Yam-Le-Yam Extravaganza

It’s really hard to pick what I want to talk about when I have so many things to talk about. This past week was Yam-Le-Yam -- the fifty-five mile hike across Israel. We spent five days sleeping in tents throughout the Galil, all while enjoying the great outdoors of the Promised Land.

My favorite part of the trip was definitely all the “me time” I got. I know it sounds silly, but as my fellow EIEers explained, Yam-Le-Yam essentially solidified why our group is here (in Israel). For that reason I was able to part take in a good amount of self-reflection on my trip and what is to come (and how I can make it the best month of EIE as a whole). I finally got to think a great deal about my thoughts on Aliyah and was able to answer questions like:

Do I REALLY want to live in Israel?

What would I do here?

What could I be doing in America?

Those are only a few of the things that ran past my mind as I strained up steep slopes and cruised down curvy cliffs.

In addition to all mental exercise, I also exercised a ton of other aspects of life that I had never really considered. Yam-Le-Yam really emphasized the idea behind being an individual but in the end coming together as a team. So when it came to things such as food, I was responsible for carrying a certain amount of produce (e.i. peppers and tomatoes, a portable stove and pan, or cans of tuna), yet it all came together as an actual meal when we combined our collective resources. It taught me how to prepare my own food individually but also provide for others -- something that is crucial in life anywhere you go, in my opinion.

In the end, Yam-Le-Yam was a blast. Not all of it was easy, but once I finished an uphill climb with a friend of got to finally relax at the tents at the end of a long day, it was all really rewarding. Yam-Le-Yam was an experience I will always remember.