I have no family living in Israel. I had never been to Israel before. I was also well aware that the place I’ve lived my entire life is on the complete other side of the planet from Israel. As excited as I was before the trip, I was still anxious about traveling to a place farther away from home than I had ever been before. But I realized while on the Eighth Grade Israel Study Tour with my day school, Gideon Hausner, that 7,000 miles away was not really 7,000 miles farther from home.
One of the first places we went to in Israel was the Holon Children’s Museum, where I experienced the blind exhibit. My group went into a pitch-black room, which was filled with objects from common places we have all visited, such as a supermarket. Normally, when I am in a dark place, I expect my eyes to adjust to the darkness, enabling me to see just a bit. In the blind exhibit, however, my eyes did not adjust. I was supposed to find myself incapable of seeing, so I could experience what it was like to be blind.
While I didn’t need to adjust to the setting in the museum because the experience was momentary, I had to adjust to Israel — a task that would confound me.
I didn’t expect to adjust to Israel and Israeli culture the way I did. I thought at some point during the trip, it would just click that I was actually in Israel, that I would randomly realize how far I was from home and what I was doing. So, when I got off of the plane in Tel Aviv, and I didn’t feel like I was actually on the Israel trip, I tried to find an answer. I figured, I’m exhausted, we just got here, and I’m sure it will click that I’m actually here at some point in the next few days. For the next two weeks, I would enjoy each activity and make the most of the time I knew I would miss when it ended. Yet, I still couldn’t believe I was actually in Israel, the country far away that I had been learning about for nine years. But maybe that was why. Because I had already learned so much about Israel for it to feel familiar, I didn’t need to adjust.
Before we went to the Kotel, I was very excited about the experience but also a little worried. I had heard so much about the Western Wall for a long time. What if it wasn’t all that I hoped it would be? What if I didn’t feel connected to it? Before we walked all the way there, our tour guide, Hillary, reminded us that although the Kotel may have seemed like it should be a big deal to everyone in the group, many people would end up not feeling connected to it. She made it clear that if that were the case, we should remember that it is perfectly fine, realize that a lot of Jews don’t feel connected and not be disappointed. I was starting to feel like, surprisingly, that could be the case for me as my first sight of the Kotel did not really feel special.
But after making my way through all the people standing and sitting near the wall, I finally found a space to stand right in front of it. I reached out and touched the wall. Despite the large, noisy crowd, I suddenly felt almost as if I were the only one there. I put my head against the wall and got this indescribable feeling, where for those few minutes, nothing really mattered. Anything I was concerned about was not an issue. I had made it; here I was, standing against the Kotel. I thought, Wow! I’ve waited nine years for this moment. And then I realized something that hadn’t crossed my mind before. I haven’t waited nine years for this; I have waited 14 years. I felt like I belonged in that spot, and I was meant to be standing there.
Everything seemed real and so amazing. In that moment, I felt like I was exactly where I was supposed to be, even though the people around me seemed very different, murmuring words in languages I couldn’t comprehend. That was when I realized that recognizing I was in Israel was not just going to click in the way I thought it would.
As part of our last activity before leaving, we each shared one thing that surprised us on the Israel trip. Some people described how they were surprised when they ended up enjoying an activity that they originally thought would be boring. Some people were surprised at how quickly they fell asleep at night or how their relationships with their peers changed. Yes, I was surprised at how much I actually enjoyed hiking, I was surprised that I spent time with some people more than others, and although I was expecting my time in Israel to fly by, I was surprised that it was coming to an end right then. But, there was one thing I had to share.
“What surprised me,” I started to say, “was how much Israel felt like home.” I had done some pretty incredible things in Israel. Yet, as new as many of the experiences were, I did not feel foreign. It seemed that even though I had never even been there before, I could belong in that breathtaking place, which felt remarkable.
While talking with our madrich (youth counselor), Zvi, on the bus ride back to the airport, I told him that I was really sad to leave. I explained that I would miss Israel a ton and that he should be prepared for me to start sobbing when we would get to the airport in a few minutes.
“It’s better that way though,” he replied. “Why?” I inquired. “Because it means you had a good time and you want to come back. It would be worse if you were ready to leave because you wouldn’t feel the need to come back. So yeah, you might cry at the airport, but if you’re sad to leave, at least you know you had a great time,” he answered. I realized that made a lot of sense.
It’s crazy to think that I could feel so comfortable in a place that should be foreign. I definitely want to go back to Israel, and I’m proud to be able to say it’s a home of mine and remains zero miles away from my mind and my heart, even when it is physically 7,000 miles away from where I am now.
Brynna Mitchner visited Israel in the spring with her eighth-grade class at Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School in Palo Alto.