Bat Ayin

I went on an amazing trip last week, I had been in a real rut and I felt like I needed to get away to do something to get myself moving. I woke up early Sunday morning and emailed a few yeshivas about coming to take a look to see if they were right for me. I got two responses and set up Shabbat plans for Bat Ayin they were having an in-Shabbat and it seemed like it would be an unforgettable experience. The day seemed mundane enough I went to classes and then headed off to lunch. At lunch I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen him much lately so I went up to him excited to talk. After the usual hi, how are you’s what’s been going on he turned to me and said “I’m going to Tiberius, want to come?” I explained to him I had made plans for Shabbat and would have to be in Bat Ayin by Thursday. And then the weirdness started. As it turned out he had the same plans and so without really thinking about it I went to pack my bag, I didn’t know anything about what would transpire in the next week just that I was going to do something, and just doing something feels really good sometimes.

And so before I knew it three other friends and I were on a bus headed for Tiberius. It was a long three hour ride I didn’t feel good and couldn’t sleep and I was beginning to wonder why I decided to go on this trip to begin with I could have been relaxing and figuring out what I wanted to be doing with the next few months, a question that had been nagging me for quite a while. We arrived in Tiberius at around 7:30pm very happy to be off the bus and then something clicked in my head, we didn’t have a plan, none, zero, nada and I had just picked up everything to go on some crazy adventure, what had I gotten myself into?? With no plan we grabbed our stuff and headed for town. Needing a plan to Mattisyahu (my friend and not the artist and the ‘leader’ of our trip) asked a random guy if he knew of a place. As it turns out he was a yeshiva student at a place in town and invited us to stay the night without anything better to do we thanked him and headed to the yeshiva. We arrived to a weird scene, a group of women were chanting and making strange sounds in a big room to the side of the yeshiva, no one spoke any English and I was instantly creeped out, I wanted nothing more then to turn tail and find another place to stay. However after some broke negations we managed to secure a free place to spend the night. I slept deeply and quietly. With the sun up and the scene peaceful we davened, thanked our kind hosts and booked it out of there we had a mission that day and a lake to bike around.

Twenty miles didn’t seem like that much at the beginning of the day, but by the time we were ten miles into it, it seemed like an eternity. The ride around the lake was beautiful despite the overcast weather. In fact I think without the clouds we may have never finished our ride. With the moderate temperature and humidity none of us succumbed to the heat or got dehydrated. The beginning part of the ride was intense with lots of inclines and few declines. But by the time we got to the half way point of our journey Kibbutz Ein Gev it was all flat lands. I wish there was a better way to describe this ride, because in writing about I’m not doing it any justice. I mean after all why would a couple of guys just bike around a big lake, yea it was beautiful but what compels a person to do this? We could have after all just rode part of the way around it and then sat on a beach the rest of the day and enjoyed ourselves. Instead I found myself alone on the road with 10 kilometers left one friend ahead and one behind, wondering what the hell was I thinking? I haven’t been on a bike in 6 years and now I’m biking twenty miles in a day. And I think it comes down to this; its so rare in life to do something with definable goals, to do a task that truly has a beginning and end. Most of the time everything we do has implications that go beyond it, and so inevitably while we’re in the experience we’re not truly in it but looking past it. While I was riding those last excruciating kilometers all I could think about were two things. One how much and I wanted to give up and two how I wasn’t going to give up until I was done. It was a powerful moment alone fighting for every kilometer. When I was done I could hardly believe I had done it, a huge feeling of relief and pride washed over me, I smiled uncontrollably. I did it!! I couldn’t have done it anymore I did it as much as anyone could have. I think being in Israel feeling like I’m just floating in outer space I needed this, I need to have a definable goal, because what I’m doing right now is very important I’m learning and figuring out how I want to live my life and what’s important to me and what isn’t important to me. And that’s great but its hard feeling like I’m not accomplishing anything, even though I know I’m growing so much as a human being, and I know what I learn here with enhance my life, but it can be hard to feel. And so with our day long journey complete my crew and I picked up our bags and headed out.

With no real plan, we had to figure out what we wanted to do. With one of our companions on a bus back to Jerusalem it was down to three and it was between Safed and Tel Aviv. Exhausted and unsure of ones plans is not a great position to be in and with no one else willing to make the call it came down to me. In Safed there are beautiful views and possibly a yeshiva to take a look at. In Tel Aviv there are beautiful beaches and a real Metropolitan city to have fun it. And so I made the call, Tel Aviv it was, an exciting three our ride later we arrived, found a place to stay and feel asleep. The next day we chilled on the beach it was perfect weather for it and hooked up with some friends and crashed. It was incredibly nice of them to let us stay the night, as our plans changed hourly. And so we woke up late the next day, chilled took our time and said goodbye to another companion and headed off to Bat Ayin in the afternoon.

With the crew just down to Mattisyahu and me, we arrived in the Judean hills just in time for sunset. And what a sunset it was, in fact every sunset there was unbelievable. We arrived at the yeshiva, which was just a few trailers on the side of a hill and put or stuff down content to unpack and chill for a long weekend/ Shabbat experience of a life time. Most of the weekend was spent hiking, Bat Ayin is in the West Bank right on the edge of the Green Line and is without a doubt one of the most spectacular places I’ve been in this country and that is saying something. We hiked around and talked, I was reminded of the stories of the Baal Shem Tov who was the originator of the Hassidic movement and used to take his students on long walks though the wilderness. I couldn’t have asked for a better companion the connection between us bordered on the mystical. For some reason, we didn’t question it our journeys connected and we we’re in it together. We prayed with intention pleading with god and I for one really felt it, it felt like the old days for me, when I began praying it was the naive longing/ desire to connect, the guy’s at Bat Ayin definitely helped with that every minyan was intense with music and dancing, it was in short amazing. The Shabbat experience was also unique and powerful. And before I knew it, it was all over and I was on a bus back to Jerusalem a little less then a week after I started.

It’s funny how trips take on themes when you’re in the experience. Every time you begin a trip your never really sure what it will bring especially when you have zero plan like we did. And this one became all about ‘Emunah’ the best translation for the word being faith, trust in god, trusting that when you want to accomplish some task that as long as you want it, a work for it, the rest will take care of itself. Or as my dad puts in ‘life has a funny way of working out’. Everything in our trip just worked out we needed a place to stay and we go it, whatever it was we got it because we just knew we’d get it and if we didn’t we got something else and it turned out great. This was what my trip to Israel was about. Shalom.