Written by Rose Levenson
Over the last two months, to say a lot has happened would be a gross understatement of reality. As a Nachshon Fellow, I have made my own sushi, spent an afternoon at Google headquarters here in Israel, eaten cholent for the first time, discussed texts both old and new, met leading figures of the Jewish professional world, been to over a half dozen different synagogues, and have been exposed to twenty other students from across the United States of America who are all deeply passionate about pursuing their dreams to improve the world in which we live. Furthermore, these are only a handful of the organized experiences put on by the Nachshon Project. The cohort has travelled far and wide and made use of the myriad opportunities that Jerusalem and all of Israel has offered us.
Every experience is meaningful in its own right, but the mosaic that has been created from everything I have had the opportunity to do thus far is what has been the most impactful. At Neve Schecter, a Masorti shul in Jaffa, the Rabbi shared his view on building Jewish communities. Instead of having only a streamlined view of what it means to be Jewish, he described his perspective. In Jerusalem, there is a neighborhood called Mea Shaarim. Literally, the name of the neighborhood means one hundred gates. Many people have certain connotations of this part of the city that tend to lean to the negative side, but the Rabbi offered a new view on the idea. He shared that as a leader in the Jewish community, he feels as though it is his responsibility to open at least a hundred different gates for people to find what resonates with them in Judaism. Everyone feels and identifies in different ways with Judaism, and it is not anyone's place to judge or change the feelings of others, but instead provide them with as many diverse opportunities as possible.
In the past week or two, I have been going through the typical second semester junior existential crises. While I feel as though I would have had this crisis no matter where I was geographically, being in Israel has offered me an oppurtunity to think of the big picture beyond by bubble at home in the States. Being away from what you know and whom you know allows you the time and the space to analyze what has already happened in your life and the possibilities of what is to come. Israel is the perfect place to do this. The country lives and breathes the history of the past with hope for the future.
