my journey home
so, the story begins with me growing up in a typical Jewish American environment...went to public school…lived in the suburbs…knew I was Jewish by the fact that I went to Hebrew school a couple times a week, to synagogue on the high holidays and had seders on Pesach…my family even kept a kosher home, to an extent…we had separate dishes for meat and dairy, but we would also bring non-kosher food into the house, which we ate on paper plates...in terms of a religious and spiritual foundation in my life, however, there wasn't much...to me being Jewish was more about culture, which is what it seems to mostly be about in the U.S. these days....it was about my grandparents, about my family…this is not to diminish the importance of my family at all for I now know, looking back, that it was my strong connection with my family, both nuclear and extended, that guided me in the direction I have come...in my family there were people who came over before the war, and unfortunately there were many who were in the war and died...there were a few who survived and most of them came to the U.S. to join those who had come earlier... the first of them arrived about 80 years ago and they quickly set up a society which helped newcomers financially, socially and emotionally…many families set up similar associations, along with people from their home towns, right after the war... my family naturally named theirs after the town they came from...the town was called Plonch...
just saying the name Plonch is powerful and brings up many intense emotions for me...I know deep in my heart that if it wasn't for plonch, if it wasn't for my family and all of the people from that town, those who died in the holocaust and those who survived or avoided it, I wouldn't be telling the story I'm telling now…for many years, even after giving up on Yiddishkeit (Jewishness), the Holocaust and my family were the only two things that keep me admitting, admitting to myself and to the world that I was Jewish...people would ask me if I was Jewish, and I would tell them "yes, but not my belief, only by heritage"...it was only because I was born a Jew that I was Jewish...I didn't believe in any of its beliefs...I didn't believe in this thing called G-d, at least not what I thought Judaism professed as G-d...I didn't believe in any of the rituals that, to me, back then, seemed devoid of meaning and spirit…I didn't even know about most of the rituals... the thing I did know about, however, was family...it was all about family...I thank G-d for may family, my parents, my brother, and my sister, my grandparents and all my relatives...I'm especially grateful for my older relatives who I had, and still have the chance to sit down with and hear stories from…stories about the war, about how they lived back in poland, and what it was like to be a Jew, even in the roughest times; when everyone hated you; when there was hardly anything to eat; when everyone was out to kill you...
my journey back to Judaism began with one question… I asked that question as I was sitting on a modified school bus in the pacific northwest of the U.S. during autumn of 1995…I was part of a traveling school program, an environmental studies program, travelling in a community of about 20 or 21 people on a 3 month journey...a journey that not only taught us about the land we traveled in and how we can better protect it, but also about ourselves and about each other...we learned what it means to be part of a community and to care for those around you...we learned to create a single unit out of multiple people while still maintaining and respecting the diversity of each individual...the most important aspect of this journey, though, was the unique personal journey each one of us embarked on...if anyone ever told me before stepping foot on that bus that what I would get out of the program was a renewed interest in Yiddishkeit, I never would have believed them...for it wasn't a religious program nor was it affiliated with anything religious...it was a program that took people on a journey through the land and through themselves…as a result, everyone received something different from the journey...it was during my junior year in college, that fall semester, that I stepped foot on the bus...to delve into my time in college a bit, soon after I got to college, I began questioning why I was there…I realized that I wasn't there because I really wanted to be there, but rather because that was where society pushed me to go, that was the expected thing to do after high school...coming out of that first year I was so full of questions, but also, with the help of so many people, full of many life-changing realizations...one of those people was my roommate that year, a Jewish kid from Manhattan...though he was not completely observant at the time, he had already spent years immersed in his process of return, thinking about the essence of the Divine One and what it means to be a Jew...I remember one time coming back to my room after hanging out with some friends, opening the door, and there he was, donned in tallis and tefillin, rocking back and forth in intense prayer...to say the least, I was a bit freaked out, quickly shut the door and went back to my friend's room...not only could I not connect with what he was doing, I could barely stand to watch it happening in my room...there I was, this kid from the suburbs of America who, yeah, was searching for something, but in terms of Judaism, I was all set…sure I was Jewish, but the actual practice of Judaism was something my ancestors did, something they were killed for…
during that year my roommate and I would stay up late into the night, what seemed like every night, having debates and discussions, all from a place of love, in which we shared our experiences and thoughts about life…as a result of this time, I developed a respect for his connection with Judiasm, and saw that it was very beautiful…my roommate was the first Jew I knew to have a beautiful, intimate connection with Hashem (a name of G-d, literally means "The Name") and with Yiddishkeit...as I said before, I had deep connections with my family, but my Yiddishket, it wasn't so soulful...it was more about going through the motions, which was basically the reason why I turned away from it and was looking for something else...so, though I wasn't connected with my heart, my eyes for the first time saw that there was something more to this whole Jewish thing than what I was brought up with...my heart would catch up years later...
