Leaving home for the first time is not always the easiest task, regardless of if you’re 10 minutes away or 10,000 miles. The moment you pack up your stuff and realize that within those suitcases, boxes or car hold the contents of what you own on a very basic level, it becomes overwhelming. A new chapter of life is about to start and another is ending, changes are occurring--some of which that are out of our control--and that just makes it even more anxiety provoking. Rewind to the original event that's provoking stress, actually planning what’s going to take you away from home--college, world travels--no, wait. It's Yeshiva.
Yes, I left the beautiful Rocky Mountains to head out East to New York, to Yeshiva. Or, for a girl, seminary (No I’m not becoming a Rabbi, just an observant Jew). Now, to someone who didn’t know, it would seem as if that was a natural progression--much like some people become missionaries, some people go to their parent’s alma mater, or whatever it is: it was something expected of them from a young age. But this was not that for me. If you would have asked me on my fifteenth birthday what I was going to be when I grew up, I would not have told you ‘an Ultra-Orthodox Jew’, I would have said something along the line of a fashion designer or a nurse.
When it came time to graduate, I spent hours with my Rabbi and his wife who had helped me come into this truer version of myself--we spoke about me going to learn. Israel was out of the question, so Crown Heights, a small little neighborhood in the middle of Brooklyn, was apparently the next best option. Without as much as a second thought I sent in my application and within two weeks those aforementioned bags were packed and I was moving to the Big Apple!
So, here I am, a little 18 year old who was wearing shorts and a tank top less than a year ago, now standing fully covered to fit Jewish modesty laws, in the middle of Crown Heights, the home of Chabad. I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into as I walked among the sea of black hats, listening to people speaking a language I didn’t understand, (Hebrew or Yiddish anyone?) but there was something so comforting about the fact that all these people who surrounded me believed in the things I did. I was on a cloud and you couldn’t have told me there was any more perfect place then Crown Heights, or the holy synagogue of 770.
For a year I lived in a dorm: it was lovely and grand. I made beautiful friends and spent all my time studying and enjoying being able to go get food from anywhere at practically any hour (my wallet and waistline didn’t really thank me). There was so much novelty to this all and it seemed like I was watching someone else’s life, not mine. It wasn’t really until I left the dorm and my little bubble and truly lived within the community that I felt like I was walking some sort of tightrope. Who am I? Am I this girl who loved dance and gymnastics that was a boy-crazy teenager, who stayed out too late on the weekends with friends? Or am I this refined girl who uses way too many Yiddish and Hebrew words in regular conversations, too many for anyone to keep up with?
That’s when it hit me, that weird line of who I was and who I am. After talking to friends who were away in other places for college I was relieved to find out that I wasn’t the only person who was not quite ready to let go of their past self and not quite ready to embrace their new self. I learned something very important--my true self is not one or the other, it’s aspects of both. Who I was still makes up a very large part of who I am, and who I became will forever be a part of me.
When we move away from home and we’re in new surroundings, we end up adapting to the new aspects of life that are around us. So when you leave home, remember to pack with you the realization that change is good, a strong sense of self, and the readiness to have a great time finding out who you are, no matter where you are or what you’re doing!
