Checking In

[Celeste]

Dear Kvutza,

I've been meaning for a couple of months now to write a letter with an update of where I am in life, but I'm finally sitting down now to write it. 

I'm living in Wooster, OH right now. I student taught first semester, and worked as the Jewish Life Coordinator at the college I graduated from. I'm going to start working full time at my college on Monday, and I also teach Spanish at a local Montessori school. I still definitely feel culture shock sometimes living in a town this small (with about 25,000 people), and I will be very ready to move at the end of this (academic) year.

When I was on Workshop I was sure I would make aliyah after college. It seemed like the right step to me, and I knew in my heart of hearts I would do it. I found an essay I wrote my Freshman year of college for my Interfaith Dialogue course. In it, I also wrote about how sure I was that I would return to Israel. I always knew that I did not want to live there for my whole life, but I thought I would return for awhile, do messima, and live a life with other Habos. When I started to be in a relationship with SB at the end of my Freshman year (by the way, it's weird to me that SB looks kind of like 58 and both are/were such big focuses of my attention, yeah?), I started to have some doubts, but I pushed them away. As the years went on, I still went to every seminar (except mifgash in Israel), but I always felt like I could see two different paths ahead of me. It made me feel nervous, and really feel sick to my stomach. I had no idea how I could choose one group of people I loved over another. (Even now, thinking back, it's clear to me that what I wanted were the people, not the movement, but I didn't realize that at the time.)

I still felt conflicted throughout my senior year. Working at Winter Seminar last year, with so little of the kvutza there, was so hard. It was so hard knowing that everyone else who still felt like a part of the kvutzah were going to Israel together, and the few of us who were there were the last little bits left at this big movement-wide event. It was bizarre. I cried on the last day when Amir asked me about aliyah again, and told me that even if I wasn't ready right now, Israel and the movement would always be waiting. Being Rosh Tavor, I still thought about it a lot. It was hard when other people talked about Maya, Phia, and Matan going to Israel, because I didn't know where to put myself. I still felt such a strong tug towards Israel, but I also knew that I had a job keeping me in the states for at least another year, so I could still blow off the question. Living with SB this year has made me even more sure that I couldn't just pack up and leave her for an undetermined amount of time. 

The first time I had any clarity about this was driving home from Fall Seminar this year with Peacock. Fall Seminar was really weird. Phia and I were the only ones from 58 there, and we both were struck with the feeling that our time had come. Tzevet was SO YOUNG. We were grumpy old people stuck in the mitbach, and it was a very ridiculous weekend. When Peacock and I were driving home, he was talking about something, I think his plans for a next step after college, and he said something about Israel, about being in a process and madrichim. I suddenly stopped listening (oops, sorry Peacock) because it made me realize that I had been thinking about Israel wrong. I had only been thinking about kvutzah, about living intentional lives with people that I love, but I had forgotten about the rest of it. I had forgotten about peulot, about Zionism, about having madrichim, about being madrichim. I thought about the shuk, and disorderly loud people waiting for the bus, and really what it was like, what it would be like to live in a kvutza, but I forgot everything outside that bubble. I suddenly realized that I didn't want to make aliyah. I don't want to be part of a Habonim Dror process right now. Israel is not my biggest priority. At all. Neither is Jewish peoplehood (which is ironic considering that that's what my job is...). 

I need you all to know how much I am crying while writing this. I can't believe that I'm writing this letter. I remember at Maapilim Seminar one year when Matan said that if the time came for him to leave the kvutza process, he'd want a chance to say goodbye, and I didn't really get it, but I get it now. This all feels so dramatic to write, and I hate putting myself out there so vulnerably, but I want you all to know what I've been thinking for so long. I feel like my heart is breaking as more and more of the people I am closest to in the world move to Israel. I have this terrible joke that I make with Shelley (Tavor's ED) about how I need to make new best friends because all of mine are moving to Israel. She always blows me off (in her oddly comforting way) and tells me "Oh come on! You'll all live long lives, you'll all see each other again!" She also reminds me that she still talks to her sister in Israel every day, and that if people want to be part of each other's lives they will. But I still cannot believe that all these people (especially from Tavor) who I've seen as my life partners for so long are taking a next step together without me. As much as I want to believe what Shelley has to say, I also know that when you aren't part of someone's day to day (or even month to month) life, it's different. It won't be the same.

