“Ok guys, time to go to your rooms. See you all in six hours, and please try to get some sleep. We have a big travel day tomorrow” Rabbi Soskil announced. We shuddered as he delivered these dreaded words: the words that signified the end of the trip. As we swayed to the mellow music around the campfire, arm in arm, a giddy, understanding look passed around the group. Someone broke the rhythm of the music and simply answered “no. we’re staying. Strength in numbers!” After he asserted his answer, our rebellion began.
We quickly switched our slow, solemn campfire music to upbeat Israeli music. We scampered up the benches and stood proudly on top, chanting our refusal to yield to the teachers, and screaming along to the music the whole time. Pounding our fists in the air, we jumped excitedly when Rabbi Soskil arrived with backup teachers and quickly retreated.
We had won! However, we realized we were vulnerable around the dying campfire and rickety benches. Somehow, we all understood the next step without verbal communication: sprint through the retreat center to the big sports court up the hill. As we all broke off running, the crisp wind biting our faces, a look of sheer happiness spread across every single person’s face. Here we were in Budapest, on our last night together, staging a rebellion just to have fun with each other. Once we arrived in the sports court, we continued our party. Our revolution lasted exactly 29 minutes, until Rabbi Soskil arrived once again and this time threatened to become angry. So we finally relented and danced to our rooms, but not before proclaiming ourselves the victors.
This small but momentous moment for us was simply the culmination of 4 days of togetherness. Our Hungarian peers, who had never experienced Shabbat like this, were as reluctant as we were for it to end. While we had been nervous to see how they would react to our crazy ruach, to our surprise, the Hungarian teens responded with an equal amount of excitement and energy over the past Shabbat. By the end, it was the Hungarians who were tugging us out of our seats, trying to rally us to sing and dance. Although this experience had to come to an end, our impact on them had just began. One particular teen decided to put her phone away this past Shabbat. None was there to enforce it and collect her phone, but she sought to grasp onto the feeling that we had brought to Hungary: that it is okay to be Jewish, and not only is it acceptable, but it should be cause for celebration and a feeling of pride.
