As numerous as the stars...

Our days in Israel are full, and today was no exception. We began our day by exploring the agriculture of the land, picking and tasting cherry tomatoes from a farm near the Gaza strip, Shvil Hasalat or Path of the Salad. We then drove to the Negev desert, where we took a two-hour hike through the rocky land. After taking a short trip to Sde Boker,Prime Minister Ben Gurion's final resting place and Midrosha, the desert school he began, we made our way to a bedouin hospitality center where we took a hearty and much deserved camel ride.

For me, the highlight of the day came at the end. We were led into the middle of the Negev desert. In pitch black and dead silence, we were instructed to ruminate alone on the trip thus far. Each of us walked off to our own sacred spot and lay down.

There, lying on my back in the middle of a rocky and barren wasteland, I stared upward and realized that the stars I saw were the very ones from which the God of my ancestors emerged. The cherry tomatoes we ate, the long hike we took, and the belligerent camels we rode - none of these events of the day entered my mind. I was overcome by the immensity of the sky and land that surrounded me, and found a sort of meaning in it.

A car passes by, shooting a beam of light into our holy darkness, and our moment of rumination is over. This, I thought, was emblematic of the condition of the modern Jew, and perhaps even of the modern man: a constant oscillation between the spiritual and the secular; the holy and the mundane. Even if this is the case, though, I am content in knowing that it was in Israel I caught a glimpse of God.