I Hate Drunk Driving

There's just no other way to put it, really. Earlier this year I lost a friend to drunk driving, and nobody saw it coming. He had so much going for him-- he was about to graduate and had so many hobbies and friends and just impacted life around him so positively.

He was on my Birthright trip and when he died, I was shocked how so many from the trip came to honour his memory. Over 1000 people showed up in total, ranging from school friends, to fitness students, teachers, and parents of friends who could not make it. It was awe inspiring.

I cried so much. So, very much.

My fondest memory of him was when we visited the artist's quarter of Tzfat and he donned tefillin for the very first time in his life. He came back with this sparkle in his eyes yelling "I just got bar mitzvah'd guys!"

I think from that moment onward he was going to start considering Judaism seriously and I love being there to witness that moment. Just like someone told me they were moved by how much I cried my first time at the Kotel.

Call it indoctrination or not, it is quite something to behold a disconnected Jew embrace their Judaism again after a lifetime of spiritual exile. A lot of people are secretly yearning for that magical experience on these trips-- they are already looking for spirituality. It doesn't just hit them by surprise. The jaded ones will almost always remain jaded and not buy most of what we're supposedly being "sold."

But I have always found that attitude appallingly negative.

As someone who was inspired by my first trip to Israel, I feel like it gave me a chance to see that it is OK, that it is permissible to want to be Jewish to one's fullest potential.

All my life having this knowledge of an identity and having no outlet for it really struck me in Israel. The fact that a cab driver said "Baruch Hashem" to me because I hail from Toronto, and there are a lot of Jews there, just made me want to cry because there is nowhere else in the world but Israel I would hear something like that.

And it makes me a little giddy to think about how I will be going back there next week to reunite myself with that feeling again, even if for only a little while.

Yoni, I promise to make the most of this trip for you up there in HaShomayim because I know you wanted to do this one too.