February 2008 Archives
During Yom Kippur, the holiest
day in the Jewish calendar, I traveled to the Western Wall bearing a letter to
G-d. As I descended the worn steps, the golden sun reflected on the balustrade
with surprising ferocity. The euphony of the muezzin's call for prayer met my
ears as I saw ultra-Orthodox men descend the steps in somber processions. On
the women's side of the mechitza, I found myself isolated in a sea of
penitent Jews, seeking G-d's forgiveness for the year's transgressions. In search
of the unattainable, I expressed my deepest desire in my letter. Curiously, the
message could not be more concise: I requested that G-d save my family, my
people, and the State of Israel.
That I was placing such
importance on a custom as trivial as putting a piece of paper in a stone wall
reflects the nature of my stay in Israel and my relationship with Judaism. On
the one hand, my upbringing defies categorization: traditional albeit
irreligious, I am the epitome of a hypocritical interaction between religiosity
and modernity. On the other hand, rather than embracing my idiosyncratic
relationship with Judaism, I chose to participate in a program that would
routinely remove me from my comfort zone. In an attempt to embrace more
stringent Jewish practices, I attended countless Shabbat services, Torah study
sessions, and group lectures. After flirtatiously approaching a religious
awakening, I have instead veered in the direction of deep spiritual discomfort.
During years of struggling with
familial problems, my belief in G-d has vacillated between blunt skepticism and
tentative embracement. Although some are blessed with unwavering belief, I
struggle constantly to keep my few religious tenets afloat. To the myopic observer,
Israel seems an ideal setting for one to acquire a more thorough understanding
of G-d. Instead, the conflicts engulfing the region only serve to clarify the
severe problems with organized religion. Jerusalem, a deceptive utopia for the
pious, hides beneath its golden mountains virulent hatred for the unknown. Let
alone the current conflict between Muslims and Jews, I need only to look within
my religion to find the effects of bigotry and intolerance. My secularity,
Zionism, and gender relegate me to a position of inferiority within my own
religion which impedes me from finding a niche within Judaism.
As I reach a pivotal point in
the year, I find myself reflecting upon the purpose and ramifications of my
stay in Israel. Although
the purpose of my spending a year in Israel was to enrich myself religiously, I
have yet to establish a concrete belief system. Even the vocabulary I use to
describe this experience is inadequate. "Trip" sounds temporary and
unremarkable, "vacation" is simply fallacious, and "sabbatical" denies the work
I've dedicated to this country. It seems impossible that I have approached the
midpoint in my trip but have yet to discover what it means to me.
For about three weeks, I ended every telephone conversation with my mom with, "I can't wait to see you!" I was ecstatic because over winter vacation I was meeting my mother and sister in Europe. We were to spend one lovely week in Brussels and Amsterdam.
I hadn't seen any member of my immediate family in more than four months, so as the time got closer to winter break, my excitement rose accordingly. When I saw our youth hostel's empty halls, I knew that break officially started.
I took a sheirut (shuttle) to Ben Gurion airport, and soon enough I was off to Europe, where my mother and sister were waiting for me! I arrived in Brussels at night, haggard and tired, and took a cab to my hotel. Brussels was beautiful at night, the city shining with lights but not obnoxiously. It was quaint but still magical.
Seeing my mom for the first time in almost five months was surprisingly anticlimactic. It was almost as if I had never left, as if I'd last seen her only two days before. We sat and talked for a long time until she fell asleep, and I took a bath (and infamous if you're a calorie counter) Belgian waffles, and bought a few trinkets from the local crafts fair. We even strolled through a Christmas fair on Christmas Eve, and of course dined at a lovely Chinese restaurant to maintain our Judaism. Everything was wonderful, but something was missing. I just couldn't put my finger on it.
A few days later we were off by train to Amsterdam. After three hours of sleeping, we arrived in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Charming canals sprinkle the city while the architecture is captivating. We did all the touristy things in Amsterdam. We went to Anne Frank's house (wonderful, you should go), the Van Gogh museum (wonderful, you should go), a canal ride (wonderful, you should go) and the Red Light District (opinion cannot be expressed in this article, but it is being closed down anyway). I had an amazing time. It was fun, uplifting and relaxing, the perfect vacation. That's when I realized; it was a vacation.
While I was sitting in a café in Amsterdam, a little boy next to me handed his book to me to read. I smiled at him and didn't have the heart to tell him that in no way, shape or form did I understand Dutch (not that he would have understood me).
As wonderful as Amsterdam and Brussels were, they're not my cities, or in my country. I have no claim to them. I can spend a wonderful weeklong vacation there, but after that week, there is nothing to hold me there.
Israel is my country. I have a claim to it more than I have a claim anywhere else in the world. The people are my people. The language is my language. The religion is my religion. I might not make aliyah to Israel, but it is enough for me to know that I can.
Young Judaea Year Course: Check out our Program in Israel
Each month, I constantly ponder what to write about for my article. It's always easiest to draw on an individual experience, find its theme and relate it to a lesson I learned or a conclusion I came to because of that experience. However, I have come to see my time in Israel as more than just a handful of amazing experiences, but rather for what it really is--my life. Though I could easily write for hours about all of my adventures, there has recently been something much more pressing on my mind, and that is the mentality of this country.
