Livnot Birthright Israel Trip - A week after
I stopped blogging somewhere in the middle of the trip partly because internet access was more difficult to come by, partly because I didn’t feel like it, and partly because all I wanted to do was practice the guitar, which our ceaselessly smiling
organizer, Yifat, taught me how to play. 
In any case, some of the events during the trip are starting to blur in my memory, but here goes…
On the last night, we had a closing circle, and we expressed our feelings about the trip. Right before the circle, we listened to some amazing Kabbalist-musicians from Tzfat with all sorts of musical instruments. One thing they played was called a bell drum, which made the most amazing and unexpected melodies. It both looked and sounded like an alien space ship.
For the last few days of the trip, we prepared most of our own meals since we were staying in the Livnot campus instead of traveling around in hotels and hostels. It was fun and slightly chaotic preparing our shabbat meal before shabbat, and our challah was a disaster, LOL. It looked like burnt dough. No one was able to figure out what went wrong.
The trip has left me swimming around in the idea of Jewish identity, and for the first time I’ve been more seriously considering the meaning behind the middle eastern political conflicts. My knowledge of Jewish history is pathetic, and I feel that developing it is going to be an important task for me. Welcome Saturn to the fourth house! (for those of you who know what that means, or even if you don’t, it’s fairly obvious) This is the beginning of the journey. The next 2.5 years will tell the story of how it unfolds.
In the meantime, perhaps I’ll see how I feel in Jewish clothes. I’m going to Friday night services this week at a local synagogue, and I’m going to have to rearrange my food coop shifts so that I can observe shabbat. The whole thing still feels very strange, and I have no rational explanation for why I want to try these things out now, except for the reason of exploring my roots. The concept of shabbat does make a lot of sense, and I can see how taking a break every week is as important as taking a break every hour or two while studying.
Since I returned, I’ve made hummus with the delicious recipe I learned while in Israel, and I bought a guitar. I also discovered that one of my roommates is Jewish, and she’s the one who told me about the Friday night service, which happens to be really close. I’m also waiting for my chevre to upload their pictures, which I will add to the blog entries when they do.