By Hannah Snitcovski, Summer Fellow, Boston University
120 fellows, 120 individuals. 120 different personalities, character traits, visions, and values. 120, what an intimidating yet beautiful number. I have to give it up to those who organized the fellowship; you make it look easy.
Perhaps inspired, or extremely delusional, I offered to plan a Shabbat/weekend getaway to Tiberias after one of our group trips. TAMID was taking us to Nazareth and then Kibbutz Hannaton, an hour or so away from Tiberias and Tzfat. I thought to myself, “It would be such an excellent idea to get a group of people for the weekend and visit a new place in Israel.” The idea, in theory, was a lot simpler than the execution.
With the help of a new close friend, we had managed to create a Shabbat experience for twenty-two fellows. What started off as the two of us endlessly searching for Airbnb’s that would take a party as large as ours, to endless phone calls to find catering in the area that could deliver before Shabbat, we somehow managed to do it. As I sat at our dinner table Friday night, surrounded by twenty-one faces, twenty-two individuals that seven weeks ago were strangers, I found that my TAMID family had grown.
From different backgrounds, we all spoke passionately about life, about our time in Israel- both the good and the bad. We shared what was on our minds; from how it felt to be homesick, to contemplating moving to Israel, plans after the summer, joining the Israeli Defense Forces, or perhaps feeling a bit under the weather. Our different experiences in Israel became a common ground for us all. We were all going through various challenges, but we all connected on the fact that we were all going through them together.
I helped create my TAMID chapter the second I set foot on Boston University’s campus. Two weeks into my freshman year, I had been pitched the idea of TAMID on a walk with our founding president, and the rest was history.Three years later, I am still amazed that the fire has not burned out. The desire to learn more, take on more responsibilities, to connect with new people and create something for the future is steadily growing. The opportunity to have organized something that added to someone else’s fellowship experience was possibly one of my favorite parts of the entire summer.
For me, TAMID means always trying to outdo yourself, to look back and think of ways things could have been better and aiming to achieve them. I found myself saying before this trip how badly I wanted an opportunity to get to know fellows in a different environment, something we could all share uniquely with one another. I wanted the chance to bring meaning to their eight-week long journey. As I looked out on the roof of our apartments overlooking the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee), I took in every ounce of energy that surrounded me. It is hard to believe that the experience I had been counting down to is coming to an end. However, that is the beauty of being in TAMID: it is never the end, a new chapter is always beginning.
