Same Path. New Directions.

The year I am spending in Israel begins tomorrow.  My life is about to change dramatically, with new opportunities to take and decisions to make.  However, it isn't so much that I've arrived at a crossroads as it is that I'm about to enter the Concord Rotary.  For those of you who aren't familiar with this iconic feature of Massachusetts driving (of course it's not the only one of its kind), let me explain myself...

As I leave my home in Acton, I turn left and head east down Route 2A/119.  As I pass the strip malls, martial arts studios, sports fields, Chinese restaurants, gas stations, and bookstores of my youth, I push the gas pedal gently.  The speed limit is 40mph because it's technically a state road--even though it's really got the traffic of a small suburb of Boston.  In some ways this is a metaphor for Acton itself: a small town that values "hustle."  Finally, as I pass the McDonalds that used to be the Burger King--where my dad and I ate dinner every Monday night, and where I hatched the idea of being a karate kid--I can feel that I'm on the edge of town.  In some ways my most vivid memories can be brought alive on the final quarter-mile stretch of this road: there's Ginger Court Restaurant, where my Grandpa Leo and I would share sweet-and-sour chicken and pineapple almost every Saturday until I was eight years old, and of course the gymnastics academy that I abandoned for the karate school behind it when I was five.

As the memories peak, the road ascends and suddenly the speed limit plummets as I approach the Rotary.  I am eighteen years old.  I have just graduated from high school.  I am approaching the Rotary.  I am slowed to a pedal-less roll, waiting in line to merge into it.  I watch as my peers go before me.  I watch them zoom around and exit on their own different trajectories.  I will have to wait.  It's rush hour.  It's August, it's September, it's October.  Most of my friends are taking mid-terms, or observing the High Holy Days in Israel.  I will prepare for my own departure, living at home for a month-and-a-half, studying Hebrew in preparation, reading books, and fulfilling an extreme degree of quality time with my parents that only fits in complementing the year I'm about to spend in Israel.   In some ways I feel I'm already on the Rotary, after all it's really just another part of the same road I'm on.  Any anxiety comes simply from being tired of looking forward to hitting the gas and merging on.  Finally I'm the fifth person in line, and then the third, and the second, and the next...

It's about 11:30pm on October 11th, 2008.  I'm all packed.  I've said some great good-byes.  I've marked a ballot.  I've had some great meals.  And I'm leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning, bound for Tel Aviv, via JFK.  For the next eight months my home will be Jerusalem, one of the great nuclei of civilization, and the holiest place in the world for the Jewish people.  With fifty other fresh high school graduates, I will be studying Hebrew and Arabic.  I will be learning about the history of the Middle East, following both Jewish and Arab narratives, and the possibilities of peace in the region.  In an International Jewish Civilizations course, I will be exploring some of the lesser-known roots of the Jewish people, visiting Jewish communities in countries that don't usually fit into the American Jew's narrative of his or her people.  

The program is called Kivunim, or "Directions".  As with any rotary (I realize the correct term for many of you may actually be "round-about".), everyone drives in the same direction together, but there are many different possible directions to take after going around.  Built around a commitment to peace and social justice, embracing pluralism, and fostering Jewish identity that sees its global and particular responsibilities in tandem, Kivunim is not just the rarest of privileges and opportunities; it is an almost spookily fitting match, in terms of interests and origins, to the core of who I am and who I hope to be.  Again, tomorrow may not be best described as a crossroads, where one must choose a new path, but as a rotary, where one stays on the road he has been on as it opens up an array of different potential directions.  As I've told many of the people reading this, I never would have taken a year in Israel between high school and college just for the sake of doing so; I am only leaving tomorrow because it feels like a natural outgrowth of who I already am.  Year off?  Nay.  A year to be on like never before.

I want to welcome you all here.  I want to thank you all for reading.  I hope that over the next eight months Routes To Roots provides food for thought, some interesting stories and photos, and opportunities for everyone to reap some benefit and inspiration from experiences and adventures that are meant to be shared with others.  I realize that blogging is sort of a selfish way to communicate, and I look forward to more dynamic conversations and correspondence with you all.

Until then,

Ben