so, back to that question...the question I asked that one night on the bus talking to my faculty guide Judy...the question I asked her with tears in my eyes… "Judy,"...actually it wasn't a question, though it felt like one...I said to her, "Judy I feel like I have no culture in my life. I'm in search of something real. I feel like I have nothing real in my life"...she turned to me and said, "Akiva (though I wasn't going by my Hebrew name at the time) you're Jewish, right?"...I was like, "yeah, so what?"..."Do you realize how rich your culture is, do you realize how deep it is?" she said. "Do you realize how many amazing people have come out of the Jewish people?" ...I'll never forget that night, and I'll never forget Judy…we talked for hours that night and at the end of the conversation before going to sleep she handed me a book and said, "I think you'll like this book"...the name of the book was "Of Water and the Spirit" by a man named Malidoma Patrice Some...a West African man, a shaman…in his book he talks about his life as a child in West Africa and how when he was only 4 years old, he was kidnapped from his village by a white christian missionary…he was taken to a christian school set up in the far wilderness where he was "educated" about the ways of the white people, though, of course, it was more like brainwashing…he writes about how throughout his time there, and he was there until he was 20 years old, he never forgot about his grandfather…in his culture there's a deep connection between the grandfather and the grandson…the grandson even speaks his name out before he is born, through the womb, to his grandfather so he can call forth his name…though Malidoma was so young when he was kidnapped, he never let go of the memory of his grandfather…and although he had died before he was taken away, his grandfather was an inspiration to always remember from where he came and to never forget who he really was … at the age of 20, he realized that where he was and what he was doing was not who he was…so he ran away from the school and spent days travelling through the woods, trying to find his way back to his village…he finally made it back home…back to his people …and though everyone was excited to see Malidoma, they were also a bit concerned for him…you see, in his tribe a boy becomes a man when he is 13, just like in the Jewish tradition…however, the coming of age process is a bit different…the elders gather all the boys of age and bring them into the wilderness for a month where they undergo a series of grueling physical and spiritual tests…the elders were worried for Malidoma because these tests can be very dangerous, even fatal, and they weren't sure he would survive them after spending so many years immersed in the world of another people... to make a long story short, he survived all the tests and finally became a man in the eyes of his people…as you can well imagine, he was so excited to be back where he belonged, away from the horrors of the world he had been part of for 16 years…a month later, however, the elders called to speak with him and said, "Malidoma, you know that in our culture a person's name means everything…it speaks of your destiny…your name Malidoma means to befriend the stranger/enemy…so it is your destiny to go out from here, to leave us, to go among the people of the world and teach them of our ways, to teach them why they mustn't destroy our way of life"…though he didn't want to take on this mission, he knew he had to, for that was, as the elders said, his reason for being here…so he went out from his people and to this day he has traveled the world giving classes and workshops on the tribal traditions from where he comes and how one can draw meaningful lessons from his people's ways and apply them in these times of spiritual chaos and sickness…
while this story of
Malidoma’s was amazing in and of itself, the main thing I got out of
it, was the idea he put forth throughout the book that all of the craziness
going on in our world today, all of the impurity and all of the sickness stems
from our disconnection with our ancestors…from the fact that people don't know
where they came from, people don't know who they are…how can you really know
who you are if you don't even know where you come from?…we need to remember
that we are not only as old as our birth certificates tell us…we're thousands,
billions of years old!…each one of us, we're ancient…knowing this, we need
to know what our ancestors were doing tens, hundreds, if not thousands of years
ago…we need to know who they were…we need to somehow connect with
them…this idea put forth by Malidoma gently pushed me on my own path towards
discovering my own ancient ancestral tradition…I will always remember Malidoma
and what he shared in his book…I am indebted to him for showing me the
importance and beauty of connecting with one’s roots…
