By: Dale Bernstein
Up untill today this trip has been distant, not in experience or in depth but rather in time. It was the "old" city which we visited, overlooked boarders of 50 year old states, and a notion of never ending growth. It was today which transformed abstract into reality, infinity into the finite.
As Quentin Tarantino is so fond of I have already revieled our ending, our realization, now it is time to follow our group backwards untill your memory of the last blog message and this unite.
Gifts were exchanged, personal tokens with meanings years old given to soldiers we've know only 4 days. Josh sits down on the bus clutching a black IDF beret, a token from the equivalent of our NAVY Seals. Myself parting with a bracelet, made of paracord, given to me by a friend while hiking. It was a tool to be used while away from home, always carried with me while traveling. It now leaves with an intelligence officer, it is easy to see this tool is needed more by the men who protect our home.
The heartfelt goodbyes mark the end of our lives with the IDF soldiers, 8 in all, all our brothers and sisters. But the tears are not sad from goodbyes alone, rather they flow from the stories and spirits on mt. Herzal. This place is the Israeli Arlington, a final resting place of the celebrated politicians and the unsung heros of war. Here we came face to face with reality, a solem reminder in the eyes of a father. A man quietly praying for his daughter, only 20 years old, a soldier, a hero. We walked from the grave of Michael Levin who was a born American, any one of us. Who not only paid the ultimate price to defend Israel, but clawed and fought, simply for the opportunity to live his dream of becoming an Israeli paratrooper. No one of us, myself included could have prepared for what happened in that cematary. I can only speak for myself but on the walk up the mountain from the holocaust museum, I could only wait for reality after our days of adventuring.
Earlier that day we arrived at the Israeli holocaust museum. The views were amazing and the thought of learning permiated every one of us. As we entered the bare concrete building, it was the design, the curiosity which most struck me. A long triangle, wide at both ends, pinched in the middle, hid the exhibits that lay hidden in its wings. While we all know the facts and stories which follow our people from the nazis, this experience was different. The real pavers and street lamp from a Warsaw ghetto took the textbook learning of our past and forced it to be real. Forced the images and sounds into our minds. As if for a short hour in time we lived like our brothers of past. For that hour we remembered them, honored the heroes which without none of us might be here today.
Then it widended, the narrow concrete center emerged to a great epiphany of light and space. As swiftly as it began and became reality, it ended. ended with a view over the mountains of Jerusalem which seemed unreal. In all that has been our trip, we wake up to what on the surface is unbelievable, Israel our home, the land our fight, the old city our god, the soldiers our family. Tonight we will be in Tel Aviv; another adventure which none of us, half lucid from this roller coaster, can begin to fathom. We will wake up from the dreams while we sleep on the ride to the next reality, a thousand lights in the distant skyline, Tel Aviv.
Up untill today this trip has been distant, not in experience or in depth but rather in time. It was the "old" city which we visited, overlooked boarders of 50 year old states, and a notion of never ending growth. It was today which transformed abstract into reality, infinity into the finite.
As Quentin Tarantino is so fond of I have already revieled our ending, our realization, now it is time to follow our group backwards untill your memory of the last blog message and this unite.
Gifts were exchanged, personal tokens with meanings years old given to soldiers we've know only 4 days. Josh sits down on the bus clutching a black IDF beret, a token from the equivalent of our NAVY Seals. Myself parting with a bracelet, made of paracord, given to me by a friend while hiking. It was a tool to be used while away from home, always carried with me while traveling. It now leaves with an intelligence officer, it is easy to see this tool is needed more by the men who protect our home.
The heartfelt goodbyes mark the end of our lives with the IDF soldiers, 8 in all, all our brothers and sisters. But the tears are not sad from goodbyes alone, rather they flow from the stories and spirits on mt. Herzal. This place is the Israeli Arlington, a final resting place of the celebrated politicians and the unsung heros of war. Here we came face to face with reality, a solem reminder in the eyes of a father. A man quietly praying for his daughter, only 20 years old, a soldier, a hero. We walked from the grave of Michael Levin who was a born American, any one of us. Who not only paid the ultimate price to defend Israel, but clawed and fought, simply for the opportunity to live his dream of becoming an Israeli paratrooper. No one of us, myself included could have prepared for what happened in that cematary. I can only speak for myself but on the walk up the mountain from the holocaust museum, I could only wait for reality after our days of adventuring.
Earlier that day we arrived at the Israeli holocaust museum. The views were amazing and the thought of learning permiated every one of us. As we entered the bare concrete building, it was the design, the curiosity which most struck me. A long triangle, wide at both ends, pinched in the middle, hid the exhibits that lay hidden in its wings. While we all know the facts and stories which follow our people from the nazis, this experience was different. The real pavers and street lamp from a Warsaw ghetto took the textbook learning of our past and forced it to be real. Forced the images and sounds into our minds. As if for a short hour in time we lived like our brothers of past. For that hour we remembered them, honored the heroes which without none of us might be here today.
Then it widended, the narrow concrete center emerged to a great epiphany of light and space. As swiftly as it began and became reality, it ended. ended with a view over the mountains of Jerusalem which seemed unreal. In all that has been our trip, we wake up to what on the surface is unbelievable, Israel our home, the land our fight, the old city our god, the soldiers our family. Tonight we will be in Tel Aviv; another adventure which none of us, half lucid from this roller coaster, can begin to fathom. We will wake up from the dreams while we sleep on the ride to the next reality, a thousand lights in the distant skyline, Tel Aviv.
Saying goodbye to our soldiers
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