Guest Rambler: Amanda Kurland
It's Amaaazing
When I decided to go on the Jewish Woman’s Renaissance Project (JWPR) trip to Israel it was both with excitement and trepidation. I was sure I would have a good time, it is Israel for goodness sake, but I wasn’t sure I would be up for the JWRP message. It wasn’t the scheduled lectures I was worried about, I figured I’d probably learn something and the proud nerd in me loves to learn, it was the enthusiasm of the leaders and attendees that I was dreading. How can everyone be so excited about everything?
Our group met a few times before going on the trip. Everyone was warm and friendly. They were also enthusiastic and I found myself worried. All the talk of how the speakers were amazing worked away at my nerves. This trip could never live up to its hype. Would I spend the trip clenching my jaw lest some clever yet snarky comment creep out that would alienate me from the other women? I started picturing myself with teeth marks on my tongue.
Then I arrived in Israel and it felt like home.
Due to travel hiccups I had missed my intended flight and thereby missed the first lecture. At the lecture everyone received a rubber bracelet that they would switch to the opposite wrist if they had a negative thought. In my exhausted state I joked that it wasn’t that I didn’t receive a bracelet, it’s just that it’s switching wrists so fast you can’t see it. That was the first and the last snarky comment I would feel a need to make.
That evening was the beginning of eight days of the most amazing food. Everything is so fresh and full of flavor at every meal. The meal was capped off with welcome fireworks and dancing. The delight and freedom of roughly 200 women dancing and laughing with complete abandon was wonderful and fun!
The following day I got to hear my first JWRP lecture and like all of the following lectures it was not what I was expecting. “Lecture” is such a boring word. It brings up images of a tweed patch-sleeved jacket talking in a monotone. These women are not only far from boring; I can’t imagine any one of them in a stuffy tweed jacket. Imagine the most entertaining and informative TED Talk that you get to see live. These speakers share with passion about how to be your best self. It is not at any point a dry “do- this” lesson, it is thought-provoking ideas of ways to think and thereby be the best you on every level and that was the true “message”. Where I expected to be offered religion, I was offered inspiration. That inspiration felt like spirituality. With laughter and with tears I, along with the other women, soaked up and internalized the wisdom that was offered. Maybe it sounds hokey, reading this back it certainly sounds that way to me, but I can’t deny what I witnessed not just for myself but for every woman around me. Strangers united as women, as mothers and as Jews and by uniting we were no longer strangers, we were friends.
We toured beautiful and historically significant sights. We ate amazing meals together. We shared a moving and fun Sabbath together. We sang and danced before the Western Wall in a sea of other women where we were joined by Israeli soldiers. These young women who risk their lives for the sake of the Jewish state joined in on our celebration and made it all the more meaningful.
I can enthusiastically say that the experience was transformative. The message I had been dreading ended up being the best part.
If you’re considering going but find that you’re feeling unsure about the message, go for the friends you’ll make. If you’re not sure that you’ll make friends, go for the land of Israel. If you’re not sure about your feelings for Israel, go for the food. You might just end up enjoying the food with amazing women in a foreign land that feels like home with inspiration that feels like the future.
Shabbat Shalom,
Amanda
