My 87-hour trip to Israel and back, including flights, was about as relaxing as Brad Pitt's visit to Israel in World War Z. Minus the zombies. Well, that's not entirely true- I was at least part zombie when I got home as my brain attempted to deal with the aftermath of two transatlantic flights in less than three days.
Leaving Boston at 11:00 on a Saturday night, after a 90-degree day of baseball, soccer, and family, a sleepless series of flights from Boston to Rome to Tel Aviv and a dusk drive up the coastal highway got us to Haifa on Sunday night, and at our sister school first thing Monday morning.
Despite that disorientation, it was a remarkable trip. We sat with our partners and crafted a sensational new curricular framework for a class on Jewish citizenship in an age when politics is not solving important issues. I rode a tractor and ate sabich, ran up and down Mount Carmel on my own and up and down the beach with my longtime friend and colleague, met new friends and saw old ones, ran into other Boston colleagues at the top of the Carmelit on Monday night, and spent a few hours in Tel Aviv where, among other things, I spent time with an old friend on a rooftop watching the night come in and the moon come up.
From that whirlwind, to another infamous all-nighter at Ben Gurion, punctuated by a midnight run to Aroma and a nap on the floor, to a dawn flight to Amsterdam and a longer haul to Boston, and a baseball game to manage at the end of a day (or of two days that lasted an unnaturally long time), it was a maelstrom of a trip that I’ll never quite forget.
No complaints here. This is the life I have chosen, and this is the work that I do… and make no mistake, it is a great life and it is rewarding work.
As much as I love Haifa, though, there’s no place like home with my wife and kids, but I’m sure I’ll be back there before too long.
Hopefully for more than two days.
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