A memorable moment from the chagim this year was learning in depth about them.

A memorable moment from the chagim this year was learning in depth about them. My family isn't very religious at home so we usually don't do much for the chagim. Most years we go to family friends and celebrate with them and then go to synagogue. This year though I was with all new people and everyone had very different experiences with the chagim.

It was interesting to hear what all the teachers said because I had never really thought about why I celebrated the holidays or why it was important for me to. Learning from the sessions did help me really understand the significance of the holidays and why we do what we do for those holidays. For example on Yom Kippur I went to a session where we talked about the way we see things like our hunger. Our hunger is just a feeling that we think is bad so we eat something when we are hungry instead of just feeling the hunger and just letting it be there. We also learned how we associate feelings with things that they aren't actually coming from. For example if you see a mess and you get anxious and feel the need to clean it, that feeling could be from somewhere else that you just associate with the mess instead of where it is actually coming from.

We also learned more in depth about the actual reason we fast which for some reason was never something I had really thought about. I learned that we fast as a way to ask god for forgiveness and repent for our sins. I have always thought of it as a way to cleanse myself for the new year which is the reason I did it. For a lot of others it was more of a tradition but coming from a family that doesn't fast I did it for myself and not anyone else. It was an overall really good experience being in Israel for the chagim and I am so grateful that I got to be a part of it.