Now, I have three days left until I leave Hod Hasharon...

On September 17th, I wrote in one of my blogs the one main goal that I had for this trip and it was I quote: “I have always wanted to be someone people can look up to and take a leadership role in different things. Here I have an awesome opportunity to learn how to do just that, I know how much I can and will get out of this program.” My goal, to put it into different words was to become a person who is looked at as a leader. I believe that I saw this program as an opportunity to see people in need and to fulfill their needs in a way, this was an expectation of mine. Because it is hard to have accurate expectations for an experience so new and different from what I am usually used to it was hard to make an accurate prediction of what I wanted to get from the experience. I am not saying by any means that I did not become a better leader on this trip at all, I am saying that I did not “fulfill” my expectation of becoming such a strong leader because I couldn’t know what life here was going to be like.

Now, I have three days left until I leave Hod Hasharon, my new home, and I can accurately visualize what my goal absolutely should have been. I came on this trip for multiple reasons, and one of the smaller ones was to really understand my Jewish identity. But that is what was strengthened the most. I came on this trip not caring at all about that fact that I was a Jew. As a matter of fact, I was against being Jewish in a way because I have always felt unnecessarily different from my peers. While I was here, I was at my orthodox family’s house talking to my uncle and he told me something that I can’t seem to forget, “The reason Jews always stayed who they were, is because as much as you try to forget your religion the world will not let you, you are different.” I completely agree with this, and now, I enjoy this. Learning about all of the absolutely powerful Jewish leaders during this course has been super interesting. I now see how Jews for thousands of years have fought to keep this religion alive and I have a tremendous amount of respect for that. I feel that I have something to fight for now, I want to continue Judaism, not the religion, the culture.