Friday's in Israel are by far my favorite day of the week. Unlike everywhere else in the world, Friday means it is officially the weekend. I haven't written much lately because I am trying to distance myself from 1. America and 2. the internet. I'm not doing a very good job at either but I really am trying to at least acknowledge when I am giving more attention to things that are not 'real' or 'in the moment' than to the important people, places, culture, life, and history that is right before my eyes. Too much of my first week in Israel was spent on my computer but I know that spending my time like that was what I needed. Now, I don't think I need that anymore.
My classes have been going really well. I'm starting to catch onto Hebrew but I get very embarrassed and still won't ever use it. In life, you're either a leader or a follower. In every situation you find yourself in, you have to quickly decide, "Will I step forward or will I let someone else take the lead", and in terms of speaking Hebrew, I always step backward. I'm not sure if this is a problem because at the same time, I have learned that patience and letting others teach you (instead of being a know-it-all or guessing) is often the best choice in difficult situations. Maybe for now it is the best idea. I hope that soon I am able to take the reigns though because I know deep down that I can do it.
Graduate school options have been irking me lately. I've spoken with a lot of people who I consider very trustworthy and whose opinions I truly value. These conversations have been helpful and have provided me with the guidance I need to proceed forward in the decision making process. Currently, I would like to stay in Israel. Ideally, I want to do the Block program at Yeshiva University, which means I would spend the summers in New York City and the school year in Israel.
I find myself growing more and more intimately attached to Israel as my time here progresses. Arizona is a very easy place to live. Boston is a very comfortable place to live. New York City is exciting... and practically every other major city in the world in has treated me well. I adored Paris and London and could even imagine spending part of my life in Athens. But Israel is different. It's not just the Jewish element. Or the Zionistic element. It's not the food. Or the people. Or the history. It's everything combined. Israel is a place where I feel closer to the neighbors in my apartment building who I have never met than I do to the neighbors in my condo complex in Arizona who I saw daily. It is a place where bombs and rockets are falling a couple hundred miles away and I feel safer than I do in my house in Boston. Israel is a place where I have things in common with almost every single person here. It is a placed overflowing with history and culture; a place where you could not be bored if you tried. I could never list why I love Israel in one blog entry, or even in twenty. It's not a matter of liking or loving it either. It's a matter of just intrinsically knowing that the feeling I have about this country, including the land and the people living here, is more real than any other feeling I have ever experienced toward a place.
But yes, I am living a "life of hardships" as my Dad repetitively told me I would be doing if I decided to come here. I gave an interesting dvar Torah on this topic in Arizona and in the Heights before I came. After learning more about the Exodus from Egypt to Canaan (the land of Israel), I began to think more about the situation from a bird's eye view. So we have one land, Egypt, where everything is abundant. It is the most fertile area around because of the Nile and all of us know that fertile land = the ideal place to live.
So why on Earth would God tell us to leave Egypt? More importantly, why would we listen?! We had it all. Without getting into specifics (and of course there were hardships), it just made no sense to me why God picked Israel. If you look at Israel from a topographic (I think that's the right word) standpoint, you see a desert. More specifically, Israel is really small (about the size of New Jersey). You see a small river running through it, a sea on one side, and a very small lake at the top. Other than that, it's primarily desert, uninhabited by most people, animals, and plants. Things cannot grow in the desert! So, why here?
Dad, you could not have said it better. Israel is a land of hardships. It's true. But, is the word "hardship" as negative as we make it out to be? I can give a few examples to explain why I strongly think the opposite.
1. This past summer, I was here during the Shmita year. This means that crops were left to rest and Israel was basically at a shortage of all fruits and vegetables. I remember going to the grocery store at the end of the summer looking for strawberries and I heard someone say, "There are no more strawberries left in Israel". What on Earth?! How do you run out of strawberries?! Well, during the Shmita year, you sure do.
2. On top of every building in Israel is a dud shemesh. It's a big tank that controls the heat and hot water system. Before showering or using any form of heat, you must turn it on. And immediately afterwards, turn it off. This sounds like the most tedious activity ever... and I honestly cannot argue otherwise.
3., 4., 5., 6., and so on. We recycle, we use public transportation, many don't use paper towels, heat is only used for a couple hours a day at maximum, our water is vital so we take short showers and never let the faucet run, etc.
Israelis care a lot about where they are living. They work hard for the minimal resources they have. Kibbutzim exist all over the country, where people are working for their food, energy, and sustenance. Things are not easy here at all and despite minimally complaining, that's okay. It's okay for things to be hard. Everything doesn't need to be as quick and instant as Americans believe. Sometimes it's cold when you get out of the shower. Sometimes you can't find your favorite fruit at the grocery store. Sometimes the bus comes at 9:15 instead of 8:55 and you're late for school.
That's what work is though. This is a nation continuing it's relationship with the land it lives on and has lived on forever. Just because we have computers and cell phones, high power stoves and heating systems, and plastic water bottles galore, we don't need to abuse them. We need to continue developing a relationship with this special place because when you work hard for something, even if it is so hard it becomes a true "hardship", the results become far greater than you could ever previously imagined.
