Tekes Hashba

In our world today there are two types of leaders. Both types work hard for the people they are protecting. One type of leader feels it is his/her responsibility to protect the people by destroying the enemy; that is, they use brute force and strength and go by any means to make sure the enemy is defeated. The other type of leader cares about the lives of his/her people and will give up his life to make them happy and live normal lives. Basically, one seeks to end the disaster while one tries to pacify the situation while trying to make things better.

In my opinion a leader needs both qualities. He need the ability to go at lengths to defeat the enemy, but he also must care about the people he is protecting. I feel that my role as a leader and my responsibility to fulfill these two qualities began a few weeks ago when I was officially sworn into the army. Besides being with my parents (which was awesome) and many friends from Los Angeles, the feeling of standing on that stage and accepting my tanach and gun has no words to describe it. It was the first time in my life that I really felt I was doing the right thing, that I had a real purpose in my actions. I stood up their proud, with the tanach and gun and saluted my officer. It was at that moment that I really became apart of what I set out to do, that my real service starts now.

I honestly have to say that the week of the hashba was one of the bests weeks thus far. Although it was over succot and it’s usually a time where you have a nice vacation and are at home with your family, we had a really fun week. Sunday was yom sport, which was a day where all of the people from my machzor (i.e. all of the guys who enlisted in August from Givati) joined together to have a day of playing sports, or basically color war. I first played basketball, which was slightly a disaster because we got killed. Then Daniel and I played Volleyball and everyone was surprised that we were good. The funny thing is that it’s because we were the only two that knew how to play as we played in high school. The next day was a day where we went to the shooting range to finish everything off that was finished. We then had the day before the tekes which was full of practicing and sleeping as we had a hike (masa) the night before the tekes. The masa was 19 kilometers. Because I was chosen to be the radio man for the mifaked of the pluga I was in the front throughout the masa except for the points that I had to run to different people to give over commands. The masa took place on derech burma near latrun. Even though it was at night, it was a really interesting masa. It was the first time we weren’t in the desert, nor were we anywhere near our base. It was on the road up to Jerusalem, which was awesome because the scenery was beautiful and terrain was different.

The masa ended with a tekes lochem where we received our pins that go on our kumtas to identify us as cheil raglim (foot soldiers). Despite for being exausted as we had not slept the night before and just completed a really long hike, I finally felt apart of a small group of people privileged to fight for the state of Israel as we were finally called cheil raglim. We arrived at latrun a few hours later where we had the tekes and were officially sworn in.

As the weeks go on, the responbility I accepted upon myself has grown. This past week we received our pakalim (the jobs we will have for the rest of our service). I was given the job as the radio man/runner for the mifaked of our pluga and mifaked chuliya. My job basically requires me to speak Hebrew fluently, which will be difficult when we are in action. Anyways, what that means is that when we practice with the entire pluga together, I am up in the front with the head guy. I walk next to him with a radio on my back (which happens to be really heavy because we use the radios from the Vietnam War) and run back and forth giving over commands to everyone in the pluga. I also have the responsibility to be in charge of 3 other soldiers and act as their commander. The funny thing is that these two jobs that I was given require a lot of responsibility, which I am really happy to have received. The down side for my, as I mentioned earlier is that my Hebrew has to be up-to-par, which will be a challenge but I am excited for it.

The idea of there being challenges is something that I am constantly faced with. Even though it is only the beginning, it is not easy being in the army itself, despite the fact being so far from your family. There are things that happen that one thinks as completely irrelevant and you constantly question why you are doing it. Whether it is struggling to speak the language or having to do a task over and over again, I honestly feel stronger and as a better person every time I overcome the challenges. It is the challenges that will hopefully allow me to adopt the two qualities of a leader and go at lengths to defeat the enemy, but also remember that there are those at home that you need to protect.