Food For Thought

            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

Quests: Not Just for Literature?

            Compared to some, I am probably starting this assignment fairly early. Normally, I would be one of the students to do all of the summer work the week before school starts, but this year that's not the case. Yes, part of this assignment has a June deadline, but that's not the sole reason for starting my work during the first month of summer break. On July 1st, I will be departing on a trip to Israel and will not be returning until four weeks later on July 28th. At this point, you're probably wondering why I'm talking about my award winning procrastination skills and summer vacation plans instead of the ideas presented in Chapter One of How To Read Literature Like A Professor, but trust me, I'm getting there.

            In the book, the first chapter talks about a protagonist's quest throughout a novel. But do these types of quests only exist in literature? What about in real life? I think that quests can happen outside of fiction. I mentioned my Israel trip earlier because I am considering it as a personal journey, or in the case of this class, a quest. It meets all of the criteria set out by Thomas C. Foster, so why not? There will be a quester-me (and 139 of my closest friends), a place to go-Israel, a stated reason to go there-visit and explore the homeland of my people, challenges and trials en route-the expected drama that comes with 140 Jewish teenagers, and a real reason to go there-connect with my Jewish identity. I don't really know if I'm allowed to give myself the title of protagonist, but for this case I'm just going to say too bad to whoever says no to me.

            While I have travelled to the Holy Land twice before, I am placing my upcoming trip in a different category than my past two experiences. My first trip was in June 2009 on a family trip with my synagogue. I was almost twelve years old and the experience was purely a tourist one. My second trip in April 2011 was on my 8th grade class graduation trip through my school, Levine Academy. I had a great time seeing all of the places I had learned about in the classroom, but having spent the past twelve years with the people I was travelling with, my anticipation of the following month's graduation was a little high and I didn't get to cherish some of the experiences as much as I could have.

            When I leave next week, I am going to task myself with discovering my real reason to go to Israel. I stated before that the real reason is to connect with my Jewish identity, which is true, but I'm also hoping for something more. I want to go on a journey to connect with myself. Yes, my Jewish identity is a huge part of me (as you will learn throughout the next year), but I feel like there is a whole other side of myself that I haven't tapped into yet. I don't entirely know what to expect from my trip, but I hope it helps me to open new doors in my life.

            My quest is just about to begin. I know who I am and where I'm going, but my reasons to go there are still slightly unclear. But just like Foster wrote, I hope to find out along the way and altogether have an exciting and eye-opening experience.