The first thing that struck me was the cold. Israel is a country of contradictions, and freezing temperatures and snowfalls in a Middle-Eastern desert country was something that I could not wrap my head around. But Israel is also a country of miracles, and the very fact that I was there, huddling for warmth in a hotel in Chitzpin, Northern Israel, was miracle enough for me.
I had never been to Israel before. Seminary in Milan? Check. Holocaust remembrance trip to Poland? Sure. Visiting family and friends in London? Done. But Israel? I never felt the need to travel thousands of miles just to get a more authentic shwarma, no matter how good the hummus promised to be. But when my brother made aliyah this past September, I began to shift my view of the tiny desert state.
In the past, I had thought of Israel in the abstract. It was the Promised Land. The Holy Land. The land that I would hopefully visit one day, but probably not until I flew there on eagle’s wings. A Messianic dream, but nothing more. My brother’s move changed that for me. Israel became a concrete part of my reality. It was now a country that my little brother fell in love with, a land and a nation he was willing to protect with his life. And no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn not understand why.
All of that changed with a now fateful Facebook post. It was on Stern College in the Know, sandwiched between a post advertising the tights sale and another frantically begging for notes. It read “Sign up for the trip OF YOUR LIFE!!!” I rolled my eyes at the hyperbole, the caps lock and the plethora of exclamation points, skeptical at the promise an overblown amazing trip. But for some reason, I filled out the Birthright application anyway.
Turns out I was wrong. Every one of those exclamation points was justified. So were the caps. I did not expect much from a Birthright trip, and I’m ashamed to say that I expected even less from a Birthright trip comprised largely of YU and Stern students. Though I’ll freely admit that I went to Israel first and foremost to see my brother, I left having seen so much more.
I saw the physical country, from the Golan to the Negev, and everything in between. I saw incredible views of the land from the top of Masada, from the back of a camel, from the roof of an abandoned lookout point at the border of Syria.
But most importantly, I saw Israel.
I saw Israel in the hippy Kabbalah artist in Tzfat who thought that spirituality was “just, like awesome, dude.” I saw Israel in the Yemenite man who sang to himself as he prepared what our tour guide called “the best lachuch in the world.” I saw Israel in the stars we saw that night at the Bedouin tents, the very same stars that G-d promised Avraham his children would outnumber.
I saw Israel in our medic, Aviv, who gave me a piggyback ride on Masada, and then showed us all the best bars in Tel Aviv. I saw it in the indulgent smile of the candy man at the shuk, in his quiet amusement at the crazy Americans buying their body weight in Doritos. I saw it in Meir, our tour guide, in the way his eyes would light up as he gave over a new piece of information about the land he called home.
I saw Israel in the soldiers who joined our trip, in Niv and Yehudah and Avia and Almog, in Maayan, Yovel, Yael, and Yoav. I saw it in the quiet dignity they exuded at Har Herzl, when Meir took us to visit the graves of political figures, war heroes, and friends.
When Meir told us the story of his friend Yosef who cut his own parachute strings to save his commander’s life, I heard Israel in his words, and my heart broke.
I saw Israel in the way that everyone on our bus vibrated with nervous anticipation as we walked to the Kotel. And when I rested my forehead against the stones saturated with history, with the hopes and prayers and tears of our people, I felt Israel in a way I never had before, in a way that touched my soul, and I cried.
I went on Birthright a skeptic, and returned as one as well, make no mistake. But now I’m a skeptic with a different appreciation for Israel. A skeptic who can now understand exactly why her brother fell in love with the land. A skeptic who may have fallen a little bit in love as well.