Starts: school to army service

I will start with the factual. I was born in Iasi, Romania (Ceausescu time), and  moved with my family to Israel in 1973 (just before the Yom-Kipur war). I finished high-school at Tichon Hadash (Holon) in 1975. As my main aspiration at the time was only to reveal the truth about life, the universe and everything, I started a BSc in physics, at the Technion (Haifa). I found the study of physical law deeply satisfying, in particular the fields of quantum physics and relativity that have really stretched my intuition beyond its ordinary bounds. This made me interested in philosophical questions about the relation of the observer to the “external” world, and I got exposed to eastern philosophy (Zen, Buddhism), the books of Carlos Castaneda, and I also practiced few meditation techniques.

After I took my BSc at the Technion,  I served three years in the army. As a physicist, I was offered to work in a unit that deals with the computation of ballistic trajectories. As my mind, however, was fully engaged on the quantum reality and philosophy, it was hard for me to feel very excited about it, so I did a regular (non professional) army service at the School of aviation. Not much to say about it, as I was not a very good soldier (my daydreaming on quantum theory or such things did quite poorly there; having been found reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus  had an especially bad impact on my army reputation). I hope, however, that I did help some of the future pilots to better grasp the laws of Newton (not sure if this helped them to fly better…)