Diving in to Israel, Day 3
It is impossible to incapsulate the variety of experiences we have had since landing in israel less than three extremely long short-feeling days ago. You probably have the itinerary if you are checking this, so I am going to focus on something else.
I grew up learning facts about Israel in Sunday School (Sundays and Wednesdays at Oak Park Temple in Oak Park Illinois). I saw hundreds of photos, met visiting Israelies, even went through the URJ camping system culminating in a Hebrew immersion program with a mostly Israeli staff (Rav Bob, I am surprised at how random vocabulary words will come back to me right when I need them, such as when a cat followed us all around Tzfat, either welcoming us or keeping guard--either way, it let us know it owned the place). But though I felt somewhat familiar with Israeli culture, I now realize I was missing the context to know the true power behind this often praised longest-plane-ride-of-my-life-really-you're-serving-us-kosher-Chinese-food-for-diner-Delta? distant land. What has impressed me most so far is the effect of what coming to this place has done to our group, our visiting Israelis, and the people who make their lives here whom we have encountered.
Our group has known eachother for less than 72 hours. We started to smell not so fresh at hour 15. We have endured jet lag, a long hike through endless fields of mud, Jane Eyre with Hebrew subtitles, cows running across the road in front of our bus, and rain on our first night in Jerusalem. However, I have rarely seen a group of people so happy. We knew each others names almost by the end of the flight. We started guitar jamming with instruments from out bus driver, Lazer, who looks like Slash crossed with Otto from the Simpsons and likes to count of the begginings of the israeli music we listen to on the bus by yelling "Shteim Shalosh Arba!" and Kasbi, one of our Israeli participants, an army officer, who idolizes an Israeli singer songwriter none of us had ever heard of before. The other groups staying at the kibbutz immediately admitted we were cooler than them. Not out loud, but we sort of picked it up. We get along uncomonly and function as if we have known each other for months, not two sunsets. I know who in the group are vegetarians, who is capable of doing the "Dougie" (parents, just ask your kids), and who has dyed their hair. The Americans, Israelis, Mexicans, and our lone Peruvian have integrated seamlessly. As I write this post, a large group is assembled across the lobby playing the card game Uker (billed as a traditional game for American Jews?), drinking modest and responsible amounts of Gold Star and Macabee (we are all 22 or older), and talking and laughing about all sorts of things. This level of intimacy in such a short time is not an accident.
I suspect it is the energy of Israel itself that has brought us together, a common homeland and sacred place unlike any we have ever known (I love you Chicago, but....). It is observable in all the people we have met here. The people here have a love of the land and everything that is on it that is inherent. It rests in the way our guide, Yossi, tells every story about every hill we have visited. It is in the love of the music, the food, in choosing the little flush on the toilet in order to conserve Israel's precious water supply, in the disagreements our Israeli participants have about how to best find peace. It is the elevated sense of community and prescence in all aspects of life. As the Jewish mystic and artist named Avram we visited in Tzfat today said 18 times in the space of 5 minutes, it is literally "Awweeeesooooome". It leaves you left in Awe, unable to articulate the root of some mystery too delicate to be intrusted to casual forms of expression. It can only be found in little details, and a silent agreement of harmony we fined between everyone we have encountered.
I will leave you with something I wrote in my journal today. Knowing about Israel without visiting is sort of like standing at the side of an ocean. You can appreciate its beauty, but you are not a part of it, nor can you see to its depths the same way you can as when you dive in.
- Jeremy Cohn
January 19, Caesar Hotel, Jerusalem
