Spirituality

For the first 10 days of my trip, I took part in a Birthright program. Birthright is a free trip to Israel that anyone under the age of 26 (I think there might be special programs for people older than that too) who has any Jewish heritage can take. During those 10 days you travel as a group with 30-40 people and see the sights Israel has to offer. You are joined part way through the trip by Israeli soldiers around your age, and they become part of the group for 5 days.

Many people that go on this trip go for religious reasons. Some want to rekindle their religion after having lost it over the years, and some want to spark something within them that they may not have known they had beforehand. For me, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to get out of this trip. To be frank, I mostly went into it as a way to get a free flight over here, which cuts down the costs of my travels a lot. After seeing everyone else's experience, I still do not find much interest in religion, but I did find some interest in spirituality.

My parents raised me as both Jewish and Christian. My dad occasionally took me to synagogues and we celebrated the high holidays, while my mom took me to church and again we celebrated the high holidays. They wanted me to be exposed to both religions, so that I could make my own choice of which I identified more with. What ended up happening was that the two seemed to cancel each other out, and I ended up leading a very non-religious life.

Religion has never made much sense to me. Why do people put so much trust and faith into something so abstract? Why do they believe that a book written thousands of years ago would explain life better than we can today? To me, most of the miracles that are described in the bible seem like desperate explanations of something that people at the time didn't understand. Over time, the stories get more and more exaggerated, and like a game of telephone, whatever the story was at the beginning, it is wildly different now.

When we visited the Western Wall, many of the people on our trip described being very emotional. They said they felt connected to their ancestors, their family, and their religion. I, on the other hand, felt nothing. What I saw was a bunch of people praying at a wall. To me, they almost looked like they were begging for answers, and that didn't seem right.

That night, I had a conversation with Jenna and Emily about religion. We talked about what we felt at the wall, and I described my experience. I said that I didn't see the sense in looking outwards into the unknown in search of answers for your problems. In my opinion, it makes much more sense to look inwards, and find the answers within yourself. I described it as the difference between religion and spirituality. While with religion you look to a god for answers, with spirituality you look at yourself. To truly find happiness, you have to be able to find inner peace, and if you are constantly asking for that from anyone but yourself, I don't think you'll ever find it.

I had similar conversations with a few other people during my trip, including my friend Talia after the Birthright program was over. While I was staying with Talia, who is very spiritual herself, I was noticing a lot of similarities between her and my mother, who recently had a spiritual awakening. Both seem to be incredibly happy and lead a life full of smiles and laughter. They find joy in the little things in life, be it the color of some mangos in a market, or a picture a friend took of a rainbow. They seem to have found peace within themselves, and they are now two of the happiest people I know.

So I guess I'm coming away from my Birthright experience with a little more appreciation for the spiritual side of life. I probably won't start meditating and exclusively doing yoga, but I do think I'll start down a path of self discovery. I don't exactly know where I'll end up, but if it can make me and the people around me happier, then I can only see it as a benefit.

Thanks for reading,

Ben