so there was Judy and there was Malidoma…two people, neither of them Jewish, yet both aided me on my journey to connect with my Jewish roots…now, enter in a third person…on the bus, we went to a Native American drum circle in british columbia led by a man named Yellow Bear…it was to be a night of music and dancing, one I was extremely excited for …I brought my drum with me, but upon entering the room quickly realized my drum was not going to be needed…in the center of the room sat one huge drum with chairs circled around it…I quietly tucked my drum in the corner and the ritual began…Yellow Bear explained to us a bit about the practice and significance of a Native American drum circle and then the drumming began with a very simple steady beat played upon the drum with soft mallet-type sticks…coming from drum circles where 20 people would play 20 completely different rhythms, all trying to solo at the same time, this was a change…a much welcomed change…at this drum circle, there were 5 or 6 people playing the same beat, over and over again…one beat…like a heartbeat…the rest of us danced around them in a circle, moving to the trance-like rhythm…then Yellow Bear opened the circle for some of us to come in and play…I remember sitting right next to him, stick in hand, so excited to play…as a drummer, I've played more complex rhythms than the ones they were playing, but, regardless of my previous experience, I could barely play with them…they were so connected with one another that they were like one person drumming…in order to really play with them, one needed more than skill, one needed to be part of their tradition…for what they were playing was so ancient and so foreign to me…but, at the same time, it was so real…it was then that I realized that was what I was looking for, to be part of a tradition and a people…
after a while we took a break to eat some food and get to know each other…before we got back together again, Yellow Bear put some tobacco in the hands of those who wanted and invited us to place it on the drum while having in mind the ancestors of the drum…my mind naturally began producing vivid images of Native Americans living in the wilderness, closely connected with the land in a harmonious relationship with nature…he then asked us to do something which threw me off guard…he asked us to close our eyes and now think about our own ancestors…pssshh! I was in shock…thrown back to Poland, to another time, my mind frantically searched for images, for something to give me a sense of what it was like back then for the Jewish people…but my mind was blank…it was then that I realized I had no idea what life was like back then and there, that I had no idea what my ancestors looked like or how they lived…it hurt…and, although it hurt, it was also inspiring for, like Malidoma's book, this experience of deep unknowing motivated me to want to learn more about my people and their ways…
so the bus went on (remember the bus?)…throughout the rest of the program, holy Judy continuously gave me articles to read about environmentalism and Judaism…they were written mostly by a man named Rabbi Arthur Waskow in which he discussed ideas like humans being inherently connected with the earth…this was nothing new for me but he did go on to discuss ideas that were…for example, the relationship between humans and nature is even found within the Hebrew language…adamah is the word for earth in Hebrew…adam is the word for human…here we see how, even in the language, that adam is part of adamah, that humans are part of the earth…I remember thinking to myself, "this is Judaism?!?"…and the answer was, amazingly, "YES!!"…I continued to read about the Jewish holidays and how they correspond to the cycles of the moon and how there are many festivals within Judaism that celebrate the planting and gathering of the season's crops …this was all unknown to me…but it was, thankfully, becoming known…a new perspective on Judaism and the ways of my people was exactly what I needed and I was finally beginning to get it…at least my mind was… my heart and my soul were still so far away…I knew that I believed in some greater force in the universe, but calling that force G-d, or He, or King I couldn't do…whenever I went to shul and read those kinds of words in the siddur (prayer book), I immediately tuned out…that G-d language and the concepts that it represented to me were all too demanding, too patriarchal and harsh for me…
to change the subject just a bit,
while we were on the bus we camped out every night…unless it was raining I
didn't even sleep in a tent, but rather underneath the open sky…it was during
that time that, for the first time ever, I became very aware and very connected
to the cycles of the moon…I spent a lot of time just staring at the
moon…after days and weeks of doing this an incredible thing
happened…something that had never happened to me before…something you may
even have a hard time believing…rings of energy starting pouring out of
G-d
is everywhere
WO!!!!….G-d is everywhere?!?…that was something I had heard dozens of times as a kid in Hebrew school…our teacher would always tell us that G-d was everywhere!…at that age, I thought that must mean that G-d was like this invisible person, with a long white beard, of course, who is able to be everywhere… like a superhero… as the years went on, I (fortunately) lost belief and faith in that idea…but now, for the first time in my life, I understood what it meant that G-d is everywhere…I realized that G-d is creative energy, that G-d is the creative force that created this world and sustains it in every moment…that not only is G-d the Creator, but G-d is the Maintainer of Creation…this idea I liked, but why it was the word G-d that popped in my head, I didn't understand …I hadn't used that word in years…as I said above, I had a total aversion to the word G-d, but it was somehow the only word that made sense…
