Memories from yeshiva

I think yeshiva was a really happy time for me. Maybe one of the happiest and most meaningful years of my life. I think that the year spent hitchhiking, eating hummus, immersing myself in Jewish community, ritual and prayer -- and just the freedom of exploration -- gave me a high that I've been chasing ever since. Even as I recognize the evils of Israel, Zionism and the IDF -- I don't think I've ever felt so free and alive as I felt that year in yeshiva.

In my year in yeshiva, I was very uncomfortable with the institution's relationship to Zionism, religious Zionism, and the IDF. I'll get to all that stuff, but recently my therapist has been encouraging me to sit with the pleasant memories from that year. Asking me, as he always does, how it felt in my body.

Relaxation. Sunshine. Hitchhiking. Hitchhiking to get hummus with friends on Fridays. Then taking a small hike, hitchhiking back to the yeshiva in time for Friday night kabbalat shabbat prayers. Where the melodies were much more stirring and powerful than anything I had experienced previously in the U.S. Deep, soulful and slow melodies -- a pace and pathos that Americans would struggle to understand.

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I remind myself: Jews have been living in Palestine for hundreds or thousands of years prior to the creation of the state of Israel, and the mass ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population which Israel's foundation caused. 

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I can hear my therapist asking: okay, but where did you go now? Can you tell me more about that year in yeshiva and how it felt?

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I think my most severe struggles with depression began when I left yeshiva. Being uprooted from that environment was extremely painful for me, so much so that there were times I wanted to end my life.

But prescription antidepressants, or hikes in nature, or any of our proscribed neoliberal remedies will not be sufficient to replace the deep community and purpose I had that year.

But staying longer in Israel would have required serving in the IDF, since my exemption from military service was valid for only one year, and that year was up. And I was not willing to serve in the IDF.

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I think I'm writing this because I don't think my battle with depression will be handled until I'm able to recognize the gaping whole that has been left in my universe since I left yeshiva. 

I stand by the decision to leave. But it certainly was not easy, even if it was the only and best choice.