Letter to the editor: Finding Peace & Communal Living - Leah Benjamin

‘The light-soaked days are coming.’ This is a sentiment I have long clung to in difficult times. It is taken from one of my favorite books, The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. Simply put, it means holding out hope. Good days are coming - days so saturated with light that it will fill your eyes and permeate your soul. They often find you when you least expect it. 

A year ago, in February 2024, I boarded a flight to Israel. I was traveling alone, with very little understanding of the program I would join, during a war. It was (and still is) out of character for me to walk into a situation unprepared - but maybe recent academic burnout following my matriculation from high school pushed me just enough - and I was willing to jump. 

On the 7th of February, at some time in the evening, I arrived at Sha’ar La’Adam. Sha’ar La’Adam - or Bab L'ilInsan in Arabic, is a co-existence living space established just on the periphery of Kibbutz Harduf in the Galilee. I was there to join a volunteering program that functioned with half international volunteers, and half Israeli volunteers completing their Shnat Sherut (year of service before the army). In total, we were a group of 20 - and for 6 months we lived and worked together - sharing each day, in a place that was truly our home.

Our volunteering was focused on two aspects: teaching, and working with those with special needs. Our teaching work took us to the Arab and Bedouin towns and cities surrounding the kibbutz - with half the group traveling to the city of Shefaram to teach, and the other half making the walk down to the Bedouin town, Ka’abiya. We worked in primary schools, assisting the English teachers there. Through learning, but also song, dance, and silly conversation, the children in Ka’abiya captured my heart entirely. At break times we would often participate in games of tag, and clapping games - which they were content to play over and over again. They instructed us how to count  and how to play games, like ‘rock, paper scissors,’ in Arabic. At the same time, many of us were also volunteering in a program on Kibbutz Harduf, called Beit Elisha. Beit Elisha is a living community on Kibbutz Harduf for adults with special needs. The program provides the participants not only with living quarters and support but also with therapeutic workshops that they attend every day. These workshops encompass a variety of activities, including but not limited to: the ceramics workshop, the paper workshop, working in the greenhouse, working in the vegetable gardens, and taking care of animals in the Meshek Chai (petting zoo). I worked in the kitchen, and twice a week I would join members of Beit Elisha in preparing the lunch meal for their entire community. This was rewarding work, not necessarily only because it provided an important service, but also because of the incredible connections I was able to form. The kindness and understanding I was shown as a person not completely fluent in Hebrew was immense, and it was truly wonderful to learn about each of the members I worked with, and the amazing heads of the kitchen - Keren and Najlah. 

The work we did was rewarding - but the communal living aspect of my time in Shaar La’Adam was too. As a teenager just out of high school in South Africa, living on my own for the first time - with 19 other strangers - was an intimidating idea. We were responsible for ourselves. We had to wake ourselves up in the morning for work, and we had to make sure we were asleep at a reasonable enough time at night. We had to cook for ourselves, clean for ourselves - and make sure that everything was functioning as it should. We were privileged enough to have 3 madrichim and several other mentors to assist us - but day-to-day living was left, largely, to us. In the evenings, we attended other classes such as Arabic, Co-existence, Biographical studies, and theater. 

To say that my kommuna (the group I lived with) is my second family would feel like an understatement. It was they, a group of vastly different people from vastly different backgrounds, who helped me to form an idea about how I want to live and who I want to be in this world. I often say of my time there that it taught me to love and be loved. To expand on this - I was taught to love nature and the natural world, I was taught to love my neighbor, and see complexity in every person, and I was taught to have compassion for, and love myself. In a fast-paced digital age, Shaar La’Adam is like a detox. Every inch of the place seems to whisper, “Slow down. Breathe. Give each moment of the day its time - its chance to have meaning.” 

Often, I find my mind wandering back there, back to my home on a hill, surrounded by pine trees, in the Galilee. Recently, I had a conversation with a friend from the kommuna - in which I explained that I feel so far away and that I am scared that the spirit of Shaar La’Adam is fading away from me. She looked at me and said something along the lines of, “But it can never truly leave you.” And I think she’s right - you can leave it, but it can never leave you. It is a place that rewires you and changes you fundamentally. It changed the way I think, the way I interact with the world around me, and the way I envision the future. It instilled in me an unbreakable hope for peace and love, and that is something I hope to carry with me always. The light of Shaar La’Adam (the gateway to humanity) shines through a sometimes pessimistic present. Let us hope, and let us remember that it is possible to actualize that hope. 

After all, the light-soaked days have come before - and they will come again. 

Leah Benjamin.