Students Speak
Ryan
23, from Baltimore, MarylandI have been living and learning in Jerusalem for 8 months now. Sometimes it's hard to remember all the twists and turns and seemingly random events that lead me to a life in yeshiva in Israel.
I started off as your typical secular indulgent (use your imagination) college kid in America. I didn't have any Jewish friends, and Judaism was not at all a part of my life. Judaism was just like any descriptor on my ID: I have brown hair, I'm 6 feet tall, I'm Jewish, and I'm American.
My sister came to me one day to tell me about Birthright Israel. They offer free 10 day trips to Israel. Israel always seemed like a cool place to go, but it's so far away that I never thought I'd make it any time in the foreseeable future. Now I suddenly had a free trip set up.
So I went on Birthright and had a really deeply moving experience at the Kotel (Western Wall). Then I had the good fortune to meet a guy named Bentzy at one of the hotels we stayed at. We became friends and talked about my trip and life in Israel and whatever questions you ask a local when you're in a foreign country.
By the end of the trip, I had this new appreciation for Jewish contact. It didn't really have anything significant to do with the religion itself. I was more interested in making Jewish friends. I just felt that we had something in common. They were just all Jewish and unaffiliated like me.
I got back to college at Wake Forest University where I found out there were 80 Jews out of 4,500 students. I got in touch with Hillel and found that there was no community to speak of. So I called Bentzy in Israel who actually flew to North Carolina to meet with the Hillel people and brainstorm ideas for how to energize and grow the Jewish community at Wake. We came up with the idea of having Shabbatons at my house. Bentzy got me in touch with another amazing guy named Steve from Manhattan who flew down twice and helped me host Shabbatons at my house.
Just by being around these people and Judaism in a very passive way I got curious and started asking questions. I grew more and more interested and moved from questions to web sites and books. I got a learning partner from Partners in Torah over the summer and started to really find meaning in my Jewish roots.
Anyway... The summer was ending and I was going to go to work in advertising in DC, but I realized that it would have just been a meaningless continuation of college. I would have been working all weekend. I would have been interested but not passionate about my work, and I'd still be chasing the same stuff I chased in college. I decided I wanted to do something different and adventurous. I started looking into programs in Israel. I checked out everything from Peace Corps type work to internships and jobs and education to yeshiva. In the end I thought to myself, "Well, this Judaism thing is pretty cool. It seems like something I like. I'll run out of steam before I learn enough to sustain me if I don't start to learn seriously very soon."
So I decided to go to a yeshiva and explore Judaism and to see what these yeshivas were all about. That was in mid-August, and it's now 8 months later. I absolutely love being out here. Best of all, I have yet to pay for a flight. I found a donor to send me out here, then one of the airlines messed up my flight and gave me a free ticket. So, that's my story. Thanks.
You can check out my blog at: http://ryan-israel.blogspot.com/.