All Together? Or "Alone Together"?

I’ve learned yet another valuable life lesson on this trip – or at least come to a deeper appreciation of something I already knew. It’s ok to be alone sometimes. Really, I promise it is. But the stigma can be harsh. Yesterday, for example, on the beach with some of our “groupies” (how else can you refer to students traveling together on a group trip?), I happened to mention that I was going to go out in the evening to explore the city. “With a guy?” one of the girls asked expectantly. “Nope, by myself.” Immediately, a rush of sympathy. “Awww. By yourself? Want company?” In fact, I didn’t. In fact, exploring Tel Aviv alone has been one of the real pleasures of this trip. Getting to know the city, getting to myself. Trite, but true. (I hope, at least.)

Aloneness (not loneliness, a different beast) is treated by much of the Western with caution, disdain, even fear. As we avoid talking about death or disease, we avoid discussing aloneness because somehow it indicates failure. If you’re alone, you don’t have friends, right? If you don’t have friends, you’re a loser, right? Sadness, solitude, quiet space – all these make for a fuller, not a diminished life. As much as I enjoy being “happy together,” I also appreciate being “pensive alone.” A life spent perpetually dodging oneself is the real sorrow, just as empty as a life spent without fellowship or love.

But how does this relate to my experiences in Israel, which, ostensibly, this blog is about? Well, my time living in Israel as a child was generally a time of unease, filled with distrust and anxiety. Now that I’m back, I’m trying to make peace with that legacy in a constructive way, trying to determine what parts of myself I’m truly comfortable with, what parts still need work. And Israel itself is the perfect place to have such an existential dialogue, mostly because it’s been having its own such debate for the past millennia or so. Israel is so many different things to so many people that the conflict here is not just about land or refugees but about identity itself – the identity of the people, of course, but more so the identity of the place. Part is ancient, holy, historic. Part is conflicted, ghettoized, tortured. Tel Aviv is like Miami while Hebron is like Northern Ireland with religious zealots mixed in. Haifa attempts citywide “coexistence” while Neve Shalom is a bit like summer camp for PhDs. The settlements are bubbles with wide streets and tennis courts while Bethlehem is more or less an open-air prison. It’s a land of confusion and contrasts, so if you’re going to have a crisis of self, this is the place to be.

I have yet to absorb the reality that this land of crisis is my adopted homeland - my land is the Holy Land. What a curious statement! I find it equally curious that the Holy Trinity of conflict, identity and existence is perfectly reflected in both the microcosm (me, person, individual) and the macrocosm (Israel/Palestine, culture, society). But the feeling of aloneness persists despite being connected to this bigger reality. In a group, in society, are we really “all together”? Or is there always an aspect of being “alone together”? How can we be friends if we remain strangers to ourselves? And how can we stop being strangers without some good long doses of alone time?