I still have what-ifs that I think about late at night when I'm falling asleep. What would have changed things, to put me on a different path? What would have made me be getting on that plane to Israel? What if my family (or I) had more money, and I'd been able to afford to go to mifgash, even once? I haven't been to Israel since Workshop, and maybe if I'd gone it would have changed my mind, reignited my passion. The same goes for student loans. If I came from a different background, one where I didn't need to take out loans, would I not feel pressure right now to have a job, to make money to get out of debt? What if I hadn't met SB, if I wasn't in a meaningful relationship? Would I have an easier time imagining a life outside of the US? What if I'd been closer to our madrichim on Workshop? Would it have made it easier to be close to them after Workshop? If that had been a meaningful relationship, would I understand the movement's place in my life? I know these what-ifs don't get me anywhere, but I still feel like I need to acknowledge them, even if only to let them go.

I don't know how to end this letter. I want you to know that I'll be in Wooster until this summer, but then I'm moving out of here. We're going to move to some bigger city (we've been trying to sit down and decide, but wow, what a ridiculous project and how do you choose anyway???), and I plan to work as an elementary school teacher for awhile. I'd love to live in an intentional community, in some way, but I don't know how that's going to happen right now. I know I actively need to make new friends, and that is so bizarre. I end up feeling like an asshole a lot when I try to make friends in Wooster (post-college) because I just feel like I really love the friends I have and then I don't want to make any new ones because none of them are good enough. I'm excited to keep trying here, and especially excited to get to a city where there are more people who I feel like I can connect to more , and who I share similar values with. I am terrified/excited to find relationships that can be as meaningful as kvutza. For my sanity, I need to believe that this is possible to achieve.

Wow this email sounds so depressing. I'm sorry. It's not really meant to be. This is definitely a strange year, because it feels like a vague gap year of life, but it's not all bad. It's just really different than other years of life have been. 

I know this was practically a novel, and if any of you got this far, I'm so amazed, but also I really hope you did because otherwise what I'm saying probably won't make much sense, haha. I guess I'll end it by saying how important this whole process has been for me, and how important the kvutza and its members have been. I don't want the relationships I have with you all to end. Please call me, skype me, email me, whatever. I want to hear what's happening with your lives, and I promise I will stalk your fb photos. I'll try to find some ways to make you jealous of the photos I take, too, but no promises. Also, if you read this, it'd be nice to know it, so could you let me know? Please, please, if you hear anything in this letter, hear how important my relationships in this kvutza are, and how my not going to Israel is not a rejection of those relationships.

Thank you, and goodbye.

Love,

Celeste

P.S. For some reason I can't send this with my current email address (celeste.t...@gmail.com) so I'm trying with my old one... Let's hope it works?

P.S.S. It's supposed to be a windchill of -35 F tomorrow. What is my life?

[Becca Kahn Bloch]

Celeste,

Thanks for writing this. It was honest and important. And for me, it really hit on a lot of things that I've been thinking about in terms of aliya and kvutzah. What you said about the "bubble" of kvutzah really resonated with me: 

"…It made me realize that I had been thinking about Israel wrong. I had only been thinking about kvutzah, about living intentional lives with people that I love, but I had forgotten about the rest of it. I had forgotten about peulot, about Zionism, about having madrichim, about being madrichim. I thought about the shuk, and disorderly loud people waiting for the bus, and really what it was like, what it would be like to live in a kvutza, but I forgot everything outside that bubble."

That's something that I'm really struggling with as I start to decide what I'm going to be doing in the next 6-8 months. It's hard, because in many ways kvutzah is the movement. The two are so intrinsically connected that it's hard to differentiate between the two. But it's also true that there are so many other parts of the movement that aren't kvutzah, and when you make aliya, you commit to everything in the movement — not just kvutzah. I don't know if that makes sense. Whatever. YOLO.

But anyway, thanks for writing this. Good luck with your city search (I'm having a massive city-crush on Portland right now; you should definitely check it out). And keep us all updated! (We'll all obviously be Facebook stalking the shit out of you.) (In a non-creepy way?) (Nope. In a creepy way. Deal with it.)

Love,

Becca