Friday, June 01, 2007

And My Paka"l is...

I don't know why, but everything in the army is called a paka"l. Not sure what it stands for, but everything is either a paka"l this, or a paka"l that. A paka"l kissim is something you put in your pocket to hold everything. To do paka"lim is to do push-ups.
When people get paka"lim, that's the thing that they're going to be doing for their service. For example, some people got the Ma"g (big huge machine gun), some got the Negev (also a machine gun, but a better version of the Ma"g). Some become the drivers, some get the GPS thing, some become mefakdei chulyot (a chulya is 4 people). So the question is, what is mine?

Well, Thank the Lord, I got what I wanted. I will iyH, become a sharpshooter. I got the gun on Wednesday, the M4, what Israelis call the Flatop. I mean, it does have one. It's pretty much just like the M16, just without the bridge, which is why it's flat. Since I'm a sharpshooter though, so it's not just blank, instead of the bridge, I get the Trijicon, the scope. It multiplies the distance by 4. 40 meters looks like 10, 400 looks like 100, etc. It's so cool, I have to say.

After I've told people that I want to be a sharpshooter (kala in Hebrew), they've been like, doesn't that mean that you have to kill people? "Yeah, so?" It doesn't bother you?

Listen, the midrash says that when Kriyas Yam Suf was happening and the MItztiyim were dying, the angels were giving praise and HaShem said, "My creatures are dying and you're praising me?" So, obviously it bothers me a little bit (or at least it should I guess), but it CLEARLY doesn't bother them to kill us all the time. And it's a mitzvah -- "I'm ba l'hargicha hashkeim l'hargo--If someone comes to kill you, get up and kill him (Sanhedrin 72a or around there). We have to do all mitzvos with hapiness, or try. And I'm positive that getting rid of someone who could potentially hurt me would make me really happy. How about you?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Put it this way - you say that now, but wait until you do it. If it doesn't bother you then, it will soon afterwards. In the heat of the battle, your emotions will become detached from you, and you will seem distant from yourself, if not from the situation. It is not until after that what you have done will sink in. You'll cry. You might start asking forgiveness from Hashem. You might even vomit. Worse things have happened.

You won't be the first person to kill someone else before they kill you(duh! you're still here...) but you cannot know what will happen to you until after you take that first shot, and someone's heart stops beating as the you catch yourself on the kickback action from your gun. That person might have kids, you argue, or a dying mother. But they are going to murder me and my friends. They might murder my grandfather, or my cousins... yes they might do that, if you miss, or if you never took the shot, or if that person was in another place... but the fact remains; you hold a gun in your hands, and will end someone's life. It was only within the past few hundred years that rulers of countries lost the ability to sentence someone to death - that control of life or death over someone is a powerful thing. Make sure that when you excersize that power you do it with love of your country in your heart, love of family on your mind, Ol Malchut Shamayim on your shoulders, and the fear of G-d foremost in your thoughts. And when you pull that trigger, there is no going back.

Remember that little brother. I am proud of you.

Ra'anan

Fri Jun 08, 09:34:00 AM 2007  

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