It is 2008. A young girl with a perfectly pink outfit and a Dora haircut steps off of the plane. Whining about the heat, she yanks on her father’s sleeve as they enter the Arrivals Hall at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel. Minutes feel like hours at baggage claim. She and her sister grow restless, and a tantrum begins to ensue. Just in time, the father gets their luggage and hails a cab. The girl gets her first glimpse of the country. Green trees, glistening Jerusalem stone buildings, and bright, warm sunshine roll by the cab window. At a red light, she sees a young girl just about her age, dressed in a crisp, white blouse and a long, black skirt that seems to sink into the ground. Her hair is pulled back neatly in a bun, and she walks hand in hand with four siblings, all of them struggling to find space on the small sidewalk. Behind them walks a young, beautiful woman with a head covering and a baby nestled in her bosom, and a man with a large beard, suit and tie, and a tall Mad-Hatter-esque top hat. The young girl watches from the cab as they enter a small, old synagogue on the corner, with smiles on their faces and G-d in their hearts. For the next few hours, that is their only job.

Five years later, the same girl gets off of a plane, but this time, she is a bit taller and wider. She sports a long ponytail, which is messy from the fourteen-hour flight, and a t-shirt identical to the one the sixty or so kids around her are wearing. Butterflies fill her stomach as she enters the same Arrivals Hall that she entered just a few years back, but this time, teachers replace parents and anxiety replaces curiosity. As she peruses the hills, shops, and streets with her classmates over the course of the next two weeks, she takes careful stock of the citizens. She spends a night in the desert with Bedouins, drinking tea, eating meals on the ground, singing and dancing beneath a colorful tent, with the vast Judean desert as a backdrop. This is their purpose, their country, and their story. In Jerusalem, she notices a tall, slender, bright-eyed woman roaming the streets with a navy green uniform, a machine gun strapped across her chest, and a contagious grin slapped across her olive face. The young girl asks for a photo, pleasantly surprised by the soldier’s warmth. As she walks away, the young girl is awed by the soldier’s sense of purpose, her dedication to her country, her home, and her story. The young girl vows to someday find a story of her own.

Three years have passed. Once again, the girl hopes off the plane, but at this point, the correct noun would be “young woman,” rather than “girl.” She is filled with an overwhelming sense of excitement that surprises even her, and a deep hunger for learning, understanding, and belonging, penetrate her core. She is on a quest to find her story. She floats in the Dead Sea, and feels the oily water both stinging and soothing her sensitive skin. She explores the windy maze that is Old Jerusalem, buying cheap t-shirts, inhaling the delicious smell of freshly baked challah, and getting hypnotized by the boundless cornucopia of colorful candies. She sits at the edge of a cliff in the Judean Desert alone, listening to nothing but the songs of the birds and the blowing of the wind, and struggling with herself in the very place that her ancestors did thousands of years before her. She sees the country shut down before her eyes in observance of the Sabbath, attends a prayer service, and lets the words of the Torah warm her heart and fill her soul. She has never felt so happy and inspired in her life.

But this amazement is too good to be true, she soon learns, coming to recognize an enigmatic and unforeseen struggle. She plays at a park where every single structure doubles as a bomb shelter. The thought of a fear-stricken child running for cover after what was supposed to be a fun day at the playground makes her heart ache. Before rafting on the Jordan River, she listens anxiously as her guide warns the group against provoking the people of different heritage who line the stream banks at every turn. A fit of fear grows in her stomach as these people throw water and words at her small, adult-less boat of five, as if to defend their streamside territory. She tucks her Star of David necklace beneath her shirt, naively hoping that it could protect her. The words of Matisyahu’s “One Day” echo in her mind as she prays for the day when peace will prevail. She feels the searing pain in her empty stomach as she fasts in honor of the holiday, Tisha B’Av, remembering the destruction of the Second Temple. She sees the tears in the eyes of her counselor as he tells the story of how he watched his friend die in a bombing, and then risked his own life to rescue his friend’s body before escaping. She speaks with a frail, sobbing mother at the country’s most respected cemetery. It is her son’s birthday, and she sits at his gravesite asking why that knife had to penetrate her baby’s heart. The girl holds a heavy, sharp rocket in her arms, creating for the sole purpose of terrorizing those like her, but was thankfully stopped by the Iron Dome. She goes to the country’s official Holocaust museum, seeing a real cattle car used to smuggle Jews to their death, standing on a pile of shoes from those gassed at Majdanek, touching the rough wood of an authentic Auschwitz bunk bed. Finally, she goes to the Western Wall, the holiest site in the world in her religion. She walks through seas and swarms of women, waiting her turn before pressing her hands, forehead, and finally lips on the warm Jerusalem stone which has been softened overtime by the billions who have begged the wall’s assistance. She weeps and she smiles, and with G-d all around her, she finally understands the paradox of this country, the beauty and the pain, the hope and the struggle for survival. But alas, her six-week daydream has come to a close. She is going home, but also leaving home. She arms herself with narrative after story after fact, not at all ready but forced to defend herself against those who will tell her she should not exist, her country should not exist. And in this moment of sheer mindfulness, she finds something: a purpose, a home, and a story. And this time, it is not that of the Orthodox family, the soldier, the Bedouin. This time, it is all hers.