You may have heard us say this before: Birthright Israel is strengthening the Jewish future. But…
It’s the day of my Bat Mitzvah, and I’m nervous. For all the usual reasons: What if I mess up the Hebrew? What if I open my mouth and nothing comes out? And, also, because we’re running late. In more ways than one.
I am 21 years old, going into my senior year of college. My sister and I are on a Birthright Israel trip, sitting on a bus in a traffic jam, reviewing our prayer booklets and hoping we’ll make it back to the hotel on time so as not to miss another opportunity for this quintessential Jewish rite of passage.
I can’t blame traffic for missing my first Bat Mitzvah. Just a standard childhood aversion to Hebrew school. I remember casually informing a friend I’d be dropping out.
“What about your Bat Mitzvah?” she asked.
I shrugged. “I’m not doing that, either.”
I can still see my friend’s little face, skeptical and disappointed, and stern.
“You’re going to regret it,” she told me.
I’ve never forgotten that comment, though I didn’t think much of it at the time. My family moved across the country for high school, and my parents encouraged me to join the B’nai Brith Youth Organization to meet Jewish kids in our new area. Without this push, I don’t know that I’d have ever made it to Israel, or to the bimah.
In BBYO, I began to come into my own as a Jew, moved by the connection I felt to my peers and by the traditions and rituals that brought us together. I marveled at friends who could create and lead Shabbat and Havdalah services, who knew the significance of every holiday and the blessings by heart.
Regretting Not Having a Bat Mitzvah
And so my childhood friend’s prophecy came to be: I regretted not getting Bat Mitzvahed.
When I signed up for Birthright Israel, I didn’t realize it would be my second chance to become a Bat Mitzvah. I just really wanted to go to Israel. So many of my friends had visited, and they all came back entranced, with stories about a feeling in the air, about kissing the tarmac upon landing at Ben Gurion. I was a bit skeptical of this magic, but I was drawn to the idea of the holy land and had to see it for myself.
My sister — two years younger and in college across the country — felt the same, and Birthright allowed us to travel together. We’d never been abroad. A free trip to Israel sounded almost too good to be true.
It still feels that way almost 18 years later.
The other day, sorting through old boxes, I found my journal from the trip. As I opened it, I thought about how surreal it was I’d gotten to go. I began to read, and it turns out it was surreal even then.
“This trip was by far one of the best things that has ever happened to me and most certainly the greatest traveling experience of my life,” I wrote on my last day of Birthright Israel, June 29, 2005. “It was spiritual and meaningful beyond comprehension, as well as more than tons of fun. In our wrap-up discussion in the park in Jerusalem, we were asked to describe the trip in one word, and I chose surreal. I have never done so many extraordinary things, experienced so many firsts or felt so many emotions as I did in Israel, and I will be forever grateful for the amazing things I will take away from these jam-packed, unforgettable 10 days.”
My Bat Mitzvah on Birthright Israel
The journal entry goes on to list some of these favorite experiences — 18 of them, to be exact. Of course, my Bat Mitzvah is one of them.
On that rushed, trafficky day, we made it back to the hotel — not with enough time to change clothes, but we made it. And so, I was called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah, nine years late and in the shorts and tank top I’d worn on a hike (or, more specifically, according to my journal, a nature walk to the Sataf Spring).
I remember shaking a little as the rabbi draped the tallis over my bare shoulders. I glanced out the hotel windows overlooking Jerusalem and thought, “You’re in Israel. Being Bat Mitzvahed. Never forget this moment.” And I haven’t.
As much as it would have been nice to have a proper ceremony at the proper time and in the proper attire, I wouldn’t trade this experience if I could. Birthright afforded me the chance to be Bat Mitzvahed in the holy land alongside others who never had, my own sister included. Taking the trip with her only added to its significance, and experiencing Israel for the first time together bonds us to this day.
Discussing the trip on the phone recently, we couldn’t get over all we’d done — hiked Masada, prayed at the Kotel, ridden camels, slept in a Bedouin tent, floated in the Dead Sea, spelunked in an ancient cave, cruised the Jordan River, bonded with soldiers our own age who served to protect the homeland for every Jew around the world.
Shabbat in Jerusalem
All of these experiences made the favorites list in my journal, of course, with one meriting an asterisk and nearly four pages of reflection: Shabbos in Jerusalem.
My Birthright Israel group held Friday night services on the rooftop of our hotel, and “it was when we turned to pray in the direction of the Kotel that I experienced the most defining moment in my life as a Jew,” I wrote. “It hit me all at once that, in America, everyone ushering in the Sabbath was facing east in a gesture toward Israel. Everyone in Israel was facing Jerusalem. And I was in Jerusalem facing one of the holiest sites on Earth … Completely unexpectedly, my eyes filled with tears — I can honestly say that I have never in my life been so moved or felt so connected to Judaism … suddenly, I knew what everyone meant about the magic of Israel.”
The magic of being in Jerusalem for Shabbat hasn’t worn off. Each night before I fall asleep, as a kind of gratitude practice, I recite the Shema in my head. To make sure I focus on it (and not the other zillion things clunking and racing around my brain), I visualize that Saturday morning at the Kotel. What the wall looked like rising in front of me in the sunlight as I approached, what it felt like against my forehead as I prayed, how awed I felt as I backed slowly away when our group had to leave, unable to take my eyes off it.
It’s spiritual moments like these that make Birthright Israel special. It’s educational moments like visiting Independence Hall, where Israel was declared a state. It’s bonding moments with other young Jews on a bus, blaring Israeli music as you drive past the field where David fought Goliath. It’s chilling, sobering, heartbreaking moments like touring Yad Vashem, when it sinks in why Jews need Israel and how badly.
In the face of biased media coverage and boycotts and so many misperceptions about our small but mighty homeland, it’s more essential than ever that young Jews go see for themselves. I don’t know that I truly understood at the time of the trip the challenges of perception Israel faces, even among our own.
The fact that Birthright Israel offers the chance for Jewish young adults to experience Israel firsthand is priceless and more important than ever, and why I give to the Foundation every year — as a thank you, and to help ensure today’s Jewish young adults have the same chance I did.
Experiencing the people, the culture, the history of Israel, it was impossible not to see how incredible the place is, how vibrant and, special and essential it is to the Jewish people.
Almost two decades after Birthright Israel, my trip continues to inform my life as a Jew, and now, as a mother of three young children. My husband is also a Birthright Israel alum, and the grandson of Holocaust survivors. His love for and devotion to Israel runs deeper than I probably could have understood had I not visited for myself on Birthright.
Now, as parents, in our own way, we’re doing our best to instill in our children a zeal for Judaism, the Jewish people, and our homeland. But one day, they’ll have to go for themselves.
Risa Polansky Shiman lives in South Florida with her husband and three children. She has covered local news for publications such as The Gainesville Sun and Miami Today, and her writing can be found on Kveller, the Brevity blog, HelloGiggles and Harlot.
