Ayelet Wenger (Columbus, OH):
It was the second day and a faculty member was instructing us on our next activity.
“We’re going to take you to the mini mall up the street,” he told us. “What you have to do is go up to people and talk to them.”
We gazed at him in blank amazement as the principles of parents and teachers revolted in our heads. “Don’t talk to strangers.” “Mind your own business.” “Don’t disturb that nice man, dear, he’s busy.”
“It’s a piece of cake,” our teacher assured us. “Find out what they think of Netanyahu. Get their opinions on the best cottage cheese brand. Walk up to someone on the street and ask, ‘Where do you come from?’”
Five weeks later I waved goodbye to the last Bronfman fellow and stepped on to my connection flight. As I thrust my boarding pass at the flight attendant, I had the swooping sensation of stepping off of the heady peak of an ivory tower. The three a.m. debates on G-d, the visits to tombs, walls, and ruins of the ancient world, the unending flood of brilliant speakers and teachers–all of these were gone, to be memorialized only in a facebook thread.
What had happened to me? Here I was, stuffing the ratty green knapsack I had come with into the baggage rack, lending half an ear to the same old airplane safety presentation that I had heard five weeks ago. The lessons that had appeared so concrete on the program appeared fragile and rootless now. Would I maintain what I had learnt, or would my newfound openness to the stories of others wash off as easily as the greasy stickiness of an overnight El-Al flight? Had I really learned anything?
A young black woman in a knee-length skirt sat down in the seat next to mine and pulled out a bible.
“So,” I began, “Where do you come from?”
