestrians. In Israeli driving test math these things add up to me having a brand spanking new license. An interesting note on the licensing procedure: In Israel, you don't find out if you passed your test until much later in the day. Apparently, driving testers were being shot at an overly high rate after informing people that they had failed their tests. It's like a pre-road rage thing.
Two weeks ago I had one of the best army weeks in my short lived military career. Instead of a normal week of work, I was selected to accompany a birthright trip for several days. For anyone who doesn't know, birthright is a program where Jewish kids aged 18-26, who have never been on an organized trip to Israel before can come to Israel for a week and a half with almost everything fully paid for by wealthy benefactors. The theory is that all Jews would have a chance to visit Israel and hopefully form a meaningful connection with the land. For me, this basically means that I got to hang out with college kids for the week. Needless to say it was a rocking good time (although Michelle was not thrilled that I was spending a week with 20 year old college girls infatuated with Israeli army uniforms). We did a range of touristy things ranging from riding on donkeys, hiking in the north, and kayaking on the Jordan river. Because the legal drinking age in Israel is 18 we also took a tour of the Golan Heights Winery. In addition to having a ball, it was my job to answer all sorts of questions about life in the army, life as a new immigrant, and cultural differences between the US and Israel. Needless to say I told them lots of hilarious stories from the past 9 months. If you've been reading my blog you would know what they were.
