Young Judaea Year Course - Program In Israel - Ben Degani - "Constant State of Amazement"

After several weekends of staying in Jerusalem to rest up or traveling to see Year Course friends in other cities, I decided to spend a Shabbat hiking in the Negev desert with a small group. The whole experience was unforgettable, from the beautiful views, to the unbearable daytime heat, to the wild ibex, to the unbearable nighttime cold, but what made this trip special were the different encounters we had with members of the wide spectrum of people we met during our journey.

Right before I stepped on the bus in Be'er Sheva to Sde Boker (the field school and army base where we began our hike), I said, "Very nice!" to a young sabra (native-born Israeli Jew) headed the same way because he was wearing a Borat T-shirt. Soon after we exchanged high fives, I learned that Avishai, who was taking a few American girls from a different program on a similar hike, recently hung out with my friends from camp who live in Rechovot. This meeting, along with my encounter with American students on the previous bus, strengthened my notion that in this country, most people are connected through one mutual acquaintance.

Speaking of that notion, as we arrived in Sde Boker and were asking one another which way we should go, an American Tzahal soldier helped us out and ended up talking to us about her position in the army and her life in Israel. It turns out she is the first cousin of my "Zionism in the Arts" teacher. Weird.

In addition to hiking, camping and chillin' over this tiyul (hiking trip), all of us were kind of freaking out about where we wanted to spend the next three months of our lives--the "Israel experience" portion of Year Course.

As we walked through different areas of the never-ending desert, asking everyone we met which option they thought we should choose, I slowly became conscious of the fact that I was living an incredible Israel experience as we progressed through the trail. The realization that this trip, this desert and this country is truly special sunk in slowly in the Friday afternoon sun as we greeted mountain bikers and fellow hikers with a "Shabbat Shalom."

When we reached our destination for the night and set up camp on the semi-flat area between peaks, we saw a family who also came to camp out in the desert for the night. We decided to invite our neighbors to recite the Shabbat prayers as the sun set. They happily obliged, and we said the blessings together. Without making this gesture, we probably would not have been able to cook our pasta, because Israelis, who are generally more skilled than Americans, were easily able to light the burner with which we spent way too much time struggling.

Everywhere in Israel I feel a special connection with just about everyone I meet. There are people from countless countries who speak countless languages, but I seem to always feel comfortable talking to the other Jews I run into.

On Saturday morning, we stopped at a welcoming yet freezing natural spring and spent about an hour laughing and swimming with a large group of pretty old, pretty strange hikers. We walked for about a half an hour more and stopped again when we found some natural shade and some younger, but not as lively, Israelis to hang out with. Using the bartering system I learned during my Sukkot music festival, we offered our trail mix and received delicious coffee in return.

It felt like we had already experienced, eaten, laughed and hiked so much, but there were still kilometers to go. Nearing the end of our excursion, we ran into, much to our surprise, a genuine Bedouin tent that housed a woman with her two young girls. She told us several times in a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic that most travelers don't give her money, but rather Bissli or Bamba (Israeli snack food) for her children in exchange for her authentic pita, za'atar (a spice mixture) and tea. Our nuts and sunflower-seed oil sufficed, and we enjoyed another rest as well as some familiar hospitality, albeit Bedouin rather than southern.

At the end of the trip, as we saw busloads of Tsofim (Israeli scouts) arriving to Sde Boker, I learned that wherever you go in this land, there is always something special and interesting and always something to be proud and happy about. All that Israel has to offer never ceases to amaze me, and I can't wait for what lies ahead.

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