Reflections on the Best Year of My Life: It’s All Downhill from Here

I spent nine months in a foreign country.  Sure, it was Israel, a place I consider my homeland, a place I had previously visited, a place as technologically advanced as the US.  Still, it was foreign.  Buildings are designed differently, the landscape and the weather are different, and it seems like most places are tourist sites.  The culture is different far beyond the Judaism in the air; everyone dresses more casually, speaks more frankly, and tea-breaks more frequently.

Israel is unique in so many ways.  I could go into politics, religion, or other big topics, but after this year I need a small break from thinking about them.  However, I will tell you these.  I know of no country that places more value on knowing the land, where all public schools go on hikes and have nature classes.  I have never seen better looking or eaten better tasting fruits and vegetables (except for the clementines we had in Poland, but I think they were brought from Israel) than the produce I saw and ate in this tiny, mostly desert land.  Putting aside my subjectivity and ignorance of other countries, Israelis are at the top of every just about every field in science and technology. 

This is a country with mandatory army service for the majority of citizens, and this has become a huge part of Israel.  Intercity buses are full of soldiers travelling between their army bases and their homes.  It is not surprising to see people walking down streets with machine guns.  It seems every Israeli knows someone who died while serving in the army.  At the Masa cultural event in February, I listened to the musician Ivri Lider tell his life story. Both people sitting next to me whispered in my ear something along the lines of, “He didn’t talk about being in the army.”  It turns out that Ivri Lider had a very short army service due mostly to a brief period of peace when Ivri was 18 years old, so it did not greatly impact him.  I didn’t think much of it at the time, but the absence of an army story is very strange among Israelis.  And soon, this is how it will be for at least five of my Nativ friends...

So there I was nine months ago, thrust into this land with 90 other stupid Americans.  I toured the tourist sites of Jerusalem, studied at the Conservative Yeshiva, learned my way around Jerusalem, and traveled around the country.  Then second semester I got down to business volunteering with breaks for leadership training and modern-Israel education.

But my year on Nativ was so much more than this.  I now understand Israel nearly as well as I understand the US.  I know my way around central Jerusalem better than the small town where I’ve lived for over 16 years.  I came to understand and embrace the culture.  Beyond Nativ, I loved seeing and walking/running/hiking/climbing through the beautiful land and how everyone there understands what it means for me to be an observant Jew.

I have changed a lot this year.  I have grown up and become more independent.  I take more initiative.  I am calmer and don't let little things bother me.  I watch less TV.  I open up more to friends.  I’m happier, a better napper, emotionally and physically healthier.  I’m able to stop talking about gross things when asked.  I have a greater understanding of Judaism, how I want to live as a Jew, and how much more I need to study.  I have a greater understanding of friendship and responsibility.

I can only hope to be as happy as I was this past year at another time in my life. I love how I had the opportunity to live a fake life in which I had all of the freedoms and opportunities I could want and everything was taken care of for me. I feel privileged to have experienced the realization a few weeks into Nativ, ‘this is the first time I feel neutral, not happy.’

I am closer with my friends from Nativ than anyone else.   I had never felt so completely in my element socially and ‘programally.’ After this year, I will have school and work and schoolwork and countless other stresses, but I will have the friends I made this year to help me through it all. 

Nothing in my life will be the same from now on.  My house in Illinois is no longer my home.  I realized during my flight back to the US when I saw on my little TV screen the plane image flying over Boston that my college dorm will be my home for a few years.  But right now I am homeless with a house in a neighborhood that I am just very familiar with.

This was the best year of my life.