over the past few years since this took place, I have thought about its meaning considerably…I truly believe that what I had experienced through the moon, the tree, and the tent that day was an experience of G-d, the Divine One, the Infinite One, whatever name you want to use for That Which Cannot Be Named, at least to the extent that one, or I, can actually experience G-d…
eventually the time came to step off the bus which was a very scary thing…I had lived in an alternate reality for four months during which I dug into my soul like never before…I began a relationship with my soul like never before…I knew, though, that it was only the beginning…upon coming home, however, I was clueless as to how to take all that I saw and did and thought about in that time and fit it once again into Suburbia, America…I was having a very rough time, to say the least…there was no space for all I had experienced…I didn't want to go back to college that next semester and I didn't want to be at home…I wanted to leave school and go back on the bus for another semester, but my school wouldn't give me credit again for it, and because of that, understandably, my parents wouldn't pay for another semester…I thought about leaving my college and enrolling in the school that the bus was affiliated with so that I can get back on the bus and continue the journey I had started there…in time, I realized, at least looking back, that I was meant to continue my journey elsewhere, off the bus…after many arguments with my parents and much frustration, I unwillingly went back to school that spring semester…though those first few weeks were very difficult, I soon realized that was where I was meant to be…
sometime that spring, there was a Jewish environmental Shabbaton being held by none other than Rabbi Arthur Waskow and his wife, the same man whose articles Judy fed to me on the bus…during his opening talk, he discussed many of the things he wrote about in those articles: connection with the land, a Jewish environmental ethic, and something he called "the Breath of Life"…the idea, as he put it, that G-d, the Divine One, is constantly with each and everyone one of us, breathing life into each of us in every moment…towards the end of his talk, he spoke of a place in upstate New York called Elat Chayyim, a Jewish spiritual retreat center…I thought to myself, I love upstate new york, I live in new york, and I don't have anything planned for the summer yet…why not?…so I went up to Rabbi Waskow afterwards and spoke with him about it…he told me they were looking for interns and that I should apply…I did and after a phone interview I was invited up there for the summer…though summer was usually the time I got a job and made some money, I knew that my soul needed more nourishing than my bank account…
I learned a bit about the center before going there but I was still unsure of what to expect …as I was driving up there with my sister, I began to feel this nervous kind of scared feeling developing inside of me…I was beginning to realize that the summer would be the kind of experience which, like the bus, could change my life forever…
when I arrived at the center, though enthralled with the natural beauty of the area, I was also taken back a bit because everyone looked so Jewish!…sure, I lived among Jews my whole life, but most of them blended in with the rest of America…these people, on the other hand, really looked like Jews, with their big beards and their yarmulkes, and though they also looked like hippies, it was still quite a shock…I remember this guy Phillip, who would later become my closest friend that summer, introduced himself to me and invited me to join him and a few others in the yurt to meditate… I almost felt like I had to go, though I never really meditated before…I said goodbye to my sister and immediately began to cry…looking back on that moment, I realize it was a continuation of the many tears I had cried while on the bus…during that period of my life (while on the bus), I cried more than any other time in my life …I finally let go of all the tears I had prevented from coming out my entire life…though I wasn’t fully aware of it at the time, I now know I was crying to the Divine One to guide me on a path of peace and serenity…at Elat Chayyim that summer, the tears flowed once again…saying goodbye to my sister, those tears represented a deep change coming into my life…
the summer was an intense one in which I learned a lot…I remember the first Shabbos I experienced up there…the first Shabbos I ever experienced…we began by first preparing for the Shabbos…as I have come to learn through experience, one cannot just simply or quickly switch gears from the energy of the weekday to the energy of Shabbos…there needs to be a smooth transition so on can prepare oneself for the heightened experience of the day…at Elat Chayyim, as is a custom among many Jews, we began by immersing ourselves in a mikveh, a ritual bath…a few friends of mine and I made a ritual of walking down to a nearby river and immersing ourselves there…it was always an enlightening experience, cleansing ourselves spiritually in preparation for the light of Shabbos…then we would go back to our rooms and change out of our weekday clothes into our clothes for Shabbos…since Shabbos gives us the opportunity to connect with a much higher level of existence, one needs to elevate every aspect of him/herself in order to connect with that potential…this includes wearing special clothing, eating special foods, and acting and speaking in a way that sets Shabbos apart from the regular weekdays…once dressed and ready to enter