A Good Week

So on Monday night, Masa hosted its annual kick-off-the-year event, which, this year, was an Idan Raichel concert. I've been a sort of semi-fan of The Idan Raichel Project since I was first exposed to their music last summer, and I had heard great things about their concerts, but I had never experienced one before.

It was, as much as a concert can be, life-changing. Idan Raichel is a genius, and the people he works with are incredibly, absurdly talented. The whole thing was actually a weirdly spiritual experience for me. I had been really sick in the few days before, and walked out feeling not only healthy but invigorated. It was amazing. I highly recommend seeing him in concert at some point in your life.

Anyway, the concert was in Jerusalem, and so the Tel Aviv Aardvarks didn't get home until after 12, but nevertheless we found ourselves on the bus at 6:15 the following morning, ready for a long drive down to the desert. Our first stop was Ben Gurion's grave, which I visited last summer on Nesiya, but I appreciated going again simply because now I have a much better appreciation for who David Ben Gurion was and what he represents for Israel. This man was a genius; he is responsible for creating much of what we know as Israel today. He is the one who coined the phrase "make the desert bloom", and he DID. I would love to be able to sit down and discuss today's situation over a falafel with Ben Gurion. Man, he was a cool guy.

After a brief lunch in a park (for some reason every youth program in Israel puts a huge emphasis on eating in parks), we began our hike. The "intro" to the hike was in an ancient cistern which, to my surprise, was exactly where I ended my three-day desert hike on Nesiya last summer. And so we began to hike, down the very same trail through the very same ravine that I hiked last summer. I was having all this intense nostalgia that no one else was having; it was weird, but regardless, this particular hike is stunningly beautiful, and I LOVED it.

So anyone who's been to the Negev on any sort of touristy trip has probably been to that fake Bedouin village with the yummy food and the tents and the camel rides and the sexist Bedouin men with the full robes and iPhones. Yeah? So that's where we slept. They fed us well, and we slept on mats in this giant tent, and in the morning we woke up and rode camels, and it was totally ridiculous, but a lot of fun.

Something about the desert just inherently makes me feel at home. Even the first time I went to the Negev at age 13 I felt like there was a piece of myself hiding in the rocks and the wind and the dry air. I feel alive in the desert. Today I actually went out and bought the official Aardvark tent and some other camping gear so that students can go out camping anytime they want on weekends. I want to go back to Mizpei Ramon next weekend!

Shabbat Shalom!