Podcast Storytelling Public Speaking True Story About Traveling
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EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
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I guess I was about 20 and I heard about Birther at Israel, which is this free trip to Israel for Jews between the ages of 18 and 26 who were in college. Um, it was a free trip halfway around the world. So I, I signed up for it. Um, this is, I guess about seven years ago and then things got a little hectic in the Middle East and so I bailed seven years ago, wasn't quite like now, but it was scary to me and I signed up again a year later and that time my passport was missing. Oddly enough for my mother, she used to keep everything organized and I'm sorry. And I signed up once more and I don't even remember why I didn't go that time and each time losing a small deposit for this free trip, but it was worth it. Oh, you should have seen my mother's face. It wasn't, it wasn't gonna be good. So then a year and a half ago I realized I was 26 and that was the end of the free trip. So I signed up and I, I went, um, the, the trip that I was looking at was called Leave note note, which apparently means something about bridging communication, stuff like that. But it was an artist trip. It was, it was secular. It, it was non-religious. Their, their actual motto was that we don't tell you how to live and it was for people with very little or no Jewish background that wanted to go to Israel. So it was perfect. I mean, I had 15 years of Hebrew school Bat Mitzvah confirmation. Can't speak a word of Hebrew a little Yiddish, but that's just from being around family. So I signed up for that one and two weeks before the trip, I get a notice that it's full and I'm not going on that one. So I go back to the thing. They said I could pick another uh sponsor and the first one alphabetically was called, didn't really read their profile. Uh, found out when I got further along that they were orthodox, I'd be keeping Kosher throughout the trip, including the flight. Not fun. Kosher. Airplane food is not good. So, you know, I, I was looking forward to it. I was scared, it was a little worse in the Middle East than it had been five years, four years prior. But I was going, even though my mom was crying when I told her and I swore I'd come home alive and she took that at Bond. So I, I went, I guess I wasn't really prepared when I got to the airport that I really would be on the long edge of the age gap. There were like 18, 18 year olds, bunch of 19 year olds, me, 22, scattered in there but like very few but nobody else read the description either because there was only one orthodox person on our whole trip of 30 people. No, everybody was kind of there for the free trip. A lot of them had been to Israel before, but that was one of the requirements that you hadn't been. But it's a free trip. I mean, who's gonna pass that up? It's $2,000 to fly there. So we went and um, met up in the airport and there were really fun groups having a great time and then there was us sitting in a circle, memorizing each other's names and where we're from, I was the only Baltimorean, sadly, a lot of New Yorkers. And uh, no, you know, So six hours, uh six hour delay in the airport led us to get to know each other pretty well. And we wound up landing in Israel at 8:00 AM, their time without having slept for like a day and a half. And it was pouring down rain and the airport looked like New Jersey with palm trees but soaking wet desert. And who brings the raincoat to the desert? So the first thing they have us do we get off the plane, we go and plant a tree in Israel because it's a Mitzvah or a good deed. And it's something you have to do when you're there, which was nice, but it was pouring down rain on a muddy slope. And I'm in flip flops as I generally am, I'm sliding down the hill. It, it was disgusting and a horrible way to end two days being awake. Usually it's a little more fun. So, oh, we finally get into our hotel and we're kind of getting to know each other. And I was rooming with two girls named Julia and Julia. There were some but you know, in English it's Julia Julian and they were 18 and 19 and from New York. So we started to get along. But they were kind of like me, like we were a little withdrawn from the group, not really bonding with anyone, not even each other, just kind of hanging out at the periphery. And when I found out it was Orthodox, I didn't really want to get too involved because even though you're not supposed to proselytize in Judaism, orthodox tend to push kind of because they want you to be more like them because they need lots of Children weird there. I I actually live in the Orthodox community in Baltimore. Um The shtetl says it's eight people in a two bedroom apartment pretty much throughout the neighborhood. It's, it's crowded, the blessed. So I guess, sorry, I'm trying to think. Ok. So we're, we start to tour. Um, it's dry now, thank goodness. And we start looking at all these wonderful places and historic places. Everything has biblical relevance and it's such old history. It's just amazing to be there, but I'm still not going for the religious thing. So the Sabbath comes and for Jews, it's Friday night, sundown to Saturday night, sundown and you can't use electricity, you can't drive, you can't smoke, which is a little frustrating. But we go along to the whaling wall. And for the first time, I kind of feel that feeling that you're, you're supposed to get in Israel. I'm surrounded by Jews. Like everybody in the old city in that section is Jewish and every color and every type of person and every age and it's just a little crazy and everyone who is praying right then will be praying in the direction that we're standing because they all pray towards the western wall, which is where the temple used to sit. The first temple. And I don't know how religiously scholar anyone is. I, I didn't know any of this till I was there. And what sits on the temple mount is a big mosque now and there was a second temple and they say for the messiah to come for Jews, this mosque has to be destroyed and a third temple raised which I'm not a Zionist. I, I feel like everyone has a right to you know, religious freedom, especially in Jerusalem. It's supposed to be the birthplace of all these religions. So, we're praying at the wall. There's Jews everywhere and I'm still standing in the back, but starting to feel a little bit, I guess enmeshed. I, I understand what it's like now to not be the only Jew and like one of everyone, I'm used to using that as my punch line and my escape route. I'm Jewish. It explains it all. So we had this amazing night there and we got really, really drunk and then this random rabbi comes by getting drunk on Shabbat. It's a Mitzvah or good deed to do shots, they call him. So he did a lot. And when we got pretty for another Yiddish term for anyone who knows it, um, this rabbi came in and started talking to us about why we should marry Jewish and why we should have Jewish Children and how we know that we could have Jewish lives. And I got pretty ****** off again because I didn't want the religious thing. So I just ignored him, argued with him a lot and not really listening to his points. He wasn't listening to mine though. So it was fair. They stay in a room of, uh, what four Jews, you have 10 opinions. So it was crowded in there too. So we heard this, um, after, after the services the next morning, we came back to the old city and there's this rabbi named Yto Glazer who moved to Israel for the surfing and you wouldn't know this looking at him. He's got the black hat and the long beard and the, which are the curly hairs. And he, something happened. And when I got home, um, a week later I wanted to go to Shabbat services. I wanted to try and keep kosher, try and dress more observant and I got home and I went to the show that I grew up in and that I was Bat Mitzvah in and there were no services there that night, which they usually do it every Friday night. So lacking a synagogue to pray. And I went home on the computer and signed up for online learning with Hebrew and Hebrew classes and Judaism and I signed up for a live Hebrew class that I later end up dropping because it was on the same day as Super Bowl Sunday. Nobody, nobody there understood why I wouldn't go. So I now have an email box that's filled with unread emails. I just filter them right into the juice stuff folder on my Gmail. It, it's a little crowded too and I, I want, I wanted to recapture that feeling but like it wore off as quickly, pretty much as it came on, which was almost instant. And I don't know, I find myself looking at the photos and I can't remember the names of the places, but I can remember how I felt but I can't bring it back all together. It's just, I guess it's one of those things you lose in traveling. I don't know. Thanks. Mhm.