into Shabbos, we would begin the prayer service…there’s probably very few places in the world where people bring in Shabbos like Elat Chayyim does…though the service does not follow the traditional, prescribed Shabbos service, it is still full of the highest ruach, or spirit…depending on who was leading the service, we would engage in a mix of singing, dancing, chanting and meditation…whatever the structure, it was always a high experience…I will never forget my Shabbos experiences there for it showed me that Shabbos was not just list of things not to do, but was rather a day during which one can return their heart, mind, body and soul back to the original energy of Creation, as well as to the future light of Redemption…it is a day in which we allow ourselves to rest from our mundane, weekday affairs, and focus on ourselves more as spiritual beings…this does not mean that we ignore the physical on Shabbos…instead, the physical becomes one with the spiritual…and though it would be great if all of life was unified in this way all of the time, we know that it is very difficult to maintain such a level, to always feel, and act, like holy, spiritual beings…Shabbos allows us the space in time to connect with a calm, peaceful energy and once again realize and remember what is truly important in life…
after my first Shabbos service at Elat Chayyim, as people were preparing to sit down to eat the holy evening meal, someone came up to me and said, "Welcome Home"…words that perfectly described how I felt…I truly felt that I had finally found that something real I had been searching for for years…I finally found a community, a people…my people…my tradition that I was beginning to realize was so beautiful and meaningful…I was also realizing that being Jewish was not all about pains and sorrow and mourning for past losses…while we can never forget events such as the Holocaust and other tragedies of our people, the Jewish way is not about being stuck in the past…rather, it draws from the past so that we can really be present in each moment, soaking up what that moment has to offer and to teach us…that summer, I began to learn what the Hasidic way was really about…growing up, I lived near Monsey, New York which is, if you don't know, the famous Jewish town of the America suburbs…so, of course, I thought I knew what Hasidism and Hasidic Jews were all about…I always viewed them as a strange segment of the Jewish population who looked a bit different, well, very different, from the rest of us Jews…they dressed differently, they had a bit of a smell to them, and they acted in very strange ways…yeah, they were Jewish, but they weren't like the rest of us, having very little to do with modern society and the needs of the people today…at Elat Chayyim, though the people there were not like the Hasidic Jews of Monsey or Borough Park in Brooklyn, they helped me to see that, no matter what a Jew looks like, we are all connected, that we all form one Jewish nation and that we need to start acting like one…my teachers that summer helped me to see how my perception of religious Jews were based on negative stereotypes created not only by non-Jewish secular society, but by other Jews as well…
before going up to Elat Chayyim that summer, my sister told me she thought I would come home with a kippah on my head, keeping Shabbos and eating completely kosher…though I experienced 8 consecutive very holy Shabbosses that summer, I came back home and eased right back into my old way of life…at this point I knew that my heart, my mind and my soul had all been transformed and had become more connected with the Jewish way, but that my hands, my actions, had a long way to go…I remember that first Shabbos at home I went to a local Hasidic (or Hasidic-like) shul near me for Friday night services, expecting the place to be packed with men, women and children singing, dancing and basking in the light of Shabbos, this being the vision I now had, as a result of being at Elat Chayyim, of Jewish prayer and Shabbos…to my dismay, however, I found 12 guys speed-reading through the prayer service without singing, without spirit…I was in shock…the energy which I had connected so deeply with over the summer was now nowhere to be found…as I hopped on my bicycle to ride home, the rabbi invited me to come back the following day for morning services…in my mind I was saying, "Yeah right, never again!", though of course that's not what I told the rabbi…
that fall, I went back to school to complete my senior year…I wasn't really doing much in terms of Judaism, outside of talking and thinking about it from time to time…then I became acquainted with the music of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach…Reb Shlomo was a rabbi who brought the true light of Torah to the wandering Jews of the world…he traveled from continent to continent singing songs and telling stories, and through this, he opened up and nourished thousands of Jewish souls in search of meaning and spirituality in their lives…he went everywhere…to the ashrams, to the yoga centers and to various holy places in search of these Jews because he knew that this is where they would be, in search of the deeper essence of life…he knew that Jews are inherently spiritual beings and those raised devoid of anything spiritual were now desperately searching…if you want to learn more about Reb Shlomo Carlebach, I suggest picking up a tape/CD of his and/or reading the book "Holy Brother", a collection of true stories of this man’s amazing ways…I promise you, your life will never be the same…
