It's not goodbye...it's lehitraot!

Sitting at the airport I am still not able to believe that my journey in Israel over. I thought walking out of the Kfar would do it, or maybe saying goodbye to everyone, but it still did not feel real then. I got to the airport, sweaty from carrying all of my stuff in the sweltering summer heat of Isreal, and called my parents to tell them everything was ok and all that jazz. My Dad says to me on the phone, "it must have been tough to leave" and just then it felt like a frog was in my throat and my heart jumped into my stomach and I responded "not really, I just need a beer..."! Nonetheless, it is hard...it is difficult to put these 5 months into perspective. Did I do enough? Did I accomplish what I came to? Was my dream fulfilled? Thinking about these things gives me a headache, just thinking about "what if" but the biggest one is "what if I never came?"...when I think about that I know that I did enough, accomplished enough and fulfilled a dream just by stepping outside of the box and trying to give back to this world. It would be a lie to say that I never shed a tear of sadness, never got frustrated with the program, the kfar or the students or that I didn't want to go home sooner that I had planned.

I could go on in a list of the things I didn't accomplish here: my hebrew still is not good, I did not make many strong friendships, nor did I see so much of the difference I made at Hakfar Hayarok. However, the lessons I have learned here about myself and others, religion, Israel and the world are irreplaceable and could never have been expected. It is like when you don't get the present you want but you get something even better you never could have imagined. This is how I feel about my Israel experience.

In the end, though, the memories I am thinking of as I sit in the airport today are those of students happy to see me when they returned from holidays or weekends with their families,
celebrating 60 years of Israel in the streets of Tel Aviv, showing Alfredo the wonder of this land, and challenging myself to see new perspectives on people, places and life.

My mom wrote me last night to tell me how proud she and my dad were that I had realized a dream at my age and left the comfort of home to do so. I think everyone does something at my age that is realizing a dream-this is what your 20s are for-but mine was just a little farther away. My parents moved across the country to Michigan, where they knew no one, which was certainly a huge step for both of them. My sister just got married...my brother won award after award in graduate school...Maya moved across the country to work on a campaign because it was a dream of hers...Alyssa taught English in Korea. Everyone does this, and must, because otherwise you wake up when you are 50 and think "Where did my life go?"

It is actually funny because on my program I ended up sharing a room with a girl named Amy who could not have bee nmore different than me but saw life in a very similar way. She would approve of me to describe her as a rucksack wanderer...a Canadian hippy with dreadlocks. This was probably the person I was the closest with here, the last one I would have expected. The thing that bonded us, though, was our desire to live life to its fullest, to see the good in life and to always hope for a better future in this world. We spoke yesterday how it may be morbid but we think often about "If I died tomorrow, would I have done enough?" and both decided that it was better to think this way than to have it any other because when it comes to the end of our lives, we hope to be happy and fulfilled.

So now I will go back to my life, hopefully just glide right back into where I was when I left my family and friends and start law school. In explanation of my cheesy title to this entry, "lehitraot" is the Hebrew was of saying "See you later" and that is how I feel about leaving Israel because I know I will be back soon, very soon. Israel will always be in my heart, my soul and my thoughts because my connection to Israel is forever a part of me. Just as I cannot tell the beginning of it, so too can I not tell the end. I leave knowing I will return soon to see the country that means so much to me and reminds me that anything is possible in this world, in a land that has been taken away from and given back to the Jews, brought them together after thousands of years in Diaspora and has survived so many enemies. For me, this is my homeland and always reminds me that, as a Jew, I have a place in this world too!