Weekend

I'm completely amazed by how the world has shrunk and yet remains so vast. It's totally overwhelming.
Last Wednesday afternoon I took two trains and traveled for about one hour to get from my apartment in Harlem to the airport in Newark, NJ. The airport security line took almost an hour to pass and strethed a couple hundred feet through the terminal. Everyone was talking on the phone. These little gadgets, sometimes simplified even further by a small earpiece connected people across miles, oceans and seas. Few thought twice about the dozens of languages and nationalities represented in this mass of humanity all rushing to catch a flight.

When walking through an international destiations terminal like at Newark, JFK or Chicago O'hare, have you ever looked at the line of people boarding the flight to Shanghai or Stockholm or Buenos Aires or anywhere and considered how remarkably different their surroundings will become in only a matter of hours? In Newark its particularly interesting because in the same terminal there are those passengers leaving for another continent and those leaving for only another northeast state. I've always wondered about the people going to the most obscure places, something like Mongolia.

On Wednesday I was one of those travelling on Continental to another continent, leaving for Israel. I boarded the plane, got situated, messed around with the entertainment consol and eventually fell asleep. Some hours later I awoke to a breakfast omelet and passed the time by making conversation with my travel neighbor- a somewhat likeminded Israel traveler. Yael Ridberg, the Rabbi at the Reconstructionist Upper West Side Synagogue in Manhattan, and I discussed Israeli politics, compared and contrasted Jewish movements and then played a fruitful round of Jewish geography- finding many common aquaintances and friends. Finally, just a short time later, we landed. I wished the Rabbi well, deplaned, changed currency, and stepped outside to signs in new characters, and policemen wielding uzis. Some things felt so similar to the industrial wasteland from which I departed and so many things so different. And some of these differences, totally intangible. For five days I travelled around Israel- from the airport to Beer Sheva in the south, to an army base close by, back to Beer Sheva with a bunch of soldiers, then on a bus to Jerusalem, on another bus to the Hebrew University, then sleep. Two days, including Shabbat in Jerusalem. A few hours strolling in an old city hundreds of years old, a few minutes with my hands pressed against a 2000 year old wall, a few more minutes trying to connect with the holiness it's assigned. Later, more walking here and there in Jerusalem, then sleep. The next morning, a bus to the city center, lunch, another bus to the bus station, another bus to Haifa, another bus to a friend's apartment in Haifa, a taxi to a bar at the beach, a few drinks, a taxi back, then sleep. A bus back to Jerusalem in the morning, a bus from the bus station to Hebrew Union College, a walk to collect my things and a stop to check my email and quickly record some scattered thoughts. In just a few minutes, I'll get up, take another bus to the bus station, followed by a bus to Tel Aviv, I'll eat dinner with a friend then take one more bus the aiport, go through security along with dozens of others leaving for dozens of destinations across the globe, board the plane, get situated, play with the entertainment consol, sleep, eat an omelet, most likely make conversation with the person next to me, land, take two trains to get back to my apartment, undress and shower, walk to the subway at 125 st, Harlem, ride a train to 184 st, walk to class and sit down to learn. oy.

Even half a century ago, such commotion wasn't really possible. We take it for granted.
My ability to go to Israel and back a in so little time, covering so much space in terms of mileage, language, culture and reality leaves me not knowing where to begin processing or when I'll have a moment to do so. Hopefully, I'll gain some insight and a grip on things after not too long.... one thing is certain- Israel is as lovely as ever.

I'm off to Tel Aviv.