Tsevet Lohamim: Becoming Who You Imagined
By: Dillon Melet
Tags: Military, Idf, Improvement, Israel, Mission

Tsevet Lohamim is the premier pre-army program for (mostly) foreign kids looking to enlist in the IDF. For most, it is so much more.

“Would you shut up for a minute while I finish talking?!”

It was 30 minutes past noon on an unbelievably hot July day when I had these words yelled at me. Standing in the middle of a parking lot by the beach, I had barely just completed a 4+ hour tortuous workout when I realized that I was seeing the same blurry instructor 3 times in front of me. I raised my hand, and in my broken immigrant Hebrew asked:

“Efshar, lishtot maim?” Can I have some water?

This 4+ hour torture was part of Tsevet Lohamim, a pre-army program designed primarily to give foreign kids (or olim as we are affectionately known in Israel) the tools to join the IDF.

Having just immigrated from California barely over a month ago, I was used to driving delivery shifts all day and drinking beer at night. Not having my ass handed to me in over 100 degrees Fahrenheit heat.

“Qui audet adipiscitur. Who dares, wins.” — British Special Air Service Motto

I had immigrated with the intent to join the IDF. Not out of any particular zionist desire — I’d grown up going to public school and my only real connection to Judaism was my mother telling me that I was Jewish because she was.

Nor was I there out of a strong feeling to defend freedom in the Middle East or fight terrorism around the globe.

In truth, my real desire for being there was a sense of adventure. I’d always been drawn to the military, and I dreaded the idea of being on my deathbed in 60 or 70 years looking back on my life wondering why I never became a soldier.

After finishing college and hearing stories from friends about how boring being a US soldier or marine in Iraq and Afghanistan was, and coming off the heels of the 2014 Gaza war, I decided that Israel was the place to be.

At 23 years old I hated the thought of my life being so predictable. Grow-up, college, job, marriage, kids, mortgage, retirement, death. So, I packed my bags and now found myself on the verge of heatstroke and dehydration, standing on a beach parking lot 15 minutes outside of Tel Aviv.

The First Session

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming “Wow! What a Ride!” ― Hunter S. Thompson

I always imagined myself being the badass warrior, turns out there’s a reason why most people aren’t.

The path to it is long and arduous. It’s a physical, spiritual, and psychological challenge that tests individuals in ways that society doesn’t. It forces you to come face to face with yourself, to either fail or succeed in a way that is impossible to conceal. It is a path where the stakes are literally life and death, and where excuses in any form are unacceptable.

So how do you take someone between the ages of 18–24 and turn them into someone who thinks like that? That’s where Tsevet Lohamim steps in.

Founded in 2010 by an actual badass (since he still works in top-level security we’ll just call him “B”) Tsevet Lohamim’s mission was to take those spoiled Jewish kids, the ones whose mothers doted on them and whose fathers bought them everything they wanted, and turn them into something the Israeli military could actually use.

I happened to discover the program by chance, at a rooftop party of all places, only a month after I moved to Israel.

My first session was on a Tuesday, at a park next to the Port of Tel Aviv. The man running that particular training, Eric, was a take-no-bullshit kind of guy who didn’t mind being direct and rude if necessary. Me being the hothead I was, talked back. I was warned by several trainees to check myself or risk getting thrown out of the program. I rolled my eyes at them.

The second session started on Friday morning. The beach was 15 minutes north of Tel Aviv, in front of an upper-middle-class neighborhood, and guarded by cliffs and dunes that would eventually become dotted with our sweat, blood, and sometimes tears.

It was a 2-hour journey for me to get there — done by walking, train ride, bus, and walking again. I showed up late, running to a group standing in what is known as a chet. A military formation that looks like the Hebrew letter ח.

That was the first time I met B. I apologized for my lateness, explaining that it was harder to find the place than I imagined. He told me to fall in and the fun began.

Everything was done at breakneck speed. We sprinted up and down hills. Ran into the water and then rolled around in the sand. We did pushups until our arms shook like branches in a storm and situps until we felt sick.

At one point we all lay on our backs in a row. The person at the end would get up and run across everyone’s stomachs and lay down at the opposite end. Then the next person would go. We did this until we reached a certain point, then we back in the opposite direction.

At one point I was crawling, apparently not to B’s satisfaction. As a “corrective measure,” I had my head forced into the sand while B shoved fistfuls of sand down my pants. “Keep going!” everyone shouted. Giving up was not an option.

