It's
been over a month since I've written in this journal, since I "accidently
on purpose" left it at home when I left for my trip to Israel. Just
kidding, it definitely wasn't an accident (sorry Mr. Lindsey) but at least I'm
being honest about it. Lucky for me, I stayed in New York with a friend for an
extra week after ILSI so my mother was kind enough to send me my book and my
journal with hopes of me doing a little bit of work while also enjoying my
extended vacation. However, none of my mom's wishes came true as I am now
sitting on an airplane flying somewhere along the East Coast on my way back to
Dallas and having just opened this composition book for the first time since
June 21st.
Let
me set the scene for you: I'm in an aisle seat, an annoying mother and child
are seated in the two seats next to me, music is blasting through my headphones
in an effort to block out the aforementioned mother/child duo (I'm silently
hoping that she doesn't glance over and see me writing about her), my book and
journal are spread out across the tray table, and I have a bag of pretzels and
a bottle of Fuze Tea in my lap.
You're
probably wondering (or not wondering) why I mentioned my food and drink last
instead of my almighty summer homework materials. In the Jewish religion food
is bae (before anything else). On ILSI, food was bae (you've probably heard the
word "bae" used as slang or in a joking manner recently but I promise
you in this case food really does come before anything else for Jews). On ILSI, the Fuze Tea that I'm currently
drinking right now was a necessity to pretty much everyone and brought us
together as a community (I swear I'm not making this up). Like our
end-of-program talent show was "sponsored" by Fuze Tea and they had
numerous "commercials" throughout.
How
did a simple fruit flavored (usually peach-mango) drink cause almost 140
teenagers to bond? It's simple, really. We would usually go to a rest stop at
least once a day to restock on snacks for the long drives we took each day.
Once inside, one person would go to the fridge and start passing out the Fuze
Tea to anyone who wanted it (usually a fairly large number of people). After
everyone paid, we would stand outside the buses and drink our tea and eat our
Dankritos (slang for the Israeli Doritos that everyone ate) and talk about our
day. It was a great time for people from different buses to catch up and always
a time of day that everyone looked forward to. It was those times that our ILSI
community was at its strongest.
Like
I mentioned before, in Judaism, food is the most important part of any holiday
(or just in general). And like I also said before, on ILSI, food was extremely
important. Shabbat (holy day of rest from Friday night-Saturday night) is the
most important time of the week for Jews. On ILSI, Shabbat was one of my most
favorite times of the week because on Friday nights (right before sunset),
everyone would get dressed up and take pictures with each other, participate in
fun, guitar-filled services, and then eat dinner together. Those meals were
always the best because we all got to talk about the amazing week we had and
wonder what new things we were going to experience within the next few days.
In
Chapter Two of How To Read Literature Like A Professor, Thomas C. Foster
writes that "Eating with another is a way of saying, 'I'm with you, I like
you, we form a community together.' And that is a form of communion," (pg.
8). It's a little ironic since communions typically aren't associated with
Judaism but in terms of Foster's definition, Shabbat dinner was exactly that: a
communion. Looking at it now, those times spent outside the buses every
afternoon were also communions (even if we were only eating bags of chips).
So
maybe I should be saying thanks to whoever decided to allow us to make snack
stops every afternoon because those were the times that I made new friends.
Maybe I should be thanking the hotels that didn't serve great food on Shabbat
because it gave me more time to talk with my friends. Either way, I'm grateful
for both the formal and informal communions that I experienced on ILSI because
they gave me the opportunity to bond with my peers and allowed me to do my part
in helping to form a community.
Fuze Tea
From the first Shabbat in Neve Ilan
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