A Journey In Israel: Masa's Seminar Part 1

You'll have to forgive me for not updating as frequently as I used to; it's the usual excuse- I'm working around 50-60 hours a week, and between that sleep, and a girlfriend (yes I have a girlfriend now, I've gone native, rolling my cigarettes and dating Israeli style) I've been hard pressed to find the time.

It's funny, but I have officially been as far as every direction possible in Israel- from Tel Aviv to Arad, to the Golan Heights (and that one city waaaay to the top of Israel) to as far south as you can go before you find yourself in Jordan or Egypt.

But now, writing from Eilat (the hotel is less than a kilometer from the border) on a short vacation, though that is a story for my next post, I have the time to resume writing.

We left from Arad on a bus normally reserved for yours at 6:20, meaning I was awake at 4:50(ish) so I could leave Karin's place to get downstairs and grab my things. I left with a peanut butter sandwich, and another that was humus and cucumber. It seemed fitting to bring those somehow, even though I never actually got around to eating them.

Loaded with my labtop, clothing, necessities and something like eight two-liter bottles of water, I was a tad burdened, in addition to ferrying the snacks our boss had kindly given us.

We departed Arad where we picked up a fellow group sponsored by Masa who are also teachers, and there reconnoitered with every other group under our umbrella program. People from Netanya, Harduf, the internship program in Tel Aviv joined us at Harduf, where we met and mingled with one another. It turns out that though there was a group with five people, Arad is the smallest program in terms of volunteers out of the entire Masa program.

Out of something like 6,000 people, we are apparently the tiniest, though we only saw around a 100 of our co-workers at the seminar. Only the Masa-Tlalim Project 10 participants came, so that was kind of neat.

So after retrieving our partners from Ber Sheva, about 25 people or so, we then made our way to Jerusalem, where the traffic combined with no wi-fi made the trip just... lovely. I found of all things a copy of the book 'Queen Of The Damned' by Anne Rice, in English, and since it'd been a good five or more years since I last read it, I had something to pass the three hours.

We converged outside of Alon, various buses meeting up. Harduf showed up last, which was kind of funny because in that group was the two members who had quit our group over tensions within the group and some ire over the group getting a late start for the volunteering (since we were setting things up). All together we had groups who hailed from Tel Aviv, Natanya, Harduf, Arad, and Ber Sheva, all meeting for the first time. And it was honestly nice. Each of our groups introduced ourselves, and some were lame introductions, some were pretty good. We all enjoyed it.

We then entered Alon and spent some time for a break stop, then piled back on the bus and went to our first stop; a small village in the West Bank that is composed of volunteers who are both Israeli and Palestinian working together.

The theme of our seminar was 'freedom' which in its own right was interesting- this isn't the American freedom we are used to, but something somewhat different. So stopping at 'Eco-me' was fairly fitting. There we toured their grounds, and took part in some group activities, also where I got to try Acro-Yoga, which was something certainly new. I have done yoga for a long time, and though I'm no expert despite that, I'm not bad either, but acro yoga took me way out of any element I was used to.

Heres the lot of us

Somebody better at this than I am.

...and me.

We stopped after the yoga and ate a quick lunch, sandwiches were provided, which I had been told would not be the case, so I decided to eat mine later. That later ended up stretching to... never, but that happens when you're well fed I suppose.

We piled back on the bus as the day grew hotter and it hit 2:00 P.M. and made our way to the hostel in Ein Geidi. This isn't the same as the hotel in the kibbutz Ein Geidi, which I briefly visited about a week later, but the hostel we stayed at is a very frequented one, and funny enough, not too far from Arad, and next to the Dead Sea. Many, many, many tour groups for Taglit or Birthright come to it while visiting, and many at our seminar had already been.

So in an eight hour period we had gone from Arad to Ber Sheva, then around Jerusalem to Alon, then to the West Bank, and then doubled back to the Dead Sea, just a bit farther from where our group had initially started. The Dead Sea after all is less than twenty kilometers from Arad, so that was kind of interesting we crossed the country and then back- a reminder of how compact Israel truly is.

The view was fantastic (though the flies sucked). And when we got the Hostel we were paired off with who we would be rooming with. I haven't the foggiest who I roomed with, save one was Italian, and the other guy another American, like me.

I'm terrible with names, slimcha.

Here's where the Seminar got more interesting for me- we met again at 5 p.m. to begin shabbat. I'm not the greatest practicing Jew, which is ironic considering what would happen later, but it was nice to watch the girls light the candles in the hostel lobby, and we then went downstairs to begin a portion of the shabbat that was on a selection made for the seminar; that of the story of Esau and Jacob.

Now, about a week prior to the Shabbat, our director Adva had asked that I give a short speech on the section from the old testament. It could be on anything, and I ended up typing something like a three page paper on my analysis of it, and it went all over the place, from explaining the story, my viewpoint, and contrasting it to Israeli-Palestinians contension over Israel. The paper was also vetoed, because it was so political, so I opted to just read the story directly from the Bible.

Here's where I went wrong; I had assumed that because so many Americans stay at the hostel, there would be copies of the Old Testament in English and Hebrew, and not just Hebrew. Well, surprise, surprise, there was only Hebrew. And while I can read Hebrew now (much to the surprise of my Israeli friends) I can not do so quickly, certainly not like I can with English. In fact it would be agonizing for anyone to hear me read it.

I decided then to pull up the old paper I wrote on either my phone or labtop, and even my advisor suggested I do this. I fled the room, but the wi-fi had inexplicably stopped working... it was as though God had willed things to be stuck in this situation.

So after fifteen minutes I returned, and unfortunately the session had already begun. One group did a play that was star wars themed on Esau and Jacob's story. Meanwhile I just sat at the front where I had been reserved a seat since I was to speak next, not having a clue of what to do.

I got up after they were done, and winged it. And apparently did a very good job. I was supposed to speak for five minutes, but I think I went on for six or seven, which isn't too bad. I spoke about my father, for Isaac is integral to the story of Jacob and Esau, I spoke of how I was moving to Israel and making Aliyah, I spoke a bit on politics, and when I ran out of things to say, which occasionally happened, I opted to go with the flow and pose philosophical questions on the nature of the story and what it meant to those present. Such as can you actually sell who you are to someone else? If I am to take from Israel in anyway, is there perhaps a good need to give first? Which is why I am doing Masa, and so on.

I was told a lot afterwards, especially by my boss how good it was, so I'm hoping the slew of people were telling the truth.

I'm just glad that I apparently killed it, and didn't screw it up, considering everything I had planned or made had fallen to pieces literally minutes before having to speak.

Afterwards we met for dinner, where a few of us somehow got actual wine at our table at the buffet, so we enjoyed ourselves before meeting again for the next activity, which was a series of 'games' designed by the directors of each group, which was also fun, but more or less eventful. I particularly enjoyed the game where we had to act like a character from a movie (Mine was Ted from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure) and I was happy that I nailed it.

I'm not sure it's a... good thing I was told I'd make a good actor since I portrayed Ted well, but c'est la vie.

We retired thereafter, and since I'd been up since absurdly early in the morning, I passed into a good sleep.

I'm cutting this into two parts, because otherwise you'd be reading a chapter out of a book on this weekend, but I'll leave you with this;