that year at school, Reb Shlomo's music became my Judaism…I would sit around for hours with friends singing his niggunim (melodies) over and over again to the beat of drums and guitars…his songs took me to a place I never Jewish music could…music had always been a spiritual channel for me and was now taking on a new direction…for the first time I was getting high from Jewish songs, from the songs of my people…songs that sounded as ancient as the mountains…that spring I discovered, with the help of a friend, the Carlebach Shul in New York City, the home of Shlomo's music and spirit in New York and in the U.S., for that matter…we went to a Purim celebration there and to say the least I was blown away… imagine a room full of Jews getting down, really getting down, to the holy music of Reb Shlomo and the Jewish people…we were so inspired that we went back the following week for Friday night services…even more so this time I was in awe by what I saw and what I did…everyone was dancing and singing, just like at Elat Chayyim, but now in a more traditional, Orthodox setting, complete with separate sections for men and women…though it was a bit uncomfortable and strange at first, over time I came to understand that it did not take away but rather added to the spirit and energy of the service…there are times, and we see this in most tribal, indigenous cultures, when it is not only proper but also beneficial for the men to be with the men and the women to be with the women, each in their own separate space…prayer is certainly one of those times…we all know that sexual feelings can be easily and quickly aroused just by looking at someone or briefly touching another person…while this is all fine in its proper time and place, who needs it when trying to focus one’s thoughts on the Infinite One?…during time of intense prayer and devotion, sexual energy can distract a person from its true goal and intention…
so back to that service at Carlebach Shul…that night was the first time I ever saw a rabbi sweat… jumping up and down in a state of ecstasy, his eyes closed shut, I wasn’t sure if he was going to burst out crying or laughing…it was a night I’ll never forget…
i didn't go back to Carlebach Shul until after I graduated from college, but once I did I became a Friday night regular…at the time I wasn't Shomer Shabbos (Shabbos observant), so I would usually go out after services…I remember one time having tickets for this great concert on a Friday night…I was excited about it for weeks…when that Friday arrived, I went to Carlebach Shul, where I danced and sang as usual for about two hours, and then, full of sweat, left for the show…leaving the shul and driving through new york city was nothing short of torture…the level I was brought to as a result of celebrating the arrival of Shabbos was now being dragged down to the mundane level of the streets…not suprisingly, compared to this high I felt at shul, the concert was horrible…I even walked out early…I began to realize that what I experienced being at Carlebach Shul Friday nights was difficult, if not impossible, to replicate anywhere else…it had, and still has, an energy that is so deep…an energy that can bring a person so high…no wonder, since it is part of a tradition that is so deep…a tradition which comes from a place which is so high…
so the story goes on…after teaching for a year in new york city I went travelling with my twin sister to West Africa, where I studied traditional drumming and lived among the people of Ghana and Senegal for two months…that was an incredible, eye opening experience...living with people who had such joy for living even with so little in terms of money and possessions...I remember bringing a siddur with me on my trip...I would bring it out once a week on friday night as the sun was setting...I would find a private place a short distance away from the people who I was sitting with and there I would take out my siddur and sing L'cha Dodi, the one Shabbos song I knew how to sing...there was even one time when a few of the kids of the family we were staying with approached during my improv prayer session...they were interested in what I was doing so I returned the favor of everything they shared with us from their culture by teaching them the melody of the song I was singing...it was so sweet...me and these Ghanian kids singing a Shabbos song together...
after my time in Africa it was time to fulfill a dream I had since being on the "bus": to visit my own ancient homeland, the land of the Jewish people…almost instantly upon arriving, I was enveloped in a feeling of home that I never before experienced in my life...while traveling in Africa I was constantly taking pictures and writing in my journal...by the end of those two months I had used about 11 rolls of film and filled up two journals with my thoughts...in Israel I had all but stopped writing and taking pictures...at first I wasn't sure why but later I realized that "at home" in New York I rarely if ever used my camera or wrote in my journal...it was something I only did during my adventures on the road, away from home...in Israel, though thousands of miles from the place where I was born, I was right at home...I didn't need to record my experiences or my surrounding on film or with words, because on some level it was all so familiar to me...it was the true land of my soul...
