OurTimeToLearn English 8 min

sometimes in life like you have to take you to a leap of faith and doing it feels right to do it feels right I really wanted to to be intellectually honest with myself and give myself a year of studying in Israel learning about Judaism and studying where I came from and figuring out where I want to be you how I want to report in my life I think learning it's that's the core of our being I mean you have to grow we have to continue to learn I was planning on staying in DC any working in the foreign policy need world then I sort of decided I wanted to come to Israel and that was an argument with my parents they wanted me to get a job and I was like a woman there's no time like the President to pause and sort of take time to figure myself out and figure out what's important to me and what I want in life and who I am i'm walking in the shook in tel aviv this old man at the counter is singing this pink floyd song so I go over to him and I start singing to it all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be and we're singing together and just like this is my country still love the alternative esoteric things of life and I really had no idea that dude hasn't had any of that kind of a side to it and I asked myself a bump so open-minded that everything else was very left-wing on very open i like everything is like if I'm so mind about everything maybe I should be at least a little bit over minded about my own my own background main routes by religion been here for nine months so far and it's been one of the best experiences of my entire life I've grown so much as a person I've learned so much a Hebrew has improved a lot not only because I'm in Israel but also because I'm reading in Hebrew and translating from the original text was so impressed by the level of students that were taking a break from whatever it is that they were doing to go to you she would to learn about their heritage to really set their value straight and really understand what they want to get out of life what kind of family they want to build and it stopped me for a moment I said wait a second there's something different about this place there's a certain focus and a certain appreciation for life that you don't necessarily get in a typical college setting so I when I first came to Israel I felt like I was missing like half the puzzle like I had like the border but the entire center was missing and the more I started slowly slowly learning like things start to become clear I saw a bigger picture when I started to learn in yeshiva like goes like this stuff is incredible like it's it's very very spiritual it really applies to me I connected with it in so many levels and it taught me so much about Who I am and about about God and about everything about everything I needed to come back and learn more about being Jewish because it was just an incredible experience ah I felt Jewish I knew I was Jewish I just I know what that meant I knew that's what I wasn't what our family was I knew the ideas but it wasn't wasn't brought down and integrating the two who I was I wasn't living these ideas and come to Israel and you're in this dislike environment of people who are just all about growing and learning and living the best life you sting good people speak the people you become a better person they bring you up I feel like I have a fantastic network of people and I enjoy life I enjoy day to day it's very colorful it's very exciting it's very live I could never imagine just going back to England him just being one of the masses part of the amazing thing about being there is just being around people who are passionate about being good and being better and honoring their authentic selves in the Shiva that i was at you had people coming in from Argentina Chile Africa Europe British Brent Britain and all these different places and you know you have this mix of everybody and everybody's unique in their own way and but everyone is on the track of becoming a better person they all want that and you're just around really good people it's very powerful and very important to understand what it means to learn in Israel and access things we weren't able to access for literally thousands of years it really solidified what I knew about myself and it's almost like to be discovering everything you already knew some of my best friend's saying that I seem happier than I've ever been I see more myself than I've ever been I just become a better person and those were all in line with the goals that I had originally I wouldn't say it's for everybody just because it's a really unique experience it's really an intense experience for me was a very positive experience if you come here and learn it's your experience and it's only your experience and you have to remember that to you can come here and you can learn and you can still be used my mom and my friends are always like what are you running from when are you gonna stop running I'm not running from the real world I call it I'm running to my real world there's always such a gift to be able to spend one year that you're just learning about yourself it's an opportunity of a lifetime but you have to approach it the right way you really have to see it as an opportunity and that they'll poach it in a way that enables you to really get the most out of it and then leave you Shira better equipped for the world there's something in the air there's something here it's more than just a history it's more than just a culture like when I was in the shop and I was singing Pink Floyd all you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be I just don't believe that anymore your life is so much more than all in touch with you soon you