There were two girls in the session. My goal was to simply keep up with them — something that wasn’t always achieved.

By the end of the session we were told to grab a sandbag, race up a hill, sprint back down, and head into the water while someone tried to stop up us. I remember 2 things from that exercise:

One kid got his nose bloodied while trying to fight off the guy to get into the water, but kept going anyway. B praised this effort, and the kid showed off his bloody nose as a badge of honor. When it was my turn, I hurled myself at the guy trying to stop me (who was built like a linebacker) and all I got as a reward was him saying, “Dude, you’re not even trying.” The next thing I knew I was lying facedown in the sand with B yelling at me to get back up.

The Reflection

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

After the session was over and I’d finally had some water I went and sat on the sand facing the beach. There was shade only a couple of dozen meters away, but I was so exhausted that the thought of carrying my bag there seemed like an insurmountable task.

Right then, sitting on the beach, I had a thought: I can’t do this. The IDF was just too hard. Now I would be forced to go back to the US as a failure. I simply wasn’t cut out for this sort of life.

At that point, I was at the lowest of the low. I actually, and I don’t know how to say this in any other way, briefly considered just swimming out into the middle of the ocean. I knew I was too exhausted to tread water for long, and I’d drown.

I know, that’s dark, and I doubt I would’ve made it past the surf even if I actually wanted to do that. Instead, I dragged myself to the shade and fell asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up I could barely move a muscle. Still, I had to hustle back to the train station or risk taking a $100 cab home since Shabbat was closing in.

That night, I dreamt that I was swimming in an endless sea of water. At one point, I saw a rock appear. Standing on that rock was my mother, with her arm outstretched towards me. Just as I was about to grab her hand I was aggressively pulled underwater. I woke up with a yell, and noticed that I had my arm outstretched.

The Transformation

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill

This point in the Hero’s Journey is known as “crossing the threshold.” It is after the main character has met his mentor and is now ready to begin his mission.

My mission at this point was a simple one: don’t give up.

I began attending regular Tsevet Lohamim sessions. My next Friday was with Eric. Only this time, I didn’t talk balk to the guy.

Instead, I did all the exercises I was told to without complaining. At one point I even did more rounds or intervals than everyone else. When asked how I did that, I simply said, “I just didn’t stop.”

From then on I got better and better as time went on. It was never easy. My shoulders were bruised from carrying a loaded stretcher up and down hills. We even did a session where we stayed up all night, something Israelis call a “layla lavan.” It literally translates to “white night,” since you never close your eyes and sleep so your eyes are always seeing something.

I remember that as we carried a stretcher through Tel Aviv during one of these “white nights” the people sitting at the bars cheered us along. It was an amazing feeling, being a part of something that society openly appreciated and rooted for.

At the end of the day, that’s what Tsevet Lohamim was about, not giving up. Giving yourself to something bigger than just you. I could go on for hours about Tsevet. The workouts, the pushups we did on our knuckles until they became hard and calloused. The way my body changed and transformed from soft and doughy to something lean and capable.

But what it really was, what it is today, is a transformation in mentality. 6 years after that first session, after I finished my army service, got married, and started to live that traditional life that I always feared, we had a sending off for B.

He was going to Texas, to be a security advisor and actually start making real money for training people the way he trained us. During the speeches mixed with tequila shots, B said something that stuck with me:

“Tsevet Lohamim isn’t just a training organization. It brought together a group of people with a very specific mindset. People who value hard work, and character. People who are willing to give themselves to a greater cause. In every unit, you have — when trouble strikes — people who throw down their weapons and run away. This group was to build a group of people who would not do that. Instead, it was for those are ready to sacrifice themselves for others.”

I know that most people reading this, especially in today’s political climate, will have trouble understanding B and his methods. Today’s society generally revolves solely around the individual. Capitalism demands competition, and thus people live life in a zero-sum game. Living for something other than yourself and your family can make it harder to profit. And as we all know, profit equals survival.

Today I’m still involved in Tsevet Lohamim, now as a trainer instead of a trainee. No, I don’t shove sand down people’s pants, or make them do knuckle pushups, but I do make it my mission to push them a little further than they thought they could.

For me, watching the next generation transform from “normal” kids into determined, purposeful individuals fills me with pride and satisfaction. Beyond just service to a country, Tsevet gives something to the world that I think is sorely missed.

People with character. People who are willing to do things for others.

For me, I can’t imagine a better reason to do anything.