David Explains It All

The trendy star of Clarissa Explains It All

Sim­i­lar to my hazy mem­ory of the hit teen sit­com, I am rel­a­tively in the dark about what will be hap­pen­ing once I board a plane at 5 PM this com­ing Sun­day. Sure, my Birthright coor­di­na­tors have done an excel­lent job send­ing me exten­sive e-mails high­light­ing the impor­tance of pur­chas­ing a fanny pack/money belt com­bi­na­tion and list­ing all of the cool places we’ll be vis­it­ing. It’s just a lot to take in. I have absolutely no idea how these two experiences—Israel, let alone Morocco, espe­cially being back-to-back—will be. But my phi­los­o­phy is that if Melissa Joan Hart as Clarissa Dar­ling could sur­vive and thrive from mid­dle school all the way to high school, I can sur­vive and thrive in Israel and beyond. Right?

I leave the first day of 2012. Sun­day morn­ing, my mother will be dri­ving my brother and me to New York City, where I will be deposited at JFK in an attempt to find my Birthright group. I will be with­out a phone and am expect­ing most things to go wrong. But that makes it more excit­ing. Then, I will board a plane for six hours, have a quick lay­over, and hop back in the air only to land four hours later in Ben Gurion Air­port, ready for Jew­ish adven­tures. (Click “Read More”)

I’ll be stay­ing in kib­butzes, hotels, and bedouin tents through­out my time in Israel. I’m going with about 40 stu­dents, most of whom are from Boston Uni­ver­sity. I had class dur­ing all of the pre-orientation meet­ings which has led to my par­tial inabil­ity to clar­ify any­thing that will be hap­pen­ing as well as has con­tributed to the mys­tery of my fel­low soon-to-be-tourists. How­ever, all is not unclear: my good friend from home, Emma will be going on this trip with me which will make every­thing that much more incred­i­ble. We went to Hebrew school together… What would Rabbi Katz say now?! (We were trou­ble­mak­ers to the nth degree.)

The Israel trip involves hik­ing; float­ing in the Dead Sea; talk­ing with sol­diers; vis­it­ing Ben-Gurion’s grave; explor­ing Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa; wine-tasting; and, of course, cel­e­brat­ing Shab­bat in the holi­est of places. Also, around 20% of Israel’s pop­u­la­tion is Arab and Ara­bic is com­pul­sory or at least offered in some schools through­out the coun­try, so I’m going to try to get some con­ver­sa­tional prac­tice in before Morocco, in sha allah.

Birthright offi­cially ends Jan­u­ary 12, but Emma and I are extend­ing our trip two extra days to visit her cousin’s kib­butz. If my mem­ory serves me, Israel is about the same size as New Jer­sey, so hope­fully it will be rel­a­tively easy to get around. Then, I fly from Tel Aviv  at 4 AM to Turkey to Casablanca to be dri­ven to Rabat by a mys­te­ri­ous AMIDEAST rep­re­sen­ta­tive who promises to “wait until [my] flight lands no mat­ter how delayed.” That day has a 95.4% chance of being mis­er­able, but there is a sil­ver lin­ing, for after that begins my mod­ern life in Morocco.

So unlike the wise 14-year-old Clarissa, I might not be able to explain it all. Heck, I get hor­ri­ble stage-fright when I talk to strangers in Ara­bic, any­way. And when I spent a month in India this sum­mer, I thought I had com­piled an exten­sive lin­eage of our akkas using my lim­ited Tamil “skills,” only to learn that they prob­a­bly had no idea what I was say­ing and were nod­ding and smil­ing sim­ply to please me. But, language-barriers and inevitable, unmen­tioned gas­troin­testi­nal dif­fi­cul­ties aside, it’s all about the jour­ney, and some­how I’ll be okay. Some­how, I’ll be more than okay. I can’t wait.