so, i spent two months traveling the land with my sister, spending time in jerusalem, the dead sea, and up north...between our visits to many of the historical places that fill the land, I encountered other travelers from all over the world...my conversations with them almost always turned towards topics of G-d, Judaism, Moshiach, redemption, and all sorts of other issues of spirituality and the soul...it was like the land was pulsating through those new to it, confronting them with the deep questions of life...while in Jerusalem I began going to classes almost daily that talked about different topics within Judaism...I was suprised to learn that many of the things I had seen in other traditions (and was jealous of) actually had a place in my own, including various values, rituals, customs and beliefs...
originally our main goal was to be on a kibbutz for a while and learn hebrew...we eventually made our way to a kibbutz, not to learn hebrew, but to volunteer and get a taste of kibbutz-life...unfortunately it was much different than the ideal picture i had created in my mind...most of the people who were volunteering there were travellers from around the world who were just looking for a place to lay down their bag, get free room and board and, when the work was done each day, drink beer and watch tv...it was clear to me that picking weeds and eating bad cafeteria-style food were not the reasons i came to israel...i think even my body got that message...after just my first day on the kibbutz, i got very sick...something i never experienced before, where every time i coughed my entire body would literally cringe in deep deep pain...i spent that entire night up in bed trying not to cough to avoid the pain...i tried to get some help for my strange ailment in the middle of the night but without success...i thankfully got through the night and come morning time, which was a friday, i decided to go to the nearby city of Tzfat for Shabbos...almost immediately upon arriving to Tzfat I felt completely better, no joke...it was one of the first signs telling me that this city was a good place for me to spend some time...months later, after returning to the states, i find out from someone who i met on the kibbutz that my roommate for those few nights actually died of meningitis a few months later...
after a bit more traveling, it was clear to me why i had been brought to israel...it was time to finally sit down and learn what this Judaism thing was really all about...after my sister went back to america, I went to a yeshiva in Tsfat called Shalom Rav…I learned for four months there, living in the most amazing community I had ever been a part of…a place where people greatly outnumber cars, a town without traffic lights, where people live close together, all dedicated to the same deep spiritual path, on top of a simple mountain in the north of Israel...it's a town of cobblestone streets, a town where kids play in the streets in complete safety, a town that speaks of the simplicity that the past once knew...
for now, I will end my story with this: I made it back home…looking back I realize that all the experiences I had while on the bus, at Elat Chayyim, and all throughout my life, all led me to where I am today…they all worked towards showing me the light and beauty of the Jewish tradition, something I never thought possible growing up in an assimilated suburban America town…now I know that the Torah, with all of its deep mysteries and amazing teachings, was there all along, no matter what I was doing…just waiting for me to discover it…
we are all born into the lives we were born into for a reason…some of us were raised religious, some of us were not…none is better than the other…they just represent different challenges, different reasons for being here…we all have a mission to accomplish…a mission unique to all the world…whatever it is we do, though, we need to do it in line, in accordance with the ancient wisdom that the Jewish people have been passing down from generation to generation for thousands of years…if we do not, then we are not only robbing ourselves of the light of the Highest Wisdom, but we are also robbing our children and their children of it as well…
before looking elsewhere, before looking outside of one's self for the answers to life's most difficult questions and trials, we should all look within ourselves…as Jews, when we peer deep enough within, we will see there shines a light greater than any other light in the universe…this is the light of Torah…how one comes to discover this light, that is up to him/ her, and up to the Divine One…we each have a different path on which we are led, a different path on which we search…
the most important thing is to never stop searching, to never stop peeling away the layers in the quest for the pure light…for it is there…for different reasons, reasons I do not profess to know, each one of us has a different number of layers to peel, as well as different kinds….through it all we must remember that, as Jews, we were given a beautiful path on which to walk…that path is the way of the Torah…though one may not be aware of its wonder and beauty, know that it is wonderful and beautiful…though we may see or hear of things within religious Jewish communities that seem to conflict with our understanding of Torah, we cannot let them distract us from our path…the Torah is perfect in all its ways…never judge Judaism by the ways of a Jew, I was once told…find out about it for yourself…
Looking back on my path from where I now stand, I can say with confidence and with joy that I have found what I was looking for. All those years of yearning, of searching, of feeling the deep spiritual lacking in my life transformed into the discovery of a life that brings meaning to all aspects of life. I have been brought home to an ancient path that speaks of the oneness of all existence and gives me the necessary tools to uncover that oneness in my daily life.