I've always felt it so pressing to walk the path that had been set forth for me by my surroundings. I'm talking about going to high school, going to college, getting a job, getting married and raising a family. I still consider all of these things to be important parts in the lifecycle, but I have come to question their order and the pertinence of completing this path as fast as possible, as is the norm where I come from.
Out of around 180 students in my graduating high school class, I was the only one who took a gap year to travel. Here in Israel, kids become adults in the army, which is mandatory for all 18-year-olds. After their service is completed, they travel, work or do whatever for awhile, and then head off to university. Before living here, I never really knew how flexible life could be. And though I still want many of the same things I always have, I now see my future as having many more crooks, turns and rustic corners than I ever could have foreseen.
Over my two weeks of winter break, a friend and I decided to take the time to really explore Israel. We laughed with a group of Palestinians at a barbecue at the Dead Sea and learned words and phrases in Arabic and Hebrew. We explored the Old City of Jerusalem on Christmas Eve, wandering from service to service only to meet other curious travelers like ourselves with whom we would spend the next day. We paused for a few minutes when we heard the imam (prayer leader) chanting from a tower in Yaffo, Tel Aviv, and stood silently as the passersby dropped to their knees in prayer. We camped out underneath Masada in the freezing cold to hike up at 5 a.m. in time for the sunrise, and I asked myself, how am I so lucky?
I thought that coming to Israel would lead me on a more spiritual path, bring me great friends and put me in a more clear and mature mindset. I was right about all of that, but I have come to see that there is so much more. I am halfway through my time here and am already thinking about what I want to do when the nine months are up. Am I ready to go back to school? Should I stay here? Where do I want to go? How much can I fit into the short life I have been blessed with? These are questions I never thought would have been an issue for me before moving to Israel.
So now I sit, thousands of miles from where, as a child, I thought I would end up at age 19. Out my window I see an expanse of desert and stars that I had always thought of only in the context of the bible, or maybe Aladdin. And somehow, between the cold winter wind and the shadow-less desert sun, this place has become home.
Young Judaea Year Course: Check out our Program in Israel
I'm halfway through the "Israel Experience" portion of Year Course, in which all of the chanichim (participants) in my section are spread out throughout the country, living in various environments and working in different jobs to get a grasp of what an Israeli's daily life is like. Working and living at Mamsheet Camel Ranch, a place where travelers are given a place to stay, a camel ride through the desert, traditional Bedouin hospitality and a meal, I feel like I'm going through the weirdest, most out-there and possibly most genuinely "Israeli" experience.
Explaining my job and current life, in a few words, to my friends living in apartments around Tel Aviv is difficult enough, and if I try to tell Americans on Taglit-Birthright trips who come to the ranch or my friends back home at universities, I might as well be speaking gibberish (or Hebrew).
Unlike many other Israeli Experiences, there is only one other Year Courser at this placement with me. In addition, I don't do my own laundry, take a bus to work or go shopping for household materials. Most of the time, I don't even make my own meals. In one workday, I go from feeling like a janitor, to a tour guide, to a waiter and back to a janitor again.
Mamsheet is primarily a tourist attraction, and for that reason anywhere between three and 14 buses of young Diaspora Jews from around the globe, on 10-day trips to the Jewish state, make a stop at my home every day.
Each morning I wake up around 7 a.m. to help serve breakfast to the tourists, acting as a gopher for more cheese or tea. Sometimes I get to man the pita oven, and during this time I'm treated to a traditional Israeli breakfast, much of which I prepared the night before.
I switch every other day between cleaning up the ranch and going on camel rides the rest of the morning. When I'm on camel duty, I help people on and off the camels and walk in front of a group of camels in a caravan, holding my camel, Nama, by her leash. Camel rides are one of my favorite things to do because they give me an opportunity to converse with Americans and answer their questions about the camels (I often make up answers; I still don't know much about camels) and why I speak English so well. I also serve as an interpreter between the Bedouins and the tourists to make sure riders "lean back and hold tight."
I work side by side with the Bedouins from around the area, descendants of a nomadic Arab tribe. I assist them with almost every facet of the ranch's activities, except for the aruach (hospitality), in which people are given an explanation of the history of the Bedouins and served sweet tea and bitter coffee. My boss tells me they need "real Bedouins" for that part. I guess a Texas boy can never be fully assimilated into this part of Israeli culture.
When I'm not walking with the camels, I clean up the tents where our guests slept the night before. This job includes stacking up mattresses and sleeping bags in the corner, as well as picking up trash (definitely the most exciting part of my day). The bright side is I often find leftover reading material that updates me on important events back in the States. Apparently, Jamie Lynn didn't tell Britney about her pregnancy.
I also prepare breakfast by cutting cheese and vegetables, and I prepare the kankanim (pitchers) of juice and cups and spoons for dinner. So far, I've only cut myself on two fingers and broken four glass trays. I'd say that's pretty good.
At night, I serve the kankanim for dinner and afterward go back to janitor duty, cleaning up the trash and sometimes washing dishes. I spend the rest of the night getting to know the Americans and watching the drum circle show that comes here every night. After returning to my trailer home, I might watch a movie with my roommate or surf the Internet (we have Wi-Fi at the ranch in the middle of nowhere) and go to sleep, ready to do it all over again.
My life may now lack the excitement of the city or the camaraderie of living with a large group of people, but I'm enjoying the uniqueness of my Israel Experience.
For more information about life at Mamsheet Camel Ranch, check out Young Judaea's new video here.
Young Judaea Year Course: Check out our Program in Israel
