עברית

Ani lo medaber ivrit.

But the more I travel, the more I think to myself that it definitely pays to know another language. I did end up taking the train to Tel Aviv, but the expedition was a technical failure, due to my baggage. There was no place to store it in the airport, so I took it with me. Well, that was a mistake, because lugging two large suitcases onto trains, off of trains, across platforms, and around the airport... well, it's difficult. I should have committed that to memory from my experience last month with even MORE luggage going from Boston to Chicago and then on to Los Angeles, but I just assumed that as a strapping young lad, I should be able to manage with suitcases, and even build some character (and perhaps some muscle) doing it. Well, I was right about the character, and probably about the muscle too, but now I realize not to underestimate it. Travel is difficult in this way--what do you carry with you? What will you need? One always forgets something, one always loses something on the trip, one always seems to return with more stuff than he had at the start of the trip. It's all part of the game, but it's not to be taken so lightly, perhaps.

It did help knowing a bit of Russian, though. At the Tel Aviv train station (one of four, I should say), I engaged in a conversation that went something like this:

Me: S'likha, at medaber onglit? (Excuse me, do you speak English?) [I realize now that I mixed up the gender.]
Coffee Man: Ma? Onglit? (What? English?) Ehhh... Not really.. Говорите по–русски? (Do you speak Russian?)
Me: Да, немного по–русски. (Yes, a little.)
Coffee Man: What you want?
Me: Thank you. Toda. (Thank you.) Yeah, I shouldn't have come here with my suitcases.
(Coffee man looks at me, obviously uninterested in my story. Pause.)
Me: Ummm... Мне надо поезд в аэропорт. (I need the train to the airport.)
Coffee Man: Platform number four.
Me: Thank you very much.
(Pause. I step back, walk three steps, then decide that I might actually want something from him. I return to the coffee stand.)
Me: Um, how much is the Iced Cafe? (Points) This one?
Coffee Man: (Pauses, unsure.) Четырнадцать. (Fourteen.)
Me: (Not hearing) What?
Coffee Man: (Skeptical of my Russian) Четырнадцать. (Fourteen.)
Me: Oh, ok.
(I step back, several IDF soldiers get coffee and pastries and things. I stand there and sweat in the Mediterranean humidity, considering the coffee. I step forward again.)
Me: Дайте мне iced кафе, пожалуйста. (Give me some iced coffee, please)
(Coffee Man fills a big cup of it, and I hand him fifteen shekels.)
Me: Спасибо для помощи. (Thanks for the help!)

It's the art of communication, folks, and I've got to say I felt silly doing it. In front of me at this moment is a book called HEBREW with PLEASURE that a kind fellow Birthrighter bought for me, encouraged by my enthusiasm to learn Hebrew. I plan to spend some of the next ten hours studying the book, as long as I can stay awake. I don't want to spend any more money than I have to in Israel, but there's an even better Hebrew book in the shop to my left that costs 79 shekels and I really kinda want it. We'll see how this one works out.

Unfortunately, there isn't much in the way of comfy couches here at Ben Gurion, but it's a nice sunny hall. The sun is setting, and looking around me I can see lots of assorted people. There's a chasidim by the window with his head bent, possibly reading. Some businessmen to my left, but they're too far away for me to tell what language they're speaking, but it's not English. The woman in front of me is speaking Russian into her cell phone and isn't having such a great day. A man by the window to the right is yelling into his phone in Hebrew, and a group of young airport employees are chatting in Hebrew. A couple of men in shirts slightly too casual for business walk past, speaking English.

One interesting aspect of Israel is that quite a lot of people look very familiar, very cosmopolitan, even very "cosmopolitan American" in a sense, but... they speak Hebrew. How about that?


All that aside, the most striking and memorable event of the past few hours was the train stations themselves. IDF Soldiers everywhere. It was like all those scenes from war movies, where the soldiers crowd onto trains to head off for duty, or they are transferred, or the military sends them off to wherever they go. It was really quite amazing to see. It made me wonder, as I have wondered a lot in the past several days: what if I lived here? It's not hard to imagine. I'd be a soldier right now. It's an essential part of the society here. I'd be wearing one of those uniforms, probably green. I'd have a cap tucked into the shoulder. I'd have the uncomfortable boots. But you know what? I'd be damn proud to do it. There is a significant part of me that feels, as I have felt my understanding and connection with Israel grow in the past eleven days, that I want to be a part of something. I want a uniform. I want to mean something, to command respect, to stand up for the belief that Israel deserves the right to exist and to defend Jewish people. I'm not saying I'm going to go make aliyah, but it's something I've been thinking about. What an amazing concept, to be a soldier. I've met them, and I participated as well as I could in the boot camp simulation at the kibbutz in the desert. It's very powerful, and it takes coming to Israel and experiencing the culture to understand it.